Dr Richard Thomas
Senior Lecturer in Archaeology
BA, Ph.D. (Birm.), FSA, FLS
Centre for Historical Archaeology
Associate Editor for the International Journal of Paleopathology
Tel: 0116 252 3343
Email: rmt12@le.ac.uk
Richard Thomas read Ancient History and Archaeology at Birmingham University in 1995. He subsequently embarked on a PhD at Birmingham, studying animal husbandry in medieval and post-medieval England. Richard joined the School as Lecturer in Archaeology in September 2003. In 2010 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer and elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London.
Research
Teaching
- Fieldschool
- World Archaeology (BC/AD)
- Aims and Methods in Archaeology
- Using Archaeological Evidence
- Environmental Archaeology
- Archaeozoology
- Forensic Archaeology
- Doing Historical Archaeology
- MA Archaeology (Bioarchaeology Pathway)
Completed PhDs:
Judith Porcasi: Subsistence in palaeocoastal California
Stephanie Vann: A generic recording system for animal palaeopathology
Matilda Holmes: Food and status in the Saxon and Scandinavian burhs
Brooklynne Fothergill: The bird of the next dawn: the husbandry, transformation and translocation of the turrkey
Current PhDs:
Rebecca Gordon: Feeding the city: zooarchaeological evidence for urban provisioning (1550-1900 AD)
Rebecca Kibble: Multi-scale spatial analysis of zooarchaeological data using GIS
Meghann Mahoney: Diet and provisioning in Roman small towns: a case study from Ashton, Northamptonshire
Thomas Ohlson: Anthropization then and now: a comparison of zooarchaeologically-recorded faunal biodiversity with present-day faunal biodiversity in Florida
Eric Tourigny: Upper Canada foodways: an analysis of faunal remains recovered from urban household and rural farmstead sites in the area of York (Toronto), AD 1794-1900.
Selected Recent Publications
Fisher, A. and Thomas, R. 2012. Isotopic and zooarchaeological investigation of later medieval and post-medieval cattle husbandry at Dudley Castle, West Midlands. Environmental Archaeology 17 (2): 151-167.
Fothergill, B., Thomas, R., and Morris, J. 2012. Avian tibial dyschondroplasia in 19th-century turkey (Meleagris gallopavo L. 1758) remains from the Royal London Hospital. International Journal of Paleopathology 2 (4): 240-245.
Fudge, E. and Thomas, R. 2012. Man and beast: 'visiting your troops of cattle'. History Today 62 (12): 37-41.
Hamilton, J. and Thomas, R. 2012. Pannage, pulses and pigs: isotopic and zooarchaeological evidence for changing pig management practices in 14th century England. Journal of Medieval Archaeology 56: 234-259.
Thomas, R. 2010. Translocated testudinidae: the earliest archaeological evidence for tortoises in Britain. Post-Medieval Archaeology 44/1: 165-171.
Thomas, R. 2012. Nonhuman paleopathology, pp. 652-666, in Buikstra, J. and Roberts, C. (eds), The Global History of Paleopathology: Pioneers and Prospects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomas, R. and Johannsen, N. 2011. Articular lesions in cattle phalanges and their archaeological relevance. International Journal of Paleopathology 1: 43-54.
Thomas, R. and Grimm, J. 2011 The role of age, sex and body weight in the formation of ‘buttresses’ on sheep metatarsals. International Journal of Paleopathology 2: 121-125.
Thomas, R. and McFadyen, L. 2010. Animals and Cotswold-Severn long-barrows: a re-examination. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 76: 95-113.
For a full list of publications see: http://leicester.academia.edu/RichardThomas
