Professor Rick Schulting awarded major European Research Council Advanced Grant for 'Stocking the Past'

The School is delighted to share the announcement that Professor Rick Schulting is among the fourteen researchers at the University of Oxford awarded Advanced Grants from the European Research Council (ERC), each worth up to €2.5 million over a period of five years.

“Stocking the Past” combines existing and novel biomolecular approaches to identify the foods eaten by people in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and Ireland.

In particular, it will help distinguish between the consumption of cereals and animal products such as meat and dairy, something that existing methods have struggled to achieve. In doing so, the project will shed light on a major debate about whether arable farming ‘collapsed’ a few centuries after its arrival around 4000 BC, resulting in a shift towards livestock-based economies. The approach will be more broadly applicable for studying past diets in many other regions and time periods.

The ERC award will allow us to pursue a challenging research problem with a level of focus and support that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. I am especially pleased to be able to support promising early career researchers through the project. 

The ERC Advanced Grants competition, part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, is one of the most prestigious and competitive funding schemes in the EU. It gives senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. A record of 3,329 proposals was submitted to this funding round, with 9.6% of proposals being selected for funding.