Professor Peter Mitchell

mitchell
Professor of African Archaeology
St Hugh's College
Tutor and Fellow in Archaeology
+44 (0)1865 274951
peter.mitchell@arch.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests

African archaeology (especially southern African and the Later Stone Age); archaeology of hunter-gatherers; history of archaeological collections.

Research Profile

Research Activities

Hunter-gatherer settlement-subsistence systems and reconstruction of late Quaternary environments in theLesotho highlands, southern Africa. Early archaeological research and history of collections in southern Africa.

Publications
Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Undergraduate course convenor for:

  • Honour Moderations Paper 1  - Introduction to World Archaeology
  • FHS Option paper: Archaeology of Southern African Hunter-Gatherers
  • FHS Option paper: Farming & Early States in Sub-Saharan Africa

Undergraduate course lecturer for:

  • FHS Core Paper 3  - Landscape and Ecology
  • FHS Core Paper 4 - Urbanisation and Change in Complex Societies

Director of Studies for undergraduates at St Hugh's College

Postgraduate teaching

Postgraduate taught course options in:

 

Doctoral Supervision

I am happy to supervise on topics relating to the archaeology of sub-Saharan Africa with a strong preference for southern regions of the continent and/or the archaeology of Middle and Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers. Research related to human/equine and human/canine interactions would also be of potential interest.

Current students

Rethinking the Robberg Technocomplex of Late Pleistocene Southern Africa: The Phase 5 Assemblages of Ntloana Tšoana in Context of the Later Stone Age Miniaturised Lithic Strategies
Svenja Arlt | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Peter Mitchell and Charles Arthur
Understanding the Spatial-Temporal Trends of the Southern African Middle Stone Age
Ruby-Anne Birin | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Peter Mitchell and Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Small Fish, Big Pond: Archaeologies of fishing on a fragile Lake Victoria
Campbell Martin | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell

Past students

Late Holocene Cultural Dynamics and Trans-Saharan Connections in Southeastern Mauritania: A Remote Sensing Approach
Gonzalo Linares Matas (2023) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
The social world of hunter-gatherers in Early Holocene Lesotho: Integrating Theory and Method
Charles Arthur (2018) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Connecting Past and Present: The Archaeology of the Contemporary Past in the Glades of Embobut, Kenya
Samuel Lunn-Rockliffe (2018) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
'Stuck like glue': Assessing variability in hafting adhesives during the southern African Later Stone Age
Margaret-Ashley Veall (2018) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Mark Pollard and Peter Mitchell
Trade, development and resilience: An archaeology of contemporary livelihoods in Turkana, Northern Kenya
Samuel Derbyshire (2017) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Peter Mitchell and Dan Hicks
The Prehistory of Madagascar: Microbotanical and Archaeological Evidence from Coastal and Highland Sites
Solomon Pomerantz (2017) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Mobilising Stone: Investigating Relations of Materiality, Movement and Corporality in Holocene Saharan Rock Art
Anna Waldock (2016) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Peter Mitchell and Chris Gosden
The Gatherer and the Grindstone: towards a methodological toolkit for grindstone analysis in southern Africa
Luiseach Nic Eoin (2015) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Peter Mitchell and Mark Pollard
Voluntary Barbarians of the Maloti-Drakensberg: The BaPhuthi Chiefdom, Cattle Raiding, and Colonial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa
Rachel King (2014) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
The Spaces between Places: a landscape study of foragers on the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape, Southern Africa
Timothy Forssman (2013) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Foragers on the Frontiers: The |Xam Bushmen of the Northern Cape, South Africa, in the Nineteenth Century
Mark McGranaghan (2012) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Late Holocene Archaeology in Namaqualand, South Africa: Hunter-Gatherers and Herders in a Semi-Arid Environment
Jayson Orton (2012) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Geometric Rock Art Along the Luangwa Escarpment, Zambia and its Relationship with the Later Stone Age in Southern and South-Central Africa
Marcelle Olivier (2010) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Delineating Pastoralist Behaviour and Long-Term Environmental Change: A GIS Landscape Approach on the Laikipia Plateau, Kenya
Michael Causey (2008) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Peter Mitchell and Gary Lock
The Impact of the Horse on the Amatola 'Bushmen': New Identity in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of Southern Africa
William Challis (2008) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
An Applied Archaeological and Anthropological Study of Intensive Agriculture in the Northern Cherangani Hills, Kenya
Matthew Davies (2008) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Mobility, Climate Change and Cultural Development. A revised view from the Lower Tilemsi Valley, north eastern Mali
Katie Manning (2008) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell
Refitting Repasts: A Spatial Exploration of Food Processing, Sharing and Disposal at the Dunefield Midden Campsite
Brian Stewart (2007) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Peter Mitchell

Key words: excavations, endangered heritage, farming and herding, humans and other animals, trade, Hunter-gatherers, Impacts of colonialism, later prehistory, Africa