Associate Professor Catherine J. Frieman
Position: Senior Lecturer in Archaeology
School and/or Centres: Archaeology
Email: catherine.frieman@anu.edu.au
Phone: 619 70054
Location: Room 213, Upper Floor, Banks Building (#44), Linnaeus Way
Qualification:
D.phil (Oxon); M.st (Oxon); BA (Yale)Researcher profile: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/frieman-cj
Catherine Frieman is a lecturer in European archaeology in the School of archaeology and anthropology. Previously she was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at the University of Oxford and a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Nottingham. She received a BA in archaeological studies from Yale University and an M.st and D.phil in archaeology from the University of Oxford. Catherine's D.phil examined the adoption of metal objects and metallurgy in 4th-2nd millennium BC northwest Europe through a close study of various lithic objects long thought to be skeuomorphs of metal.
Her primary research interests include innovation and conservatism, and she is a material culture and technology specialist with a particular specialism in stone tools. She has ongoing fieldwork in the UK, is Lead CI of an ARC Discovery project looking into human mobility and the diffusion of innovations in prehistoric Iberia and the Pacific and she has also worked on lithic material and technology from Neolithic sites in Vietnam. In addition to her research, Catherine is a passionate teacher and her contributions to education at the ANU have been recognised by teaching excellence awards from CASS, the Vice-Chancellor’s office and the Australian Office of Learning and Teaching.
Innovation in prehistoric societies; Flint, ground-stone and other lithic technologies; Trade and communication in 4th-2nd millennia BC Europe; European Neolithic and Bronze Age society; Adoption of metal; Prehistoric metallurgy; Flint daggers; Ornaments and identity;Material culture studies; Archaeological theory
Southeast Kernow Archaeological Survey
Despite many generations of archaeological fieldwork in Britain’s southwestern peninsula and Cornwall’s central role in later prehistoric exchange networks, the prehistory of the southeastern part of the county has not been exposed to the same amount of modern archaeological investigation. The Southeast Kernow Archaeological Survey (SEKAS) project aims to develop a better understanding of the prehistoric landscape of this region which links the metal-rich uplands to the English Channel. The study region for the SEKAS project comprises of the area between the Tamar and the Fowey rivers and south of the A38, and the period from the Neolithic through to the later Iron Age.
The project was launched in 2012 as a collaboration between Dr Catherine Frieman (ANU) and James Lewis, a professional archaeologist currently based in Scotland. Since then, geophysical and topographic surveys have been conducted at a number of later prehistoric sites in the study area. The results of several of these surveys were incorporated into Mr. Lewis’ 2016 MA thesis Iron Age and Romano-British Enclosures of southeast Cornwall (Dept of Archaeology, University of Glasgow). Commencing in 2017, this ongoing fieldwork will provide the case study for Dr. Frieman’s ARC DECRA project Conservatism as a dynamic response to the diffusion of innovations (DE170100464).
The project homepage can be found: http://archanth.anu.edu.au/research/kernow-survey
Current student projects
Chair
Ru Griffiths - Scottish long cairns in their landscape and astronomical contexts (PhD)
Panel member
John Hayward - Rock art on Mirrar land, Northern Territory (PhD)
Jennifer Hull - Osseous technology in Neolithic Southeast Asia (PhD)
Rosalie Willows - Maker Culture in Copenhagen, DK (PhD)
Past student projects
Alex Broughton - Identifying Brothels in Roman Pompeii (Hons)
Kirsten Morrison - Barrow landscapes in Bronze Age Cornwall (Hons)
Emma Biggs - Chariot Burials of the Arras tradition (Hons)
Lisa Solling - Ritual landscapes in the Inka world (PhD)
