Professor Howard Williams
Professor
Biography
Howard is Professor of Archaeology with over 27 years of experience in academic teaching and research. He joined the University of Chester in 2008 and was appointed to a personal chair as Professor of Archaeology in 2010. Howard's research explores the archaeology of death, burial and commemoration in Britain and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, focusing in particular on early medieval Wales and the Anglo-Saxon and Viking worlds. Professor Williams's research investigates mortuary practices and commemoration in the Early Middle Ages but also in later prehistory, the ancient world and modern times. In addition, his research investigates the history of the discipline and evaluates the character and strategies of its public engagements and significance in popular culture. Professor Williams is a prolific scholar and researcher, having authored one monograph (Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain, Cambridge University Press, 2006) and 12 edited/co-edited collections (most recently Digging into the Dark Ages with Pauline Clarke, Archaeopress, 2020: Early Medieval Public Archaeologies Public Archaeologies of Frontiers and Borderlands with Kieran Gleave and Pauline Clarke, Archaeopress, 2020; The Public Archaeology of Treasure with Peter Reavill and Samuel Clague, Archaeopress, 2022; Archaeologies and Antiquaries: Essays by Dai Morgan Evans with Kara Critchell and Sheena Evans, Archaeopress 2022; Cremation in the Early Middle Ages with Femke Lippok, Sidestone Press, 2024). As well as being a long-term member of the Royal Archaeological Institute, Howard served as Honorary Editor for their Archaeological Journal for 6 volumes 169-174 (2012-2017). Professor Williams has also designed, established and edited the Offa's Dyke Journal: A Journal for Linear Monuments, Frontiers and Borderlands Research: an open-access peer-reviewed academic journal supported by the Offa's Dyke Association and the University of Chester (volumes 1-6, 2019-2024 and ongoing). This relates to Howard's role as co-founder and co-convenor of the interdisciplinary research network, the Offa's Dyke Collaboratory. As well as having authored/co-authored 129 journal articles and book chapters, Howard regularly contributes to public digital scholarship, education and engagement, especially by maintaining a long-running academic blog (since 2013) and vlogging via YouTube and Tiktok (since 2020) as Archaeodeath.
Teaching and Supervision
Howard leads modules and/or delivers undergraduate teaching on: world archaeology, the archaeology of the British Isles, late Roman and early medieval archaeology, the contemporary past, the Vikings, public archaeology, the archaeology of death and burial as well as supervising undergraduate archaeology dissertations. For the MA Archaeology of Death & Memory and the MA Archaeology & Heritage Practice, Howard delivers Master's level teaching on: mortuary archaeology, landscapes and memory, supporting and supervising MA research dissertations. Howard is programme leader for the MRes Archaeology. Howard supervises MRes Archaeology and MPhil/PhD postgraduate researchers on topics connected to his research interests and expertise.
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Research expertise and projects by Howard have resulted in prolific high-quality outputs amounting to 76 book chapters, 53 journal articles, 6 journal special issues, the editorship of 6 issues of the Royal Archaeological Institute's 'Archaeological Journal' (2012-2017), the design, creation and editorship of the open-access, interdisciplinary 'Offa's Dyke Journal' (2019-), 12 edited books and a monograph. Howard also maintains regular digital public engagement and education channels via his Archaeodeath WordPress blog and YouTube and TikTok vlogs. Howard's research themes are: - The Archaeology & Heritage of Death & Memory - Frontiers and borderlands - Early medieval Wales - Anglo-Saxon England - The Viking World - The history of archaeology - Public archaeology.