Philip Buckland

Vice Dean at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, responsible for research, postgraduate (PhD) education and research infrastructure.

I am Director of The Environmental Archaeology Lab, a research, development, consultancy and education infrastructure actively involved in archaeology throughout Scandinavia. I also run the Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database (SEAD), an interdisciplinary research infrastructure for studies on past environmental change, climate change and human activity. From 2022, SEAD is part of The Swedish National Infrastructure for Digital Archaeology (SweDigArch).

My research interests parallel the concept and scope of the database and includes the use of biological proxies, particularly fossil insects, to reconstruct past environmental and climate change, especially when related to past human activities. I am also interested in the use of palaeoentomology, the study of fossil insects, in the study of past biodiversity, and in relation to modern conservation policy and activities. I co-authored the BugsCEP database and software, and am interested in the development and study of research data infrastructures, in particular the use of big data in and beyond archaeology and palaeoecology, as well as the broader adoption of FAIR principles for open data access.

More recently I have become interested in research concerning the adaptation of cultural heritage to climate change, and am working with the Swedish Transport Authority, Swedish National Heritage Board and private companies to push these issues.

I am a Fellow of The Royal Entomological Society and active in a number of national and international organisations.

For contract archaeology see the websites for The Environmental Archaeology Lab and Research Consultancy.

I am also a participant or partner in the following research infrastructures:

ARIADNEplus - The European Infrastructure for Archaeological Data (3rd party)

ESPADON - French Heritage Sciences infrastructure on the Dynamic Analysis of Ancient and Digital Objects (Strategic Orientation Committee)

HSS - Heritage Science Sverige (Steering committee)

Humlab - Humanities laboratory, Umeå (Chair of Scientific Advisory Board)

IPERION-HS - Integrating Platforms for the European Research Infrastructure ON Heritage Science (3rd party)

Neotoma - Neotoma Paleoecology Database and Community (Leadership group)

Old Wood in a New Light - Swedish national research data infrastructure for dendrochronology (Co-PI)

SBDI - Swedish Biodiversity Data Infrastructure (Partner)

URDAR - A research infrastructure for archaeological excavation data (Co-PI)

Recently completed infrastructure projects:

DataARC - Enabling Scientific Research on the Long-Term Human Ecodynamics of the North Atlantic (Co-PI)

SLW - Swedish LifeWatch (Partner) (merged with SBDI)

VISEAD - Pushing the cutting edge of the Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database SEAD: new research areas and users for interdisciplinary studies of global challenges (PI)