Professor Sue Hamilton (BA Hons, PhD, FSA) has had a long and varied career in archaeology, having conducted excavations in multiple countries over the last 3 decades, specialising in landscape archaeology (Pacific, Continental Europe; UK), sensory and gendered landscapes, phenomenology and Late European prehistory. She has co-directed excavations in England with Christopher Telly and Barbara Bender, in Italy with Ruth Whitehouse and, most recently and currently, in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with Colin Richards. Her work in Rapa Nui has made her and Colin Richards “the first British archaeologists to work on the island since 1914”. As well as being the Director of the IoA since 2014 Sue Hamilton is a Professor of Prehistory, Chair of the UCL IQR (Internal Quality Review) Committee and the Joint Chair of the Departmental Staff Student Consultative Committee.
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) monuments (Image courtesy of Walkerssk on Pixabay)
A link to the full interview transcript can be found below along with some highlights from the interview:
Full interview Transcript: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.15156729.v1
“Modern archaeology doesn’t just relate to the past. It relates to what you do in the present with archaeology that makes a better future and that’s a multi gendered and a multi ability world.” “I’m really excited by our female appointments. I think they’re going to give the males a really good run for their money.” “There’s two types of advice […] and one is what on Earth do you think you could, must or have to do to get a career and succeed but the other is how to have a satisfying life” “My final thing is there are many ways of being good and that’s the thing I want to emphasize as a female, that there are many ways of being good and they should be recognized in the system.” “I’d give them all the grid references and they’d say, ‘is it a cheese farm or a piece of archaeology?’”
Further Resources:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41590248_Archaeology_and_Women_Ancient_and_Modern_Issues – Sue Hamilton, Ruth D Whitehouse, Katherine I Wright (2007) ARCHAEOLOGY AND WOMEN: ANCIENT AND MODERN ISSUES
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232988202_Say_it_with_stone_Constructing_with_stones_on_Easter_Island – Sue Hamilton, Mike Seager Thomas, Ruth D Whitehouse (2011) SAY IT WITH STONE: CONSTRUCTING WITH STONES ON EASTER ISLAND A big thank you to Sue Hamilton for taking time out of her schedule to sit down for an interview, to Kelly Trifilo for helping to organise everything and to Brenna Hassett for being endlessly helpful at all points of this process. Guest post by David Faddoul, submitted as part of the 2021 TrowelBlazers Digital Fieldwork Project at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL.
