Dr Rachel Pope BA, MA, PhD (Dunelm), FSA, FSA Scot.

Personal Statement

On completing my training in 2003 (University of Durham), I held fixed-term lecturing posts in British Prehistory at the Universities of Bangor, Sheffield, Nottingham, and Oxford. I was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship in 2004 (University of Leicester) followed by a fixed-term lectureship in European Prehistory in 2006 (University of Cambridge). I joined Liverpool as Lecturer in European Prehistory in 2007, seeing promotion to Senior Lecturer in 2013 and Reader in 2022.

I began excavating Roman sites at the age of 15, and with 27 seasons in the field, including the commercial sector, I am strongly committed to undergraduate learning in a research excavation context, to professional British standards. Between 2005-2011, I directed two major research excavations: the Kidlandlee Dean Bronze Age Landscapes Project (Northumberland) and Merrick’s Hill, Eddisbury Hillfort (Cheshire); establishing the Liverpool Field School in 2010.

Between 2012-2018, I directed the University's excavations at Penycloddiau Hillfort (Flintshire) in partnership with Cadw (Welsh Assembly Government), Denbighshire County Council, and the Global Institute for Field Research (California), as featured on BBC's 'Digging for Britain', and as now archived on Facebook and Twitter.

I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and work as a special advisor to Butser Ancient Farm, and the campaign group HOOOH (Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort). My advocacy work focuses on equality issues, and I co-founded British Women Archaeologists (estab. 2008) who have continuously lobbied for improved pay and conditions for women workers in the wider heritage sector.

As an established expert on Iron Age Europe, I look forward to welcoming new postgraduate students to study here at Liverpool, with its thriving community in global prehistory and the Classical world.