Staff Profile:Dr Rowena Banerjea
- Name:
- Dr Rowena Banerjea
- Job Title:
- Postdoctoral Research Assistant
- Responsibilities:
Geoarchaeologist
- Areas of Interest:
- Geoarchaeology
- Landscape Archaeology
- Heritage Management
- The formation of the archaeological record
- Development of towns and urban environments
- Research groups / Centres:
Landscape, Climate and Lived Environment Research Cluster
Key facts
Rowena uses a geoarchaeological approach to research European frontier landscapes in the Middle Ages and to develop heritage management strategies at medieval castles. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher on the research project Landscapes of (Re)Conquest, directed by Dr Aleks Pluskowski, and she directs the research project All Along the Watchtowers! Balancing Heritage Protection, Development, and Scientific Research on Buried Archaeology at European Castles.
Prior to her current research, Rowena worked on the Ecology of Crusading and the Silchester projects. Rowena also has a background in heritage management and commercial archaeology. She worked in the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at University College London, where she coordinated the set-up of the National Heritage Science Forum. She also worked as a micromorphology specialist for Quaternary Scientific (QUEST) - scientific services, a commercial enterprise within the School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading, and as a result of which she has contributed to the post-excavation scientific analysis of a wide variety of archaeological sites across Europe.
Research projects
‘All Along the Watchtowers! Balancing Heritage Protection, Development, and Scientific Research on Buried Archaeology at European Castles’, funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme small research grant, (2018-2019, Principal Investigator).
- Publications:
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YNumber of items: 30.
2021
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Banerjea, R. Y.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1786-357X, García-Contreras Ruiz, G., Kalniņš, G., Karczewski, M., Pluskowski, A., Valk, H. and Brown, A. D. (2021) Geoarchaeology and castlescapes: heritage management case studies in Spain and the eastern Baltic. Landscapes, 21 (2). ISSN 2040-8153 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14662035.2020.1861716
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Pluskowski, A., Banerjea, R.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1786-357X and García-Contreras, G. (2021) Forgotten castle landscapes: connecting monuments and landscapes through heritage and research. Landscapes, 21 (2). ISSN 2040-8153 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14662035.2020.1857909
2020
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Banerjea, R.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1786-357X (2020) The micromorphology of period 1 structures. In: Fulford, M., Clarke, A., Durham, E. and Pankhurst, N. (eds.) Silchester Insula IX: the Claudio-Neronian occupation of the Iron Age oppidum. The early Roman occupation at Silchester Insula IX. Britannia Monograph, 4 (33). Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, London, pp. 545-563. ISBN 9780907764472
- Banerjea, R. Y., Morandi, L. F., Williams, K. and Brunning, R. (2020) Hidden husbandry: disentangling a disturbed profile at Beckery Chapel, a medieval ecclesiastical site near Glastonbury (UK). Environmental Archaeology: The Journal of Human Palaeoecology. ISSN 1461-4103 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2020.1768333
- Borderie, Q., Ball, T., Banerjea, R., Bizri, M., Lejault, C., Save, S. and Vaughan-Williams, A. (2020) Early Middle Ages houses of Gien (France) from the inside: Geoarchaeology and Archaeobotany of 9th–11th c. floors. Environmental Archaeology: the Journal of Human Palaeoecology, 25 (2). pp. 151-169. ISSN 1461-4103 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2018.1534716
- Banerjea, R. Y., Badura, M., Brown, A., Morandi, L. F., Marcinkowski, M., Valk, H., Ismail-Meyer, K. and Pluskowski, A. (2020) Feeding the crusades: archaeobotany, animal husbandry and livestock alimentation on the Baltic frontier. Environmental Archaeology: the Journal of Human Palaeoecology, 25 (2). pp. 135-150. ISSN 1461-4103 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2019.1589924
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BORDERIE, Q., Banerjea, R. Y.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1786-357X, BONNET, S., DEVOS, Y., NICOSIA, C., PETIT, C., SALOMON, F., SCHNEIDER, N., WOUTERS, B. and WUSCHER, P. (2020) Géoarchéologies des contextes urbains : mieux comprendre les modalités de l’artificialisation des géosystèmes. Archimède Archéologie et histoire ancienne, 7. pp. 141-157. ISSN 2418-3547 doi: https://doi.org/10.47245/archimede.0007.act.04
- Banerjea, R. Y., Barnett, C., Morandi, L. and Portillo, M. (2020) Integrated microscopy approaches in archaeobotany: proceedings of the 2016 and 2017 workshops, University of Reading, UK. Environmental Archaeology: The Journal of Human Palaeoecology, 25 (2). pp. 131-134. ISSN 1461-4103 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2019.1593654
- García-Contreras, G., Pluskowski, A., Alexander, M., Banerjea, R. and García, M. G. (2020) Landscapes of (re)conquest: dynamics of multicultural frontiers in medieval South-west Europe. Antiquity, 94 (375). e15. ISSN 0003-598X doi: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.76
2019
- Stivrins, N., Liiv, M., Brown, A., Banerjea, R. Y., Heinsalu, A. and Veski, S. (2019) Investigating the impact of anthropogenic land use on a hemiboreal lake ecosystem using carbon/nitrogen ratios and coupled-optical emission spectroscopy. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 518. pp. 1-9. ISSN 0031-0182 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2019.01.007
- Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Banerjea, R., Makowiecki, D., Seetah, K., Rannamäe, E., Jarzebowski, M., Kreem, J. and Klavins, K. (2019) From the convent to the commandery: the pivotal role of the environment in defining the medieval Baltic Ordensland. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens, 81. pp. 55-87.
2018
- Banerjea, R. Y. (2018) Sidon 'college site' excavations, Lebanon: micromorphology analysis. Archaeology & History in The Lebanon, 2018-2019 (48-49). pp. 42-65.
- Banerjea, R. (2018) The micromorphology of refuse disposal and use of the earliest features in Insula IX. In: Fulford, M., Clarke, A., Durham, E. and Pankhurst, N. (eds.) Late Iron Age Calleva: The Pre-Conquest Occupation at Silchester Insula IX. Britannia Monograph, 32. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, London, pp. 358-370. ISBN 9780907764458
- Hill, T. C. B., Hill, G. E., Brunning, R., Banerjea, R. Y., Fyfe, R. M., Hogg, A. G., Jones, J., Perez, M. and Smith, D. N. (2018) Glastonbury Lake Village revisited: a multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental investigation of an Iron Age wetland settlement. Journal of Wetland Archaeology, 18 (2). pp. 115-137. ISSN 2051-6231 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14732971.2018.1560064
- Pluskowski, A., Seetah, K., Maltby, M., Banerjea, R., Black, S. and Kalnins, G. (2018) Late-medieval horse remains at Cēsis castle, Latvia, and the Teutonic Order’s equestrian resources in Livonia. Medieval Archaeology, 62 (2). pp. 351-379. ISSN 0076-6097 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2018.1535385
- Banerjea, R. Y. (2018) Micromorphology analysis of a buried soil. In: Walker, T. M. (ed.) The Gwithian landscape: molluscs and archaeology on Cornish sand dunes. Archaeopress Publishing Ltd, Oxford, pp. 131-140. ISBN 9781789418033
- Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Szczepański, S., Banerjea, R. and Makowiecki, D. (2018) What does a frontier look like? The biocultural dynamics of the Lower Vistula borderland in the Middle Ages. In: Genius Loci - Laszlovszky 60, 16-17 November 2018, Budapest.
2017
- Banerjea, R. Y., Badura, M., Kalejs, U., Cerina, A., Gos, K., Hamilton-Dyer, S., Maltby, M., Seetah, K. and Pluskowski, A. (2017) A multi-proxy, diachronic and spatial perspective on the urban activities within an indigenous community in medieval Riga, Latvia. Quaternary International, 460. pp. 3-21. ISSN 1040-6182 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.02.006
2016
- Aspöck, E. and Banerjea, R. Y. (2016) Formation processes of a reopened early Bronze Age inhumation grave in Austria: the soil thin section analyses. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 10. pp. 791-809. ISSN 2352-409X doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.07.003
- Bell, M., Brunning, R., Batchelor, R., Hill, T., Wilkinson, K., Banerjea, R., Young, D., Morandi, l., Brown, A., Carson, S., Maslin, S., Jones, L. and Foster, J., Bell, M., ed. (2016) The Mesolithic of the wetland/dryland edge in the Somerset Levels. Historic England Reference 6624. Project Report. Historic England
2015
- Brown, A., Banerjea, R., Dawn-Wynne, A., Stivrins, N., Jarzebowski, M., Shillito, L.-M. and Pluskowski, A. (2015) The ecological impact of conquest and colonization on a medieval frontier landscape: combined palynological and geochemical analysis of lake sediments from Radzyń Chełminski, northern Poland. Geoarchaeology, 30 (6). pp. 511-527. ISSN 0883-6353 doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21525
- Banerjea, R. Y., Fulford, M., Bell, M., Clarke, A. and Matthews, W. (2015) Using experimental archaeology and micromorphology to reconstruct timber-framed buildings from Roman Silchester: a new approach. Antiquity, 89 (347). pp. 1174-1188. ISSN 0003-598X doi: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.108
- Mithen, S., Wicks, K., Pirie, A., Riede, F., Lane, C., Banerjea, R., Cullen, V., Gittins, M. and Pankhurst, N. (2015) A Lateglacial archaeological site in the far north-west of Europe at Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Isle of Islay, western Scotland: Ahrensburgian-style artefacts, absolute dating and geoarchaeology. Journal of Quaternary Science, 30 (5). pp. 396-416. ISSN 0267-8179 doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2781
- Banerjea, R. Y., Bell, M. G., Matthews, W. and Brown, A. D. (2015) Applications of micromorphology to understanding activity areas and site formation processes in experimental hut floors. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 7 (1). pp. 89-112. ISSN 1866-9565 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-013-0160-5
- Stivrins, N., Brown, A., Reitalu, T., Veski, S., Heinsalu, A., Banerjea, R. and Elmi, K. (2015) Landscape change in central Latvia since the Iron Age: multi-proxy analysis of the vegetation impact of conflict, colonization and economic expansion during the last 2000 years. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 24 (3). pp. 377-391. ISSN 0939-6314 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-014-0502-y
2013
- Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Banerjea, R., Shillito, L.-M., Makowiecki, D., Seetah, K., Jarzebowski, M., Klavins, K. and Kreem, J. (2013) The ecology of crusading: the environmental impact of conquest, colonisation and religious conversion in the medieval eastern Baltic. In: Hoffman, M., Karczewski, M. and Wadyl, S. (eds.) I Warmińsko-Mazurska Sesja Sprawozdawcza za lata 2008-2012 poświęcona pamięci prof. J. Okulicza-Kozaryna : książka abstraktów. Ośrodek Badań Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Białystok. ISBN 9788392577256
- Banerjea, R., Karczewski, M., Karczewska, M. and Pluskowski, A. (2013) The role of geoarchaeology in understanding the formation and function of of Święta Góra (Staświny), Masuria, Poland: interim results from Feature 40. In: Hoffmann, M., Karczewski, M. and Wadyl, S. (eds.) I Warmińsko-Mazurska Sesja Sprawozdawcza za lata 2008-2012 poświęcona pamięci prof. J. Okulicza-Kozaryna : książka abstraktów. Ośrodek Badań Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Białystok. ISBN 9788392577256
2011
- Banerjea, R. (2011) Microscopic perspectives on the use of Period 3 MTRB 1/ERTB 1. In: Fulford, M., Clarke, A. and Eckardt, H. (eds.) Silchester: City in Transition. The mid-Roman occupation of Insula IX c. A.D. 125-250/300. A report on excavations undertaken since 1997. Britannia Monograph Series (25). Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, London, pp. 63-95. ISBN 9780907764373
2010
- Cook, S., Banerjea, R. Y., Marshall, L. J., Fulford, M., Clarke, A. and van Zwieten, C. (2010) Concentrations of copper, zinc and lead as indicators of hearth usage at the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, Hampshire, UK). Journal of Archaeological Science, 37 (4). pp. 871-879. ISSN 0305-4403 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2009.11.017
2008
- Banerjea, R. (2008) Experimental geochemistry: a multi-elemental characterisation of known activity areas. Antiquity. ISSN 0003-598X
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Banerjea, R. Y.
- Qualifications:
- BA, MSc, PhD (University of Reading)