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Kenneth Brophy




Kenneth Brophy

BSc (University of Glasgow), PhD (University of Glasgow)
Lecturer
Department of Archaeology
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ

Tel. +44 (0)141 330 4339
Fax. +44 (0)141-330 3544
email: k.brophy@archaeology.arts.gla.ac.uk


Research

My primary research interests lie in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of mainland Scotland. In particular, I am interested in sites and landscapes that have received little attention from mainstream discourse, from cursus monuments to multiple stone rows, with geographical interests ranging from lowland eastern Scotland to Caithness. Neglected narratives, such as Neolithic settlement, are a particular current interest.

I am also interested in cropmark archaeology and I have undertaken a range of excavations at cropmark sites. I am also concerned with the generation and status of cropmark evidence, and the processes of collection, classification and interpretation of oblique aerial images. More recently my research has also come to focus on the role of prehistoric monuments in the modern landscape, considering for instance monuments in urban contexts, and the relationship between destruction and discovery. I am especially concerned with the interactions that we have with the past in the present, and the part that archaeologists play in the creation and development of the archaeological record.

My current research projects include:

SERF: Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (Co-director). This is a major new long-term landscape project, funded by the British Academy and Historic Scotland, focussed on the Neolithic cropmark complex at Forteviot, Perth and Kinross, and subsequent early medieval use of this area.

Megalithic Overkill: the multiple stone rows of Caithness and Sutherland (Co-director). This project has focussed on a group of 23 remarkable monuments in northern mainland Scotland, including the first ever modern excavation of a set of stone rows at Battle Moss, near Wick. The Project is addressing the meaning and role of these enigmatic monuments within the context of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Caithness.
 The Hill o' Many Stanes, Caithness
The Hill o’ Many Stanes, Caithness

 The Henge, a street in Glenrothes		 Modern monuments. This project reflects my concerns with prehistoric monuments juxtaposed with the modern landscape, and the processes by which many of them have gone through to end up in their current, often altered, states. This is the subject of a book I am writing, and will focus on issues such as urban monuments, the relationship between monuments and modern places, and monumental engagements in Scotland.

Reflexive Aerial Archaeology. I am involved in ongoing research to develop theoretical perspectives on various elements of aerial archaeology, from the practice of aerial reconnaissance, to the interpretation of the aerial image. I have given various papers at the Aerial Archaeology Research Group conference on themes such as subjectivity, bias, perception and the nature of cropmarks, and published outcomes include the edited volume From the air (2005, edited with Dave Cowley).

PhD Supervision

  • Kirsty Millican: Contextualising the cropmark record: the timber monuments of Neolithic Scotland
  • Steven Timoney: Presenting archaeology to the public in Scotland

I would be happy to accept PhD students in the following areas:
Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Scotland, themes related to monumentality and landscape in prehistoric Scotland, Aerial Archaeology (in particular working with cropmarks) and issues related to archaeological theory (especially phenomenology and landscape archaeology).

Teaching

Administration

  • Assistant Director of the Centre for Aerial Archaeology
  • Joint convenor of the Methods Research Group
  • Overall responsibility for student fieldwork

External responsibilities

Publications

Brophy, K. 2007. From big house to cult house: early Neolithic timber halls in Scotland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 73.

Brophy K. 2007. Rethinking Scotland’s Neolithic: combining circumstance and context. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 136, 7-46.

Baines, A. and Brophy, K. 2006. Archaeology without isms. Archaeological Dialogues 13.1, 1-23.

Brophy, K. and Cowley, D.C. (eds) 2005. From the air: understanding aerial archaeology. Tempus.

Brophy, K. 2005. Not my type. discourses in monumentality. In V. Cummings and A. Pannett (eds) Set in stone: new approaches to Neolithic monuments in Scotland. Oxford: Oxbow, 1-13.

Brophy, K. 2005. Subjectivity, bias and perception in aerial archaeology. In K. Brophy and D.C. Cowley (eds), 33-49.

Brophy, K. 2005. The hermeneutic spiral: aerial archaeology and subjectivity. AARGnews supplement 1, 5-11.

Brophy, K. 2005. Revealing Neolithic Europe: the impact of aerial reconnaissance. In J. Bourgeois and M. Meganck (eds), Aerial photography and archaeology, University of Gent, 49-61.

Baines, A. & Brophy, K. 2005. What’s another word for thesaurus? Classifying the past. In P. Daly and T.L. Evans (eds), Digital archaeology. Bridging method and theory, London: Routledge, 236-50.

Brophy, K. 2004. The Searchers: the quest for causewayed enclosures in the Irish Sea area. In V. Cummings and C. Fowler (eds), The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice, London: Routledge, 37-45.

Brophy, K. 2004. Ruins in the landscape: modern monuments. In G.J. Barclay and I. Shepherd (eds), Scotland in Ancient Europe. The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Scotland in their European context, Edinburgh: SAS Monograph, 143-54.

Brophy, K. and G.J. Barclay 2004. A rectilinear timber structure and post-ring at Carsie Mains, Meikleour. Perthshire, Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 10, 1-22.

Brophy, K. 2002. Thinking and doing aerial archaeology. AARGnews 24.

Barclay, G.J., Brophy, K. and MacGregor, G. 2002. A Neolithic building at Claish Farm, near Callender, Stirling Council, Scotland, UK. Antiquity 76, 23-4.

Barclay, G.J., Brophy, K. & MacGregor, G. 2002. Claish, Stirling: an early Neolithic structure in its context. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 132, 65-138.

Cowley, D., and Brophy K. 2001. The impact of aerial photography across the lowlands of south-west Scotland. Transactions of the Dumfries and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society LXXV, 47-72.

Brophy, K. 2000. Water coincidence? Cursus monuments and water. In A. Ritchie (ed), Neolithic Orkney in its European context, Cambridge: McDonald Institute, 59-70.

Brophy, K. 2000. Excavations at a cropmark site at Milton of Rattray, Blairgowrie, with a discussion of the pit-defined cursus monuments of Tayside. The Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 6, 8-17.

Brophy, K. 1999. Seeing the cursus as a symbolic river. British Archaeology 44, 6-7.

Brophy, K. 1999. The cursus monuments of Scotland. In A. Barclay and J. Harding (eds), Pathways and ceremonies: the cursus monuments of Britain and Ireland, Oxford: Oxbow Books (Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Paper 4), 119-29.

Brophy, K. 1999. Wet Drybridge: a cursus in Ayrshire. In J. Harding and R. Johnston (eds), Northern Pasts: Interpretations of the Later Prehistory of Northern England and Southern Scotland, Oxford: Archaeopress (British Archaeological Reports British Series 302), 45-56.

Brophy, K. 1998. Cursus monuments and Bank Barrows of Tayside and Fife. In G.J. Barclay and G.S. Maxwell (eds), The Cleaven Dyke and Littleour: Monuments in the Neolithic of Tayside. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Edinburgh (Monograph 13), 92-108.

Brophy, K. 1998. This is not phenomenology (or is it?): experiencing cursus monuments. 3rd Stone 30, 7-9.