Postgraduate research students

My project aims to investigate textile evidence for how people protected themselves in extreme environments amid a changing climate. Archaeological evidence for wool textiles with pile (additional fleece or yarn inserted to create a shaggy surface) dating from 800-1200 CE has been found across the North Atlantic region. While these textiles are hypothesised to have been garments worn for protection from wet and cold weather while exploring and settling this area by sea in the Viking Age, their actual function compared with other available technologies and earlier clothing types is poorly understood. This project will conduct original analysis of archaeological finds, compare their distribution with environmental changes, and test their properties using experimental replicas, centered on the following research questions:

How does variation in outer clothing across the North Atlantic 800-1200 CE show how people adapted to increasing ocean voyages and environmental changes? Focussing on:

1. What production, use, re-use and discard practices are visible?
2. How did production practices impact the materials’ properties and experience of use?
3. How do production methods and properties vary over space and time; do these match significant environmental changes?

In doing so, this project will create new evidence for pile textiles and related technologies, trial new methods for investigating archaeological clothing, and advance understanding of the role of clothing as a sustainable way of managing environmental change, historically and today.

• Dr Susanna Harris

2025 - Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities Doctoral Training Partnership.

2025 - Hopkin, J. and Jones, E. Heritage@Exeter network funding for ‘Transforming the dry-point drawings of the Exeter Book: piloting digital access and infrastructure for cathedral archives’.

Hopkin, J., Fereday, G., Oyaneder, A., Jones, E., Transforming the dry-point drawings of the Exeter book. Medieval Studies Mobilizing Digital Humanities Workshop. University of Exeter (UK), 2025.

Stringer, G., and Hopkin, J., How long is forever? Designing long-term resilience in web resources. Early Modern Maritime Data and Global Economic History Conference. University of Exeter (UK), 2023.

Hopkin, J., Raincoats or Riches? Practically investigating the role of vararfeldir in the material environment of the Viking Age North Atlantic. Old Textiles – More Possibilities. Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark/online. 2021.

Hopkin, J. Raincoats or Riches? The Viking Age Vararfeldr and the Value of Multi-Perspective Approaches in Investigating Societally-Embedded Technologies. EAC12, 12th Experimental Archaeology Conference. EXARC, online. 2021.