David Robinson - Academic Staff

David is an archaeologist who researches in the UK, India, Europe, and the USA. With an expertise in the art and archaeology of Native California he works with local tribal communities to contribute to knowledge about their own past. His teaching is based by this extensive research, including the use of innovative VR immersive platforms.

David has published extensively on his global research in dozens of archaeology books and journals, from the Cambridge Archaeological Journal to World Archaeology to the Journal of Archaeological Science. His recent work includes major new discoveries in California such as the site of Cache Cave with the largest prehistoric basketry assemblage ever found in the region. His recent publications also include papers on the rock paintings of Native California using new advanced portable technologies incorporated into Virtual Reality platforms in collaborations with local Native Americans.

David has extensive experience in archaeology, which he began as an undergraduate in 1998. He has worked on world famous sites such as the World Heritage sites of Stonehenge and Avebury but also on rock art of India, graffiti in Barcelona, and of course many years work in the Western United States. Since 2009 he has been on Editorial Advisory Board of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal and been sought out for rock art consultancy such as for the 2016 Pitoti Rock Art Project based in Valcominca, Italy. In 2018/2019 David was the President of the Archaeology and Anthropology Section of the British Science Festival. He has been a Member of the Higher Education Academy since 2013.

Qualifications

Awards

Areas of Interest / Expertise

External Affiliations / Memberships

David is an archaeologist who has worked in the UK, India, Europe, and the USA. He is the the PI for a number of projects being conducted on the Wind Wolves Preserve (http://www.wildlandsconservancy.org/preserve_windwolves.html) California: at almost 100,000 acres, this is the largest private non-profit contiguous land holding in the American West. His work uses cutting-edge technologies and scientific approaches in order to develop theoretical alternatives to notions of complexity, ideology, and ontology. He works with local tribal communities and museums in efforts to contribute to their tribal programmes, and with a talented group of international colleagues, including film makers and computing experts developing high end, data rich VR immersive platforms focused on his projects.

Use the links below to view their profiles:

Research Group Memberships

Research Projects

Accessing the Inaccessible: A Virtual Reality Mobile Museum (Lead PI with Brendan Cassidy, University of Central Lancashire; Tejon Indian Tribe; SB Museum of Natural History; Wind Wolves Preserve). 2017 to present.
Valuing the Past: the Cache Cave Archaeological Project (Lead Principle Investigator, with co PIs, Dr. John Johnson, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History/University of California, Santa Barbara; Julienne Bernard, East Los Angeles Community College). With Ed Jolie (Mercyhurst College), Virginia Popper (MIT), Jacob Fisher (CSU Sacramento), Ana Ejarque (French National Centre for Scientific Research). 2012 to present
Unravelling the Gordian Knot: Integrating Advanced Portable Technologies into the Analysis of Rock-Art Superimposition (Lead Principle Investigator with Co-I’s Matthew Baker, University of Strathclyde, and Jennifer Perry, California State University, Channel Islands). 2015 to 2019.
Testing the Trance Hypothesis: Datura, rock-art, and context at Pinwheel Cave, California. 2016 to present (Lead PI ) with Mathew Baker (Uni. Strathyclyde), Pamela Allen, (Uni Strathclyde), Caroline Cartwright (British Museum), F. Sturt (Uni. Southampton).
Enculturating environments: the archaeology of interior South-Central California (Lead Principle Investigator with co PIs Dr. Fraser Sturt, University of Southampton; Julienne Bernard, East Los Angeles Community College). 2006 to 2012.
Previous Projects:
Stonehenge Riverside Project: 2007 to 2011. With Mike Parker-Pearson (UCL), Julian Thomas (Manchester University), Colin Richards (Manchester University), Joshua Pollard (Southampton University), and Kate Wellham (Bournemouth University).
The Archaeology of Nuclear Landscapes (Co-Principle Investigator with Vicki Cummings, University of Central Lancashire). 2010 to 2012.
Peel Park Community Project: the Archaeology of Football. 2011-2012. Co-PI With Richard Peterson (University of Central Lancashire).
The Archaeology of Graffiti: The Art of St. Rock Street (Barcelona Spain). 2004. With Hector Orengo, Catalan Institute of Archaeology.
East of Avebury. 2007 to 2008. Co-PI with Joshua Pollard (Southampton University) Rosamund Cleal and Nick Snashall (Alexander Keiller Museum).
Bank Hall: excavations and investigations of a Lancashire Manor. Rick Peterson, David Robinson, Charles Orser. 2006-2011.
Exporting segregation, integrating communities: Tyntesfield World War II army hospital (Co-Principle Investigator with James Dixon, Senior Archaeologist, Museum of London). 2007 to 2009.

Grants

2016 to 2019: £190,197 AHRC Research Grant (AH/M008894/1): Unravelling the Gordian Knot: Integrating Advanced Portable Technologies into the Analysis of Rock-Art Superimposition.
2012: $12,600. Institute for Field Research, fieldwork and post-excavations analysis of excavations at Cache Cave, California. With Julienne Bernard (East Los Angeles Community College) and John Johnson (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History)
2012: £10,000. British Academy Small Research Grant SG113046, ‘Caching Wealth: Valuing Hunter-Gatherer Perishable Materials from Cache Cave, California’, post-excavation analysis, Cache Cave, California.
2012: $6000, Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society. For fieldwork at Cache Cave, California.
2010: £18000 ORSAS Award for PhD in ‘Actor-Network Approaches to Chumash Rock-Art’, awarded to Michelle Weinhold.
2009: $17,000 Cotsen Institute Fieldwork Fund. With F. Sturt (University of Southampton) and J. Bernard (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology).
2008. €7500 Batista Roca Grant: in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Archaeology.
2008: £1750 Somerset Archaeological & Natural History Society Gray Fund Award

Conferences & Events

2019 March: Panel Discussant, Indigenous California: a Forum on Collaborative Archaeological and Ethnographic Visual Media Projects, 16th RAI Film Festival 2019 Conference.
2017 April: Cambridge Heritage Group: Simulating Heritage: 3D technologies and the translation of archaeological discovery in the American Far West.
2016 March: Invited speaker, Caves and Rock-Shelters of South-Central California Symposia, Society for California Archaeology Meetings, Ontario California. Paper delivered, Caching in the Dark: the Cave 3 assemblage from Cache Cave.
*2016 Feb. 3-D Pitoti Project. Consultant on 3D virtual reality for the Pitoti Project at the Bauhaus University Virtual Reality Lab, Germany.
*2016 Jan. Invited Speaker, University of Southampton. Paper presented, The Capacity to Value: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Caching in Southern California.
*2015 Oct. Invited Speaker, Assessing Digital Solutions in Caves and Rock Art Research Workshop, Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira, Alta Mira, Spain. Paper presented: Integrating Portable Technologies and the Analysis of Complex Superimposition of Californian Pictographs: from 3-D laser scanning to pXRF and pRaman
*2014 Nov. Invited Speaker. University of Reading Archaeological Research Seminar Series. Paper delivered, Of Climate and Agency: Conflicting Narratives of Native American Environmental Relations in the American Far West
*2014 May. Invited speaker. Documenting Prehistoric Parietal Art: recently developed digital recording techniques. Paper delivered, Integrating portable technologies and the analysis of complex superimposition of Californian pictographs: from 3D laser scanning to pXRF and pRaman.
*2014 March. Invited speaker. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan Collaborative Archaeology Workshop (CAW). Paper presented, Painted Landscapes: Rock-Art, Environment and the Archaeology of the Interior Chumash.
*2013 Sept. Invited Speaker, Zeitgeist - An inquiry into the media of time-specific cultural patterns. Ziff Institute, Bielefeld, Germany. Paper presented, 'Grunge is Dead': Residual zeitgeist and the archaeology of Generation X in modern suburbia.
*2013 March. Invited Speaker, University of Leicester, Centre of Historical Archaeology Seminar. Paper delivered, Ghosts of Modernity: an Archaeology of the American West.
*2012 May. Invited speaker, ‘After Interpretation’ workshop, Oxford: paper, Transmorphic Being, Corresponding Affect: an ontological safari in South-Central Californian rock-art.
2012 May. Invited Speaker. ‘Art Makes Society’ Symposium, Society for American Archaeology Meetings, Memphis. Paper, Legitimizing Space: Art and the Politics of Place.
*2012 Feb. Invited Speaker. Cambridge University Archaeological Field Club. Paper, Enculturating Environments: Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology in California.
2011 May. Invited speaker. ‘California: a land of many…’ symposium, Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Sacramento. Paper, California: a land of many borders.
2011 March. Invited speaker, University of Southampton. Ghosts of Modernity: an Archaeology of the American West.
2010 Nov. Invited Discussant: Neolithic Studies Group Meetings, Neolithic Visual Culture: Abstraction and Figuration.
*2009 Nov. Invited Speaker. University of Oxford Archaeological Seminars. Paper presented, A Historiography of the Colonial Origins of Rock Art Research in India.
2008 April, Invited Speaker: New Directions in California Archaeology, Plenary Symposium, Society for California Archaeology Annual Meeting. Paper, Integrating methodologies, advancing interpretation: new trajectories to rock-art, environment, and society.
*2007 Feb. Invited Speaker. University of Oxford Archaeological Seminars. Paper presented, Archaeological and Ethnographic tensions.
2004 Nov. Invited speaker. ‘Fire, cattle, and domestication in Prehistoric India’ conference: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.

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Dr David Robinson