Dr Simon Clarke

Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Heritage Management, Section head for Creative and Cultural Industries.

Professional Career

I graduated with first class honours in Archaeological Sciences from Bradford University in 1988 and then completed a PhD in settlement archaeology of the Dobunni Iron Age Tribe and Roman Civitas (centring on Gloucestershire) in 1994. I was heavily involved in the Newstead Roman Fort and Hinterland Project in the late 1980s and 1990s, directing excavations in the fort itself and in the civilian settlements to the north and south as well as contemporary indigenous farmsteads. I have also undertaken fieldwork abroad, working in Croatia on the Hvar Landscape Project excavating on the Kops Plateau Roman military complex (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), led geophysics at the Punic and Roman cityscape at Leptiminus in Tunisia and excavated at Pompeii in Italy. After a period directing commercial excavations and geophysical and standing monument surveys (for Bradford University Research Limited), I moved to Shetland to join the UHI project in 1998. While there I was heavily involved in the Scatness Broch Village project, contributing to supervision and training there until 2005. More recently I have also led UHI student contingents on the National Museums of Scotland excavation at Birnie near Elgin. While working as part of the University of the Highlands and Islands my interests have widened considerably; temporally from my original late Iron Age and Roman period focus, to include the full span of human history, from the origins of art in the Upper Palaeolithic to modern conflict archaeology; thematically from pure archaeology to encompass heritage management and the place of archaeology in modern society. I now often find myself working collaboratively with other discipline areas, such as cultural studies, environmental studies the creative arts and tourism. I have been involved in the supervision of almost a hundred undergraduate and taught postgraduate dissertations and three successfully completed PhDs. I am currently collaborating with Dr Andrew Jennings to investigate the Viking Age promontory fortress at Kame of Isbister, near the northern tip of the Shetland mainland. While teaching at UHI I have also become interested in the theory of pedagogy and educational technology and have written a number of academic papers on the educational use of videoconferencing.  

Select bibliography

Clarke, S. (2019) “Kame of Isbister: Surveying the Viking Fortress” ScARF Islands Archaeology Symposium, Lerwick 20th – 22nd September 2019.    

Clarke, S. (2019) “Research Conservation and Presentation: Balancing management prioreties at Scatness Broch and Iron Age Village”, Shoormal Conference, Lerwick, 18th - 21st September 2019. 

Clarke, S. (2018) A Dwelling Perspective on Roman Roads and Routes through the Trimontium Landscape.  Roman Archaeology Conference, Theoretical Roman Archaeology General Session, Edinburgh University, Saturday 14th April 2018

Clarke, S. (2017) “Reviewing Yesterday’s Bright Tomorrows; Two Decades of VC Teaching in UHI”, Synchronous Teaching Technology Symposium, UHI, 15th Dec 2017.

Clarke S. (2017) "Wells and Ritual Deposition at Newstead", in N. Hodgson, P. Bidwell and J. Schachtmann (eds) LIMES XXI, Proceedings of the 21st International Roman Limes Congress, Newcastle Upon Tyne, August 2009. Archeopress, Oxford.

Clarke, S. (2017) “Crossing to the Other Side: Representing the Journey of Life in Neolithic Shetland” in Jennings, A., Reeploeg, S., and Watt, A. (eds) Northern Atlantic Islands and the Sea; Seascapes and Dreamscapes.  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne. pp 125-139.

Clarke, S. (2015) Student Perception of Learning and Teaching by Video Conference. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice 3 (1). pp 61 – 83. Available at: <http://jpaap.napier.ac.uk/index.php/JPAAP/article/view/144>

Clarke, S. and Renwick, E. (2013) "A Processional but not Processual Approach to Stanydale Neolithic Temple", in F. Foulds (ed) Experimental Archaeology and Theory: recent approaches to Testing Archaeological Hypothesis, Oxbow, Oxford. 

Clarke, S. (2013) “Dere Street and the Roads Around Newstead Roman Military Complex”, in Hunter, F. and Keppie, L. (eds) New Perspectives on Roman Military Complex at Newstead. National Museums of Scotland Publishing.   

Clarke, S. and Robinson, D. (2011) “Chapter 4 Geophysical survey” in N. Ben Lazreg, D.J. Mattingley and D. Stone (eds) Leptiminus (Lamta): A Roman port City in Tunisia Report 3; Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series. pp 83-112

S. Clarke 2009 “Balancing environmental and cultural impact against the strategic need for wind power” International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 15, Nos. 2–3, March–May 2009, pp. 173–189

S. Clarke 2009 “Using Video Conference to Teach in HE”, in M. Houston (ed) The Teaching Research Interface: Implications for Practice in HE and FE. The Higher Education Academy / ESCalate, Bristol pp 12 – 17.

S. Clarke 2008 “Identifying the actors and motivations behind pit Deposition at the Trimontium Military Complex (Newstead)”, Theoretical Archaeology Group 30 Conference, Southampton.  15th – 17th December 2008.