Rachel Crellin


Rachel Crellin is an archaeologist who specialises in archaeological theory and the prehistory of the British Isles. She joined the University of Leicester in 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Archaeology. She is also a metalwork wear-analyst. In 2020 she delivered the Prehistoric Society's annual Sarah Champion Memorial Lecture and in 2021 she delivered the Royal Anthropological Institute's Curl Lecture.

Education

Crellin is from the Isle of Man, and studied her BA in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and later completed her MA in Material and Visual Culture Studies at University College London. She completed a PhD at Newcastle University and focused on the transition from the Late Neolithic into the Early Bronze Age on the Isle of Man

Career

In 2015, Crellin joined the University of Leicester as a Leverhulme Early Careers Fellow, where she undertook a study into the impact of Bronze axes in the British Isles. Between 2016 and 2022, Crellin collaborated with Chris Fowler of Newcastle University to lead the "Round Mounds of the Isle of Man" project; the work was jointly funded by Manx National Heritage and Culture Vannin. In 2018 she was appointed to the position of Lecturer in Prehistoric archaeology, where she teaches both in-person as well as on the remote course of Ancient History and Archaeology.

Selected publications

In 2020, Routledge published Crellin's book on archaeological theory, Change and Archaeology. In a review for Antiquity, Dan Lawrence wrote "One of the great strengths of this book is the clarity of the discussion of theoretical ideas and concepts". Crellin co-authored Archaeological Theory in Dialogue: Situating Relationality, Ontology, Posthumanism, and Indigenous Paradigms with Craig N. Cipolla, Lindsay M. Montgomery, Oliver J. T. Harris, and Sophie V. Moore; in a review for American Antiquity, Eleanor Harrison-Buck noted that they "do an excellent job of making these otherwise complex concepts more accessible". Crellin also co-authored Bronze Age Combat: An Experimental Approach with Raphael Hermann, Marion Uckelmann, Quanyu Wang, and Andrea Dolfini.
Crellin has considered the past through a feminist perspective, culminating in the chapter titled "Posthumanist feminist archaeology" in the 2024 Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology.

Books

  • Crellin, R.J. Cipolla, C., Montgomery, L., Harris, O.J.T. and Moore, S.  2021. Archaeological Theory in Dialogue: situating relationality, ontology, posthumanism and indigenous paradigms. London: Routledge.
  • Crellin, R.J. 2020. Change and Archaeology. London: Routledge.
  • Hermann, R., Crellin, R.J., Ucklemann, M. and Dolfini, A. 2020. Bronze Age Combat: an experimental approach. BAR. Oxford.

Journal articles

Awards and honours