Dr Kate Farr is a Senior Lecturer in the School of
Sciences, University of Wolverhampton where she has
taught for 32 years.
Her interests are in the impacts of humans on their
environment over the last 10 000 years since the last
Ice Age. She has examined cores of mud from many
lakes and bogs to examine pollen, algae and
other evidence to find out what the environment was
like in the past and what humans were doing there.
One of the most tricky sites we cored was the bottom
of Loch Ness where we used a mini submarine to check
all was well, as this is the deepest and probably darkest
lake in Britain.
Dr Kate is also interested in the scientific techniques
that can be applied to archaeology to learn more about
sites and objects. For example, ancient DNA can show
us that the Body in the Leicester Car Park was indeed
Richard III and stable isotopes have shown us that
after a very meagre childhood diet he drank an awful
lot of wine as monarch!
In the lecture she will introduce you to some of our
newly discovered ancient ancestors and consider what
happened to the Neanderthals and the Beaker People.
Kate will show you how new techniques can reveal so
much more about our ancestors by analysing plaque on
teeth, poo and even soils after any remains have
decayed away completely. Archaeologists are now
having to be much more careful about throwing
anything away as science has shown that in future
there may be a wealth of further information in the
most unpromising finds.
