I am currently completing an MLitt in Celtic and Viking Archaeology at the University of Glasgow and have been accepted to continue for a PhD.  Being an international student (I'm from the US) means that there is very little funding available for me and tuition is inevitably higher (roughly $20,000 per year).  I have taken out loans for the MLitt and will probably do so for the PhD as well.  I applied for the only scholarship US archaeology students are eligible for and will know the results sometime in early May, but that would only cover tuition even if I am successful (not living expenses, travel costs, or any research equipment I may need).  I'm applying for various part-time jobs, but I can only work up to 20 hours a week on a UK visa.  I would like to keep my debt to a minimum (I've already got over $30,000 from the MLitt degree) while also being able to concentrate on my studies.  So I'm trying a fundraising page!

Anything you can contribute is absolutely wonderful, and I can't even begin to thank you for it.  If you can't contribut monetarily, please consider sharing this page on facebook, twitter, email, or any other social media to help me spread the word!

A bit of background:

I am from North Kingstown and Foster, Rhode Island and am currently living in Glasgow, Scotland. 

I have a BA in Anthropology (concentration in Archaeology) from St. Lawrence University and an MA in Anthropology (concentration in Archaeology) from the University of Illinois at Chicago.  In both degrees, I concentrated my research on glass bead trade in the Indian and Pacific Oceans in order to understand intercultural interaction during the first millennium AD.  My primary focus was on Southeast Asia, specifically Indonesia, but I worked on glass bead material from all over the Indo-Pacific region.

I have now shifted my focus to Europe, specifically the British Isles, during the same period (roughly 1-1000 AD).  Many of the beads I see in the British Isles are specific to Europe, but many (particularly those used by the Vikings) bear a lot of resemblance to types I examined in the Indo-Pacific region.  The British Isles at this time are places of constant cultural connection and collision: Romans, Britons, Picts, Irish, Dal Riata, Anglo-Saxons, Northumbrians, and the Vikings.  And that doesn't even include the numerous other Celtic-speaking groups in places like Wales and Scotland.  My goal is to use glass beads as a means for understanding the interaction between these groups and the manner in which they influenced each other over time.

So why glass beads?  Glass beads have been in use for millennia.  They are small and easily trasportable, making them a really economical item for trade (just think how many beads you can fit in a medium-sized jar).  Since beads can be used in a number of ways (necklaces, bracelets, talismans, decorations on ancestor idols, decoration on sword hilts, belts, anklets, clothing, etc) and can be strung in any number of combinations (colour, shape, etc), we find them in far more contexts and areas than other artefact categories.  Glass also survives better archaeologically than many other objects, so we can often find glass beads in places where we don't find much else.

Glass was very difficult to make in the past, and only certain areas had the resources to do so.  Many bead types were also very difficult to make and only a few craft centres specialised in them (think of Venetian glass).  The limited nature of manufacture allows us to trace the spread of glass beads back to their sources and recreate the networks of trade for the period we are studying.  Understanding trade connections will help in our understanding of cultural interaction and collision between the various groups we are studying.

For my PhD, I am going to analyse all of this data about glass beads in the British Isles and the groups that traveled there during the first millennium.  My goal is to use that data to understand more about populations in Western Britain (i.e. modern Scotland and Wales) and how they interacted, influenced, and were influenced by other populations in the Isles.  Since very little survives from these groups, I am hopeful that work on the glass beads can provide some new insight into who they were and how they saw the world.

Thank you for reading through all of this.  If you decide to help out, I will be eternally grateful.  Again, if you are not in a position to help monetarily, please consider sharing this post to whichever social media outlet you use to spread the word!

Thank you,

Heather Christie