Stephanie Piper

Steph is a specialist in the Mesolithic of Northern Europe, with a particular focus on hunter-gatherer mobility, and using lithic raw materials to trace the movement of communities. Steph completed her BA in Archaeology (2010), MA in Archaeology with Prehistory (2011), and AHRC funded PhD (2017) at Durham University where she developed an ever-increasing love for the Mesolithic of Scotland, and prehistoric occupation of coasts and islands.

Post-PhD, Steph worked as a commercial archaeologist for Archaeological Services Durham University as both a field archaeologist and palaeoenvionmental specialist, before joining Newcastle University as a Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology (2018-2019).

Steph joined York in 2019 as Associate Lecturer in Archaeology and was promoted to Lecturer in 2023. She maintains research interests in early prehistoric Northwest Europe with a particular focus on Scotland, as well as broader hunter-gatherer interactions in relation to changing climate. Steph is a stone tool specialist and has recently conducted analysis of Mesolithic assemblages from the UK and Denmark, as well as later prehistoric lithic material in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

In 2023, Steph was part of an interdisciplinary team from the departments of Archaeology, Health Sciences, and Environment & Geography awarded a York Environment Sustainability Institute Discipline Hopping Fellowship for the project Craftwell. The Discipline Hopping programme was delivered via NERC funding, and the project aimed to investigate the connection between outdoor heritage crafting and mental health and wellbeing in the student population. Steph delivered the outdoor workshop component of the project, working with participants to create replicas of archaeological objects inspired by Stone Age beads or Anglo-Saxon pottery.