Dr Rory Connolly

Research fellow, Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, School of Histories and Humanities Trinity College Dublin.

Research Interests

I'm a geoarchaeologist whose research interests are broadly concerned with understanding the reciprocal relationships between past societies and the environments in which they lived. I am particularly interested in understanding complex interactions between humans and the marine environment.

My methodological background is in the application of archaeological soil micromorphology, lipid biomarker characterisation, and compound-specific isotope analysis for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. During my doctoral research at the Archaeological Micromorphology and Biomarker Laboratory (AMBI) in the Universidad de La Laguna, I combined these approaches to explore the role of climate in Neanderthal social and cultural evolution.

I received my PhD in 2021. I was subsequently awarded an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in the School of Archaeology at University College Dublin (2021 - 2023). This project, NeoMarE (Neolithic Marine resource exploitation in Atlantic Europe), explored how incoming Neolithic farming communities adapted to the marginal coastal environments of NW Europe.

I've conducted fieldwork at archaeological sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range. I am also currently working with local stakeholders and partners in the commercial archaeology sector in Ireland to develop a citizen science platform for recording coastal shell middens under threat from climate change impacts.

I joined the 4-OCEANS project as a Research Fellow in August 2023.

Email: rory.connolly@tcd.ie