Zooarchaeologist
Hannah Britton BA MSc
Hannah is a Zooarchaeologist at archaeology.biz and has just submitted her PhD at the University of Exeter. She has worked on various bird and mammal collections from across Britain and has experience in both digital humanities and digital archaeology. Hannah has previously worked as a post-excavation archaeologist, and postgraduate teaching assistant.
Research Interests
Hannah’s PhD, entitled ‘Flying Through History: The Archaeology of Falconry in Britain’, explored the biocultural history of falconry practices over the last 1,500 years, working across the arts-science spectrum. This encompassed a range of bioarchaeological techniques including osteobiographies, morphometrics, paleopathology and stable isotopic analysis (C/N). Her undergraduate and master’s dissertation focused on post-medieval dog morphology using osteometrics and 3D/2D geometric morphometrics (GMM).
Qualifications
PhD University of Exeter, UK [2021 – 2026]
MSc Bioarchaeology: Zooarchaeology Pathway, University of Exeter [2019 – 2020]
BA Archaeology, University of Exeter [2016 – 2019]
Professional Membership
Society for Medieval Archaeology
British Ecological Society
Featured Profiles
Publications
Britton, H. (2026) ‘Animal Bone’ In Kirby, M ‘A Later Prehistoric Settlement at Loak Farm, Bankfoot, Perth and Kinross’ Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 114.
Britton, H. and Redmonds, A. (2025) Food for Flight: Feeding Relationships in Medieval Falconry. In, Smallman, R., Mullan, A., de Bondt, H. & Waterman, J. (eds.) The Hand that Feeds: The Complex Relationships of Human-Animal Feeding. London: UCL Press.
Waterman, J., Black, S., Sykes, N., Mills, W. F., Doherty, S., Britton, H., Smallman, R., Sheridan, A., Kitchener, A. C., and Fellowes, M. D. E. (2025) Tracking 4000 years of raptor diets through isotope analysis reveals urban scavenging with implications for conservation. Journal of Archaeological Science 175(106147): 106147.
Britton, H. (2024) ‘Animal Bone’ In Hills, C 'A Bronze Age Ring-Ditch and Cremation Pit at Williamson Street, Falkirk' Calatria 38, 16.
Conference Presentations
2025. Society for Medieval Archaeology, Student Symposium [Exeter, UK] (Lead Organiser) - ‘Osteological Insights into Medieval Falconry’
2025. ICAZ Stable Isotope Working Group Conference [Reading, UK] (Conference Committee) - ‘The Archaeology of Falconry: Diet, Disease and Management’
2025. Dorchester Association for Archaeology [Dorset, UK] (Invited) - ‘Falconry birds at Dorchester: The importance of revisiting old collections’
2025. ICAZ Animal Palaeopathology Working Group [Berlin, Germany] (Session Chair) - ‘Palaeopathological Analysis of British Raptors’
2024. Association for Environmental Archaeology Annual Meeting [Oxford, UK] - ‘Modern Proto-Domestic Phenomena: Analysing the Possible Domestication of British Falconry Birds Through an Archaeological Framework’
2024. ICAZ Bird Working Group [Copenhagen, Denmark] - ‘Establishing an Osteometric Baseline of British Raptor Species’
2023. European Archaeological Association Annual Meeting [Belfast, UK] - ‘An Osteobiographical Approach to Analysing Falconry Birds in Britain’
2023. Professional Zooarchaeology Group (PZG) [Natural History Museum, Tring, UK] (Invited) - ‘The Archaeology of Waterbirds and Falconry in Britian’
2023. ICAZ Postgraduate Forum [Zagreb, Croatia] - ‘Osteological Re-analysis of Falconry in Britian: A Case Study of Raptors from Faccombe Netherton’
