Rate My Professor Lucy Cramp

Professor Lucy Cramp is Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol. She earned a BA (Hons), an MSc from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from the University of Reading. Her interdisciplinary research centres on investigating ancient patterns of human subsistence, culinary choices, and technological practices through biomolecular proxies. This work employs lipid residue analysis, stable isotopes, and highly sensitive mass spectrometric methods to identify biomarkers for processing aquatic products and cereals in pottery vessels. Cramp addresses large-scale questions about human responses to cultural and environmental changes, with studies spanning the diet of first farmers in the British Isles and Fennoscandia, the use of Roman-style culinary vessels in Britain, and components of balms in ancient Egyptian mummification.

Recent projects include a bilateral AHRC-DFG funded programme on radiocarbon dating and spatio-temporal modelling of early maritime connectivity in the Mediterranean linked to the Bell Beaker phenomenon. As Principal Investigator, she leads the AHRC Centre for Chemical Characterisation in Heritage Science (C3HS) at the University of Bristol, supported by a £1 million award. Key publications include 'Isotopic insights into long-term socio-economic transformations in prehistoric Kuyavia, Poland' (2026, Royal Society Open Science), 'Meals for the dead: investigating Romano-British accessory vessels in burials using organic residue analysis' (2024, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences), 'Organic residue analysis of pottery residues from Aguntum' (2025), 'Neolithic dairy farming at the extreme of agriculture in northern Europe' (2014), and 'What was a mortarium used for? Organic residues and cultural change in Iron Age and Roman Britain' (2011, Antiquity). In 2025, Cramp, along with Richard Evershed and Melanie Roffet-Salque, received the Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology from the American Institute of Archaeology. She is affiliated with Migration Mobilities Bristol and the Cabot Institute for the Environment and has delivered public lectures on organic residue analysis of ancient diets.