Courtney Nimura

Researcher
courtney.nimura@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Beaumont Street, OX1 2PH

I am currently the Curator for Later European Prehistory at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, and a Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. My research focuses on rock art and portable art in Europe; Bronze Age and Iron Age archaeology in Northern, Central, and Western Europe; coastal and intertidal archaeology; effects of environmental change on art production; and the intersections of archaeological and anthropological theory in prehistoric art studies.

I am currently leading and collaborating on four grant-funded projects: NoMAD: Non-destructive Mobile and imaging Device at the University of Exeter (funded by UKRI); LINXS: Heritage Science theme at the University of Lund; Sir John Evans and the Hallstatt Collection at the Ashmolean Museum; and the Iron Age Coins in Britain and Celtic Coin Index Digital projects at the Ashmolean and School of Archaeology. I recently led the Leverhulme-funded project Ebb & Flow: Exploring rivers in later prehistoric Britain and BALMS: Bronze Age Landscapes and Metalwork in Sweden.

From 2017–2018, I was a Research Fellow at the Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit at Griffith University (Australia) on the Australian Research Council Laureate project: Australian Rock Art History, Conservation and Indigenous Wellbeing. From 2015–2017, I was a researcher on the Leverhulme-funded project 'European Celtic Art in Context' at the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford (http://ecaic.arch.ox.ac.uk/) and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.

I have a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Reading, for which I created a Scandinavian-wide GIS survey of prehistoric rock art and used this to discuss maritime rock art and human responses to environmental change. The monograph of this research was published in 2015 (http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/prehistoric-rock-art-in-scandinavia.html). I have an MA Distinction in Maritime Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Prior to my settlement in the UK, I worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (USA) in Conservation and Collections Management. I completed my BFA (University of California, Santa Cruz) and MFA (Tufts University, SMFA) in fine art, art history and museum studies.

 

Prehistoric archaeology, prehistoric art, material culture, museum studies

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