2 fully funded PhD positions

Job Type:  Each appointment is for 4 years for 1,0 fte under the terms of employment currently valid for the Faculty. In the first instance, a contract will be given for 12 months, with an extension for the following 36 months on the basis of a positive evaluation. The starting date of the contract is 1 September 2016. The gross monthly salary will be €2,174 during the first year to €2,779 during the fourth year, based on 38 hours per week, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.
 
Description of the Positions:
The NWO project will focus on the evidence for material life, ethnicity, and diet in the district of Vlooienburg, Amsterdam (1600-1800). Rescue excavations that were undertaken prior to the construction of the Amsterdam Stopera in 1980-81 examined two blocks of the Vlooienburg alongside the river Amstel. The scale of the excavations was unprecedented and allowed a significant proportion of an historic residential quarter of Amsterdam to be exposed and systematically excavated for the first time. A total of 150 houses and 106 cesspits were documented. This NWO funded project has been motivated by a desire to bring this body of material to publication, to develop an integrated archaeological methodology that enables personal possessions, tableware and food waste recovered from cesspit deposits to be linked to historically-documented households. The project seeks to refine archaeological understandings of the material expressions of ethnicity, status, gender, and religious beliefs in relation to the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish inhabitants and other residents of the Vlooienburg. The project will also, significantly, enhance contemporary public understandings of the multi-ethnic roots of Amsterdam. The project be delivered by means of a three-way public private partnership between the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the City of Amsterdam, Office for Monuments and Archaeology (MenA), and the Jewish Historical Museum (JHM).

PhD position 1: Possessions: household goods, personal items, and the materiality of everyday life in Vlooienburg, Amsterdam (1600-1800)
This PhD will explore the materiality of everyday daily life and work in Vlooienburg (1600-1800). It will focus on household assem- blages from cesspits that are closely-dated, have an excellent stratigraphic integrity, and have detailed documentary evidence relating to house owners and occupants. Analysis will combine archaeological and documentary evidence within the project GIS database to reconstruct patterns of household consumption and disposal. A biographical approach will be taken to the analysis of artefacts in the hope that ‘ethnic markers’ may be detected in the ways in which artefacts were selected and or used in daily practices associated with Sephardim or Ashkenazi Jews, or other residents. The evidence for routines and material practices developed for Vlooienburg will be compared and contextualized against patterns of consumption from more recent large scale archaeological investigations in other districts of Amsterdam

PhD position 2: Diet, food preparation, and consumption: a bioarchaeological investigation into the use and disposal of animal products in the Vlooienburg, Amsterdam (1600-1800)
This PhD will explore the use and discard of animal products and faunal remains in Vlooienburg (1600-1800) and will devise a strategy that will allow the faunal remains from the cesspits of closely-dated and historically documented households to be analyzed using a project GIS database. The PhD will combine zooarchaeological and biomolecular methods in an attempt to identify and quantify material markers relating to status, ethnic identity, and diet, from organic residues in cooking vessels, animal bones indicating the cuts of meat chosen and species present (i.e.,kosher or non-kosher), stable isotopes to explore patterns of procurement and ZooMS to identify parve (neutral foods, i.e. fish) which may have been consumed when other kosher foods were unavailable. The PhD student who will spend up 12 months at the University of York (UK) and will be trained in biomolecular methods by staff in the BioArCh facility.
 
Name of Hiring Contact: Professor dr. James Symonds, ACASA Archaeology, University of Amsterdam
 
Applications may be submitted electronically no later than 9 May 2016 by sending your application to solliciteren2016-FGW@uva.nl.

Please state PhD position 1, or PhD position 2 and vacancy number 16-144 in the subject field.
 
Web Address: http://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/working-at-the-uva/vacancies/content/2016/04/16-144-two-phd-positions-in-historical-archaeology.html
City:  Amsterdam, NL
Email Address: j.symonds2@uva.nl
 
Geographic Area: The Netherlands