Dylan Gaffney

My research examines long term behavioural changes amongst humans, starting from the last Ice Age through to the last century. The ways that humans responded to a changing climate and environment in the deep past can provide important insights about our species' adaptive abilities and the ways that we might sustainably transform our ecologies in the future.

I have conducted archaeological fieldwork across Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. In the laboratory, I focus on the study of animal bones, stone tools, pottery, and the geochemical properties of these materials.

After completing a BA and MA in anthropology at the University of Otago in New Zealand from 2010–2016, I then undertook a PhD in archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 2018–2021. I was a Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford, from 2021–2023.

In 2023 I began my post as Associate Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford. I am also a Tutorial Fellow at Hertford College and Stipendiary Lecturer at St Hugh’s College where I teach undergraduate students. I hold an honorary lectureship at the University of Otago and am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.