Miles Russell

Miles Russell (born 8 April 1967) is a British archaeologist best known for his work and publications on the prehistoric and Roman periods and for his television appearances.^[1]

Career

Russell is a graduate of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and subsequently worked as a field officer for UCL's Field Archaeology Unit and a Project Manager for the Oxford Archaeological Unit. In 1993 he joined the staff of Bournemouth University, where he is a senior lecturer, subsequently conducting fieldwork on various projects across southern England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Sicily, Germany and Russia.^[2] He obtained his PhD, on the Neolithic monumental architecture of the South Downs in 2000 and became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2006. He is director of Regnum and co-director of the Durotriges Project, both investigating the transition from the Iron Age to Roman period.

In 2003 Russell published the results of a three-year project investigating the Piltdown Man hoax which strongly implicated that the perpetrator of the fraud was the 'finder' Charles Dawson. In 2008 he co-directed excavations within Stonehenge, together with Professor Tim Darvill and Professor Geoffrey Wainwright. In 2013 Russell and colleague Harry Manley identified a fragment of a Roman statue, previously known as the "Bosham Head", as representing the Emperor Trajan.^[3] Russell and Manley have also identified a damaged statue of the young emperor Nero from Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex and have tentatively identified a Roman statue held at Petworth House as also being a representation of the Emperor Nero.^[4]

Works

• Flint Mines in Neolithic Britain (2000)
• The Neolithic Monumental Architecture of the South Downs (2001)
• Prehistoric Sussex (2002)
• Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and Science Fiction (2002)
• Piltdown Man: the Secret Life of Charles Dawson (2003)
• Monuments of the British Neolithic: the Roots of Architecture (2003)
• Rough Quarries Rocks and Hills: The Neolithic Flint Mines of Sussex (2004)
• Roman Sussex (Tempus, 2006)^[5]
• Bloodline: The Celtic Kings of Roman Britain (Amberley, 2010)
• UnRoman Britain: Exposing the Great Myth of Britannia (2011; with Stuart Laycock)
• The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed (2012)

Television

• Mysteries in the Landscape (2002)
• Seven Ages of Britain (2003)
• Timewatch (Piltdown Man) (2003)
• Time Team (2004-2012)
• Time Team: Big Roman Dig (2005)
• Timewatch (Stonehenge) (2009)
• The One Show (2010)
• Digging for Britain (2010-2011)
• A History of Ancient Britain, Series 2, Age of Romans (2011)
• The Big Spring Clean (2011)
• The Sacred Landscapes of Britain (2014)
• Border Country: The Story of Britain's Lost Middleland (2014)
• Operation Stonehenge: what lies beneath (2014)
• Secrets from the Sky (2014)
• Underground Britain (2014)
• Digging For Britain (2015)

References