David Orton
Senior Lecturer in Zooarchaeology
Dr David Orton is a zooarchaeologist with interests in fish remains, trade networks, and past human impact on marine environments.
David is Senior Lecturer in Zooarchaeology at the University of York, where he leads the zoaorchaeology lab group and the associated MSc. His research covers various periods, regions, and themes - from prehistoric farming to medieval urban pests - including considerable work on evidence for past fishing and fish trade. David is interested in how the development of urbanism and trade networks in historic Europe drove the expansion of marine resource explotiation - a theme which links his work on fish remains with his major new UKRI-funded project on rats, RATTUS. Methodologically, David is interested in integration of traditional and molecular techniques in zooarchaeology and on improving methods for chronological synthesis of messy archaeological data.
Within SEACHANGE David leads Work Package 2, focused around medieval and industrial economic transitions in North Sea fishing. He also works closely with the rest of the York team on analysis of fish bone samples from Orcadian sites.
