Neil Curtis

MA, MLitt, AMA, FSA Scot

Position

Senior Curator, Marischal Museum

Honorary Senior Lecturer, Anthropology

Contact details

Marischal Museum

University of Aberdeen

Marischal College

Aberdeen AB10 1YS

Scotland

Email: neil.curtis@abdn.ac.uk

Telephone: + 44 (0) 1224 274304

About

Born in Glasgow in 1964, Neil is Senior Curator in Marischal Museum where he has worked since 1988 and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Anthropology. He studied Archaeology (Glasgow, 1986), Museum Studies (Leicester, 1988) and Education (Aberdeen, 1995).

He is Secretary of University Museums in Scotland and the Aberdeen and North-East Section of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, a member of the Scottish Museums Council’s Working Party on Human Remains and a former member of the Treasure Trove Advisory Panel and the Museums Association’s ‘Collections for the Future’ enquiry panel. He is a member of the University’s Senate, Art Advisory Committee, Advisory Group on Collections Strategy and the Advisory Group on Research Ethics and Governance. He organised the University Museums in Scotland ‘Contentious Museum’ conference in 2008.

Research

Within a broad interest in the ways that people understand and manipulate their world through ideas of identity, material and time, his research focuses on a critical study of museums and archaeology. This has included young children's learning in museums, considerations of the social and cultural roles of museums today, including repatriation and the treatment of human remains, and studies of Scottish museum history.

Curation

He has responsibility for the wide range of Marischal Museum’s collections (Scottish history and archaeology, European and Mediterranean archaeology, Non-Western ethnography, Numismatics and Fine Art), with a particular regional interest in the material from Scotland and Canada. Exhibitions he has curated include Going home: museums and repatriation (2003), Fiddles High and Low (2001), Inuit in Aberdeen (2000), The Bronze Age: an idea of prehistory (1996), Barbarians Entwined: Picts, Scots and Vikings (1995).

Teaching

Undergraduate

AY1001 Introduction to Archaeology 1

KL155B Archaeological Fieldwork Portfolio 1 Introduction

CU2007 ‘The Second Sex’? Women in Culture and Society c2000-c1000 AD

AT2508 Culture, History and Anthropology

KL255G Scotland’s Archaeology: Celtic and Roman Scotland

KL205K Archaeological Fieldwork Portfolio 2

MH33SC/ED20xx Socio-cultural perspectives in Science learning 2

CR3040 Learning 3.1

KL3052 Archaeological Fieldwork Portfolio 3

CE3/4057 Picts, Gaels, and Britons: North Britain to AD 900

KL3553 Archaeology Dissertation Introduction

LS4028 Moveable Property

LS4044 Legal Issues Involving Art and Antiquities

KL4054 Archaeology Dissertation

CR4071 Teaching History in Secondary Schools

AT4512 Material Culture and Museums (course co-ordinator)

GG4502 Prehistoric Geography of North Britain

EL40BK From Frankenstein to Einstein: literature and science in the nineteenth century

Postgraduate

HA5001 Art History research

HI5001 Introduction to historical research

EF5001 History and core genres of ethnology and folklore

AT5001 Philosophy and Methods of Research in Social Anthropology, Ethnology and Cultural History I

AT5505 Philosophy and Methods of Research in Social Anthropology, Ethnology and Cultural History II

EF5502 Scottish contexts and practical fieldwork

HA5504 Imaging Scottish History: Art, Museums and Visual Culture

FS5003 Theories and practices of images and spaces

Postgraduate supervision

Carolyn Forrest Experimental archaeology (with Tim Ingold) - PhD

Publications (2001-present)

Articles

2008 ‘Thinking about the right home: repatriation and Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen’ in Gabriel, M & Dahl, J (eds) UTIMUT - Past heritage -
future partnerships: Discussions on Repatriation in the 21st Century, Copenhagen/Nuuk: IWGIA/NKA , ppX-Y

2008 ‘North America in Aberdeen: the collections of Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen’ in Brown, AK (ed.) Material Histories: proceedings of a workshop held at Marischal Museum University of Aberdeen 26-27 April 2007, Aberdeen: Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen

2008 ‘The absurdity of museums; local and universal’, comment on Sandis, C ‘Two tales of one city: cultural understanding and the Parthenon sculptures’, Museum Management and Curatorship 23, pp.10-13

2007 ‘”Like stray words or letters” The development and workings of the Treasure Trove system’ in Ballin Smith, B, Taylor, S & Williams, G (eds) West over Sea: studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300, Leiden: Brill, pp. 341-361

2007 ‘”The original may yet be discovered”: seven Bronze Age swords supposedly from Netherley, Kincardineshire’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 137, pp.487-500

2006 ‘An unusual pair of Roman bronze vessels from Stoneywood, Aberdeen, and other Roman finds from north-east Scotland, Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 136, pp.199-214 (with Hunter, F.)

2006 ‘Museums in a postmodern world: collections, exhibitions and opinions’, Public Archaeology 5, pp199-202

2006 ‘Universal museums, museum objects and repatriation: the tangled stories of things’, Museum Management and Curatorship 21, pp.117-127

2006 ‘Education and Marischal Museum: a century of teaching , learning and research’, Education in the North 14, pp31-38

2005 ‘The collection of Book of the Dead manuscripts in Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen, Scotland: a comprehensive overview’, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 105, pp49- 73 (with Kockelmann, H & Munro, I)

2005 ‘Going home: from Aberdeen to Standoff’, British Archaeology. May/June 2005, pp. 40-43

2005 ‘A continuous process of reinterpretation’: the challenge of the universal and rational museum’, Public Archaeology 4.1, pp. 50-56

2005 ‘The Marischal Museum and North America: connections and collections’, Resources for American Studies 2005, pp. 6-13

2004 ‘The Marischal Virtual Museum’, Multimedia Information and Technology 3:2 (with Middleton, I), pp. 49-52

2003 ‘Human remains: the sacred, museums and archaeology’, Public Archaeology 3:1, pp. 21-32

Book reviews

2005 Poignant, R. (2004). Professional savages: captive lives and Western spectacle, New Haven: Yale University Press Book [in Journal of Museum Ethnography 17, pp.282-286]

2004 Steedman, C (2002) Dust: the archive and cultural history, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press [in Journal of the Society of Archivists 25:2, pp221-2]

2004 Armit, I (2003) Towers in the North: the brochs of Scotland, Stroud: Tempus [in Scottish Studies Review 5:2, pp114-116]

Other publications

1997 Conservation 5-14, Conservation Advocacy Pack, Museums & Galleries Commission,

1997 ‘Two previously unrecorded jade axes in North-East Scotland’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63, pp. 403-405

1997 ‘Archaeology for primary school pupils?: learning with objects in a university museum’, Education in the North 5, pp. 75-76

1996 Huntly Castle: information and ideas for teachers, Historic Scotland (with Curtis, E)

1996 ‘United we stand!: a ‘hands on’ partnership in Marischal Museum’, in Mitchell, S, Objects of Learning, HMSO

1996 ‘Anyone can do it: museum archaeologists and education’, The Museum Archaeologist 21,

1996 ‘Touching and talking: museums and archaeology’, in Curtis E & N (eds.), Touching the Past: archaeology 5-14, Scottish Children’s Press, pp.47-49

1996 Touching the Past: archaeology 5-14, Edinburgh: Scottish Children’s Press [with Curtis, E. (ed.)]

1995 ‘An archaeological approach to display: the “Encyclopaedia of the North-East”’, Scottish Archaeological Review, 9&10, pp.142-144

1995 ‘Hands on! Research into learning with objects in Marischal Museum, Journal of Education in Museums 16, 11-12 [with Goolnik, J]

1990 ‘“It's Scotland's oil!”: museums, archaeology and the national consciousness’, in Baker F and Thomas J, Writing the past in the present, Lampeter, 204-208 [with Inglis, J]