Dr William Mills

Biography

I am a post-doctoral research fellow on Prof. Kate Britton’s PALAEoScot project in the Department of Archaeology. I completed an undergraduate degree in prehistory at Aix-Marseille and an MSc in geoarchaeology and palaeoenvironmental studies at UCL, where I conducted micromorphological research on Moroccan cave deposits.

I subsequently worked in commercial archaeology in Britain, France, and Spain, developing skills in excavation, geoarchaeological sampling, micromorphology, and environmental analysis.

My field experience spans cave and open-air sites across Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, Central Asia, and North America. I completed my DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2022 on Late Glacial palaeolandscape modelling and lithic analysis in Northern Europe, particularly the Channel River catchment, examining human presence and behaviour within dynamic Late Glacial environments. 

I then held a post-doctoral position at the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), extending this work into the North Sea and Baltic regions and linking my research with Doggerland.

Within PALAEoScot, I analyse East Coast Scottish lithic assemblages adapting technological and typological methods as suited to the record, and exploring raw material sources using macroscopic, thin-section, pXRF, and LA-ICP-MS approaches.

This research examines Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer choices, activities and connections across the regional landscape, including movements extending across Doggerland to Scandinavia and to the Channel River. 

This work involves analysis of museum collections, targeted surveys, excavation, and collaboration with local archaeological groups in eastern Scotland. I also use experimental archaeology as a tool to better understand the archaeological record, for teaching, and to share research with specialists and the public. 

My research integrates lithics analysis, geochemical analysis, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, targeted landscape survey and excavation.

External Memberships

Member of the Lithics Society and the QRA. On the commission for the UISPP research group for the Late Glacial of the Northern Plains. On the committee for the Mesolithic Deeside super group.

Prizes and Awards

As part of this research position, I received the TOOLUP Catalyst Grant from the University of Aberdeen to support sampling of known flint sources in eastern Scotland and Yorkshire, developing a raw-material analysis protocol from macro to geochemical scales, and establishing LA-ICP-MS procedures for geochemical fingerprinting.