Into the past

Three Trinitarians who explore the past discuss their careers, favourite finds, and inspiring others to share their enthusiasms.

Professor Paul Barrett (1990), dinosaur expert

Q Describe your path since leaving Trinity. I left Trinity in 1999, to take up a post at the Department of Zoology in the University of Oxford, where I was responsible for teaching general animal biology to firstyear undergraduates. As it was a fixed-term position, I was rather relieved to be offered a permanent post as a dinosaur researcher at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in 2002. This is in many ways a dream job –working with one of the largest dinosaur collections in the world alongside many other talented scientists and curators. I’ve remained there ever since, and my job involves a mixture of research and public engagement, although I have honorary links with UCL and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and I still give guest lectures in Cambridge Part II Zoology from time-to-time.

Q What were your early scientific experiences? Did anyone or anything in particular inspire you?

I got my first taste of research when I was an undergrad, having been awarded a summer internship at the NHM. The work I did that summer formed the basis for my Part II dissertation and introduced me to the wider world of research and the people carrying it out. It’s also where I met one of my most important mentors, Dr Angela Milner, who was a major influence during my early career (and eventually became my boss at the Museum). Perhaps the biggest break, however, was getting a Junior Research Fellowship at Trinity. This allowed me to establish myself as an independent researcher and I began many of the longer-term research projects that formed the core of my career at this time. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a great group of other palaeontologists, many of whom have remained close friends and colleagues.

Q Tell us about your research at the Natural History Museum.

I’m a dinosaur specialist. In addition to detailed studies on their taxonomy and biology, I’m also interested in what dinosaurs tell us about general evolutionary processes and Earth history. I began my career working on feeding in herbivorous dinosaurs, but have since branched out into describing new species, building evolutionary trees, and looking at broader questions of how they interacted with other organisms, and how their diversity waxed and waned through time. I’ve worked on dinosaurs from all over the world, with emphasis on those from the UK, southern Africa and east Asia. Currently, I’m spending a lot of time on the roots of the dinosaur evolutionary tree, trying to work out how they started to take over the Mesozoic world.

Q What has been your most exciting discovery or field experience so far?

I’ve been involved in naming more than 20 ‘new’ extinct species so far, but probably the most exciting experience was my first field trip to Zimbabwe, back in 2017. Together with colleagues from Zimbabwe and South Africa we did two weeks of remote fieldwork in Matusadona National Park, on the shores of Lake Kariba. We found a lot of exciting new early dinosaur material, which we’re currently describing, and did all of this with elephants, hippos and crocs wandering about in the background.

Q What is your favourite find in the Museum’s collection and why?

The thing I’m probably proudest of is ‘Sophie’, our beautiful Stegosaurus specimen, which is the first thing you see as you come in via the Museum’s Exhibition Road entrance. Working with many different colleagues at the NHM, we were able to purchase this amazing skeleton from a private owner, put it on public display, and we’ve published four scientific papers describing the skeleton and its implications for Stegosaurus biology (with more to come). It was a really fun project, definitely the highlight of my career so far, and it’s great to see literally thousands of visitors coming face-to-face with ‘Sophie’ on a daily basis.

Q How is new technology changing the work of the palaeontologist and advancing our understanding of ancient animals? How is it transforming the visitor experience at the Natural History Museum?

CT-scanning and 3D-imaging techniques have revolutionised palaeontology. CT allows us to peer inside fossils (and living relatives) at greater levels of detail than ever before. 3D models combined with various computer modelling packages also enable us to simulate the feeding, walking and senses of these extinct animals in ways that were unthinkable when I was doing my PhD. Sophisticated statistical analyses of the fossil record and evolutionary processes are now firmly established also, giving the subject new analytical rigour.

Q What advice would you give to those aspiring to follow in your footsteps?

Stick with it and be flexible. A broad knowledge of the earth and life sciences is really beneficial as the subject is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, and a solid knowledge of statistics or programming is also useful. It’s not all about jobs, however: palaeontology is still one of the subjects where non-professionals continue to make new discoveries all the time, as the key skill is a keen eye for detail.

Fiona Kelly (1984), film curator

Q Describe your path since leaving Trinity. I read History and then did a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course and taught in Madrid. After returning to London, I looked for an opportunity to use my degree and got a job in the archives of Thomas Cook (the travel agents), which was celebrating its 150th anniversary. Alongside diaries, posters, and a wealth of other material dating back to the 1850s, it also held film made in the 1950s and 60s to promote package holidays. This kindled an interest as I hadn’t previously considered film as a historical document.

I later worked in other archives but kept returning to the idea of working with historical film. I’d always been interested in social history documentaries (as well as classic feature films) and began scouring the television credits for the archive footage sources.

Q Did anyone or anything in particular inspire you to enter your field?

When my sons were young, I worked at a local university alongside film academics and learned more about film archives. One colleague suggested I contact the Imperial War Museum (IWM), whose collections contain the oldest film archive in the UK. I started there as a volunteer, cataloguing a series of Second World War films shot by the British Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU). This experience inspired me to seek a professional role in the field.

Q Tell us about your curatorial work at the Imperial War Museums. What projects are you working on now?

As with many curator roles, my work is both curatorial and related to access. The curatorial aspect includes researching and cataloguing films and speaking at conferences (my research interests are the work of the AFPU and also the role of women in our film collection, both behind the camera and in terms of representation), as well as co-supervising a PhD on the work of the AFPU cameramen and their caption sheets (‘dope sheets’), part of the original documentation we hold which provides vital context to these films (see the photo of Sergeant Mike Lewis on assignment). I also deal with the access, supply, and licensing of film clips for documentaries and feature films worldwide. This requires a thorough knowledge of the film collection and an understanding of the development of film as well as legal and ethical considerations related to use, such as copyright, appropriate use, and image manipulation.

Q The amount of material related to twenty-first century conflicts is vast in comparison to earlier wars. How has this altered your work, and how do you decide what to include in the collection?

Contemporary material is of course digital borne, which requires different storage and different methods of access and viewing. Material relating to more recent conflicts, such as Northern Ireland or Iraq, also presents different issues of sensitivity and adherence to GDPR guidelines. Film formats have constantly evolved, from 35mm to 16mm and smaller gauges such as 8mm, then tape, then digital. These developments present challenges for film archives.

The IWM was founded in 1917 and its remit is material relating to any conflict involving British and former Empire and Commonwealth troops. Under the Public Records Act we are a Place of Deposit for film and photographic records produced by the Ministry of Defence.

Q How is technology changing the ways in which you tell the stories that give visitors an insight into people’s experiences of war? Technology has transformed access. We are gradually digitising our films and tapes for preservation and access, whilst retaining the original analogue archive masters. Whereas previously researchers needed to visit IWM in London to view films, now digitised films are available online worldwide at film.iwmcollections.org.uk youtube.com/ImperialWarMuseums iwm.org.uk/collections

Watch ‘ We Serve’ directed by Carol Reed film.iwmcollections.org.uk/record/2123

Technology has also transformed the IWM visitor experience, both when visiting IWM sites and also via our website and YouTube channel: iwm.org.uk/ collections and youtube.com/@imperialwarmuseums

Q What is your favourite item in the IWM’s film archive and why?

One of my favourite films was a discovery prompted by a film producer who was convinced that we held a short wartime film made by the renowned director Carol Reed. I did identify the film, which was accessioned but not viewed or catalogued and doesn’t appear in any of Reed’s filmographies because it’s an Army training film. It was made in 1942 and features several famous actors (including Celia Johnson, Googie Withers, Peggy Ashcroft, and Ann Todd) playing members of the ATS (the women’s army, the Auxiliary Training Service). Being a curator does involve detective work and this was a real find.

Q What advice would you give to those aspiring to follow in your footsteps?

My role is fairly unique – working with the film collection of a national museum and combining curatorial work with commercial access work, which is a perfect fit for my interests. I would advise others to try and identify what interests and inspires them and to look for roles that suit this. There are many degree courses available in Museum Studies, Conservation, Archiving and related subjects to help you forge your path.

Professor Francis Pryor MBE (1964), archaeologist and author

Q Describe your path since leaving Trinity. I started running digs ahead of factory construction on the edge of the Fens at Peterborough in 1971. For the next three decades I continued to work in the region, where my team revealed many superbly preserved pre-Roman sites. In the early ‘90s I began writing books aimed at bringing archaeology to a wider audience. At the same time, I began making radio and TV programmes.

Q Did anyone or anything inspire you to begin unearthing the past?

I emigrated to Canada and worked closely with Dr Doug Tushingham, from 1969–78. Doug was Chief Archaeologist at The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. He taught me by example that archaeology is about understanding the roots of our humanity.

Q What projects are you currently working on?

I have stepped aside from full-time fieldwork and am now writing books that I hope will bring British archaeology, and most particularly pre-Roman prehistory, to a wider audience. Some of my recent books include The Fens: Discovering England’s Ancient

Depths; Scenes from Prehistoric Life: From the Ice Age to the Coming of the Romans; and Paths to the Past: Encounters with Britain’s Hidden Landscapes the same time enjoying a great social life. I went on two or three digs before I began at university, and they gave me a great sense of proportion. Academic archaeology is inevitably based on rules and theory, both of which are essential, but they should not detract from the subject’s core humanity.

Q What has been your most exciting discovery so far and why?

In November 1982, while conducting a survey of drainage dykes (ditches) in the Fens near Peterborough, I caught my foot on a piece of wood concealed within the soft mud that had been dumped from the drain when it was dredged a few days earlier. There were no trees in the area. So, I was suspicious: I reached into the mud and pulled out a long split oak stake, whose sharpened tip bore the characteristic cut-marks of a narrow-bladed Bronze Age axe, dating to around 1000 BCE. Later we discovered that it had once been part of timber platform and causeway, now known as Flag Fen.

Q How is technology changing the practice of archaeology?

Archaeology isn’t just about digging for objects. Archaeologists must also understand the potential of their finds for the study of DNA and bone composition which can reveal so much about migration and the way past populations led their lives. Every archaeologist must have a broad grasp of the potential of science.

Q You were one of the key members of Channel 4’s Time Team, which made British archaeology more accessible to people of all ages. In its absence, what should we be doing to promote archaeology, conservation, and sustainability to the public? Time Team started back in 1993. Since then, the media have evolved: books (both e- and printed) are now more important and are reaching a wider audience and bookshops have become local community centres. Social media and the internet play a huge role, too. So, I try to maintain a presence on Twitter, I have a blog, too, but I spend most of my time writing books that are aimed at a general audience. As archaeologists we should try to inspire others to share our enthusiasm for the past – I love it when students tell me they were inspired to study archaeology after reading my books.

Q What advice would you give to those aspiring to follow in your footsteps?

Francis’ next book, A Fenland Garden: Creating a haven for people, plants and wildlife, will be available in all good bookshops from 6 July 2023.

I have always believed that archaeology is too important to be taken too seriously. So, I would strongly advise anyone thinking of becoming an archaeologist to get their hands dirty on a dig. That’s also how you will get to meet and know people who share your interest in the past. You will discover their enthusiasm, even passion, for the subject while at pryorfrancis.wordpress.com