Participant Info

First Name
Alicia
Last Name
Colson
Country
United Kingdom
State
Affiliation
Royal Geographical Society and Goldsmiths University
Website URL
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alicia_Colson
Keywords
archaeology, ethnohistory, Canada, hunter-gatherers of the Boreal Forest, digital humanities, archaeological theory, rock art, pictographs, history of archaeology, past, present and future of higher education in the US
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Dr Alicia Colson FRGS is an archaeologist and an ethnohistorian with a PhD from McGill (https://www.mcgill.ca/) and BA Hons. from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology). She’s the last doctoral student of the late Bruce Trigger. She’s a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths University, (London, UK) (https://www.gold.ac.uk/), Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (https://www.rgs.org/) and of the Explorers Club. She trained in academic, government, and governmental organizations in the non-profit sector in the UK, Canada and the US. She is fluent in four languages (Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese and English) and has undertaken extensive fieldwork in Canada, the UK, US, and Antigua. She’s worked as an archaeologist on rock art sites, habitation sites, human remains as well as burial mounds. She was the Chief Scientist for the Craters and Canyons Namibia in 2014 with the British Exploring Society (http://www.britishexploring.org/). Her research interests include: hunter-gatherers of the Boreal Forest, digital humanities,  higher education, archaeological theory, history of archaeology, and more recently sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently developing projects in various places globally with colleagues and is engaged in series of research and publishing projects in cognate fields. She’s finishing a manuscript on the past, present and future of higher education in the US, and writing articles on various topics in archaeology and ethnohistory.

Recent Publications

Peer reviewed:

In Press:

The Perpetual Dilemma of a Pictograph Site -Special issue of Visual Past. A Journal for the Study of Past Visual Cultures (http://www.visualpast.de/index2.html) Issue 5.1, pages not known. To be published in July 2018

An instruction manual would be perfect! An analysis of the images of four birchbark scrolls from Central North America – Anthropos (http://www.anthropos.eu/anthropos/) To be published in 2018

Published:

Sole Author:

Articles:

  1. Don’t make snap decisions about what you are ‘seeing’: How digital analysis of the images from the Canadian Shield rock highlights the difficulties in classifying shapes. International Journal of Arts and Humanities Computing 5 (1): 59–81
  2. What do these symbols mean? A critical review of the images found on the rocks of the Canadian Shield with specific reference to the Pictographs of the Lake of the Woods. Revista de Arqueologia Americana 25: 101-185.
  3. Doctoral Fieldwork in 2001. Annual Archaeological Report for 2001 (13): 80-84.

Technical and Research Reports:

26/09/2012 Content is King. Briefing Paper 230: Technical Stance. Long Point Island Publications Ltd. 212. pp.

Book reviews:

  1. Book Review of Harmanşah, Ömür, Editor, Of Rocks and Water: Towards an Archaeology of Place (Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2014 Joukowsky Institute Publications: 5, illustr., pbk. ISBN 978-1-78297-671-4). European Journal of Archaeology 18 (4): 709-715.
  1. Book review of “Graham Connah, Writing about Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 210 pp., illustr., pbk, ISBN 978-0-521-68851-2). European Journal of Archaeology 14 (3): 495-499.

2009 Book review of Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Lights of Its History edited by Schlanger, N. & Jan Nordblandh. 376 pages, 75 ills. 2008 New York: Berghahn Book. ISBN 978-1-84545-06603 American Journal of Archaeology Online Book Reviews

  1. Book reviews of Archaeological Ethics (Karen D. Vitelli and Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Editors) vii + 239pp, 2006. 2nd Edition. AltaMira Press, Lanham. ISBN 0-7591-0962-1 (hardcover) ISBN 0-7591-0963-X (paperback). 2006 and The Ethics of Archaeology. Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice. (Chris Scarre and Geoffrey Scarre, By and Edited). xi + 318pp., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2006. ISBN 0-521-54942-6 (hardcover) ISBN 0-521-54942-6 (paperback). Canadian Journal of Archaeology 32: 135-141.
  2. Book review of The Rock Art of Eastern North America: Capturing Images and Insight edited by Carol Dias-Granados and James R. Duncan. xvii+426 pages, 175 figures, 7 tables. 2004. The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa. ISBN 0-8173-5096-9. Ontario Archaeology (79/80 (double volume): 77-82.

Articles in Magazines/blogs:

November 2015 2D and 3D Digital Technologies Tools in Archaeology Decoding Digital Humanities London, [https://sites.google.com/site/ddhlondon/discussion/2dand3ddigitaltechnologiestoolsinarchaeology]

 Co-authored Works:

Articles:

September 2017 Bradley G. Hyslop & Alicia J. M. Colson It’s about time: Investigations into the interior of Canada’s Boreal Forest. Lac Seul. North American Archaeologist 38 (4): 299–326

  1. Colson, A. & R. Parry. Shifting Perspectives: Method, Media and the Complex Image. Journal of History and Computing 10 (1, 2 & 3): 100-108.

Reports:

  1. Canyons and Craters Science Report 2014, Alicia J. M. Colson, Daniel James Nicholson, Ronald Guthrie, Hannah Cooper, Louis Grove, & Sam McConnell British Exploring Society Technical Report

October 2008. Scott Hamilton, Linda Larcombe, Peter Armitage, Alicia Colson, Stanley Stephens, Dave Mackett. Report entitled “Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment of the Fushimi Road Extension, North of Hearst, Ontario. Prepared for the Constance Lake First Nation.

Contributed Work:

  1. Contributor. Global Heartlands Prototype entitled “From Frontier to Heartland”. Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Curator: Toby Higbie.

Peer reviewer 2010 – Ontario Archaeology Journal

Sole author and non-academic:

23 July 2017 Watch it as Mikael’s documentary ‘A Man with a Pram’ made me think’ [Review]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6891256/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

May 2015 That “Lost Continent” Blog belonging to Explorer Mikael Strandberg [http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2015/05/21/that-lost-continent-by-alicia-colson/]

January 2013 Internal Exploration By Alicia Colson, Blog belonging to Explorer Mikael Strandberg [http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2013/01/07/opinion-internal-exploration/]

November 2010: Alicia Colson – The costs or/and advantages of being “different”, that is, thinking differently. Blog belonging to Explorer Mikael Strandberg [http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2010/11/26/guest-writer-29-alicia-colson/]

Media Coverage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMSLlZPmk28
Country Focus
Expertise by Geography
North America, United States
Expertise by Chronology
Ancient, Pre-17th century, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
Art & Architectural History, Colonialism, Computational, Environment, Higher Ed, Indigenous Peoples, Religion, Science