In western Eurasia we know that the earliest evidence for domestic farmyard animals occurs around 10,000 years ago. We also know that farming then spread westwards through Europe over the subsequent millennia, arriving in the far west and north of Europe some 6,000 years ago. For decades there have been major debates as to the nature of this spread, with many basic questions still remaining largely unanswered. The objective of this major research project, which has been funded for four years by the AHRC, is to address these questions. [read more]

The project promotes and facilitates research on the Italian learned Academies of the late Renaissance and early modern periods and their relationship to book production, printing and publishing in this period. The precise aim is to compile a comprehensive database of information relating to the membership and activities of Academies in Bologna, Naples, Padua and Siena and their links to the book trade as represented in the holdings of the British Library. The database is designed and developed as one of the BL Themed Collections series. [read more]

Siobhan Davies Dance Online is a project that created a fully searchable, online, digital archive of the work of the choreographer Siobhan Davies. In addition to extensive film footage of performances and rehearsals, photographs, programmes etc. [read more]

It has been argued that standing armies and professional soldiers were a phenomenon of the early modern state. There can be no doubt, however, that the period from 1369 to 1453 witnessed hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the pay of the crown. Although these dates themselves relate to the beginning and end of important phases in the war with France commonly known as the Hundred Years War, soldiers were dispatched for campaign and garrison service not only across the Channel, but also in the Iberian Peninsular, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. [read more]