Career
As a graduate of the Institute of Archaeology,University College London,he subsequently worked as a field officer for UCL's Field Archaeology Unit and a Project Manager for the Oxford Archaeological Unit. In 1993,he joined the staff of Bournemouth University,where he is a senior lecturer,subsequently conducting fieldwork on various projects across southern England,Wales,Scotland,the Isle of Man,Sicily,Germany and Russia. [4] He obtained his PhD from Bournemouth University on the Neolithic monumental architecture of the South Downs in 2000 and became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2006. He is director of Regnum:the First Kingdom [5] and co-director of the Durotriges Project, [6] both investigating the transition from the Iron Age to the Roman period as well as coordinating projects into Neolithic Flint Mines, [7] Piltdown Man, [8] The ‘Face’of Roman Britain [9] and the Lost voices of Celtic Britain. [10]
Russell organised and chaired the session 'When Worlds Collide:Archaeology and Science Fiction' at the 1997 Theoretical Archaeology Group conference held at Bournemouth University. Author Douglas Adams,who had been invited to attend,wrote the preface to the book 'Digging Holes in Popular Culture' published by Oxbow Books in 2002,which was derived from the conference. [11]
In 2003,Russell published the results of a three-year project investigating the Piltdown Man hoax,which strongly implied that the perpetrator of the fraud was the 'finder' Charles Dawson. In 2008,he co-directed excavations within Stonehenge with Professor Tim Darvill and Professor Geoffrey Wainwright. In 2013,Russell and colleague Harry Manley identified a fragment of a Roman statue,previously known as the "Bosham Head," as representing Emperor Trajan. [12] Russell and Manley have also identified a damaged statue of the young emperor Nero from Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex and have tentatively identified a Roman statue held at Petworth House representing Emperor Nero. [13]
In 2017,Russell published the first results from the Lost Voices of Celtic Britain Project,reassessing the archaeological content of the 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. [14] A forensic examination of Geoffrey’s Historia Regum Britanniae has demonstrated the text was compiled from a variety of early British sources,including oral folklore,king-lists,dynastic tables and bardic praise poems,some of which date back to the first century BC. [15] In deconstructing Geoffrey’s text,Russell has argued that the origins of King Arthur emerge as a composite ‘Celtic Superhero’created by Geoffrey from five separate characters. [16] [17]
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