| Office | NAH 411 |
|---|---|
| Office Tel. | 3943 7663 |
| mickatha@cuhk.edu.hk | |
| Educational qualification | BSc University of Bradford MA & Ph.D. University of York |
Introduction
My academic / professional career has spanned the hard and social sciences and I received my doctorate from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. My rich and varied archaeological career has taken me to all parts of the UK, the Channel Islands, Germany and, for the last eleven years, to Hong Kong, where I have directed field research of many types and in many periods as a licensed archaeologist. My sciences background, fascination with human interactions with environment, archaeological experiences in Hong Kong, and 9 years spent at CU surrounded by anthropologists have fostered a quite polymathic interest in a diversity of approaches to the study of people, communities and societies now and in the recent and more distant past. My teaching, research and publications therefore embrace the hard and social sciences, landscape studies, and a diversity of different aspects of the archaeology and cultural heritage of past communities in Hong Kong, South China and beyond.
Research interests
Bronze Age to Tang dynasty Hong Kong, landscape approach to archaeology, archaeological ceramics, landscape ephemerality, ground penetrating radar (GPR), production and trade of copper alloy objects in Bronze Age Lingnan, social landscape perspectives, Hong Kong’s historic landscapes.
Geographical areas of research
Hong Kong, Mainland China, Southeast Asia, Western Pacific
Courses taught
ANTH 2720 / 5730 Archaeology of Hong Kong
ANTH 3770 / 5770 Making Places: Landscapes, Culture and Society
ANTH 3780 Archaeological Field Methods
Current research
Reconsidering the nature of Eastern Han period indigenous society in Hong Kong (with Kennis Yip).
Archaeometallurgical research into Bronze Age copper alloy production and distribution in Lingnan (with Francis Allard and Wengcheong Lam).
The accommodation of ephemerality in conceptions of landscape as heritage (with particular regard to the installations associated with traditional Chinese religious festivals).
Bioarchaeological investigation of Hong Kong’s recent historical lime industry (with colleagues in the Swire Institute of Marine Science, HKU
Exploring ground penetrating radar (GPR) responses to different archaeological materials (with colleagues at Polytechnic University).
Other interests
Playing football, Leeds United Football Club, Yorkshire County Cricket Club, nature watching, listening to music.
| 2019 | ‘Ephemeral Landscapes’, in Howard, P., Thompson, I., Waterton, W. and Atha, M. (eds) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. |
| 2019 | (Co-authored with Peter Howard, Ian Thompson, and Emma Waterton). ‘Introduction’, in Howard, P., Thompson, I., Waterton, W. and Atha, M. (eds) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. |
| 2019 | (Co-edited with Peter Howard, Ian Thompson and Emma Waterton). The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. |
| 2018 | (Co-authored with Kennis Yip (葉可詩)). 南丫沙埔拼圖：考古調查與景觀重建 (Chinese version of Piecing Together Sha Po) |
| 2017 | ‘Pak Kok Tsui, Lamma Island: Survey-cum-Excavation, Nov-Dec 2014’. Journal of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, Vol.17: 65-74 [南丫島北角咀2014年考古調查發掘] |
| 2017 | (Co-authored with Kennis Yip (葉可詩)). ‘San Tau, Lantau Island: GPR Surveys and Excavations, Nov-Dec 2011 and 2012’. Journal of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, Vol.17: 47-64 [大嶼山䃟頭2011及2012年透地雷達勘察暨考古發掘] (in Chinese). |
| 2016 | (Co-authored with Kennis Yip) Piecing Together Sha Po: Archaeological Investigations and Landscape Reconstruction, Hong Kong: HKU Press. |
| 2016 | (Co-authored with Wallace Lai and Ray Chang) ‘GPR Surveys and Excavation Ground-Truthing at the San Tau Backbeach Site, Hong Kong’. Proceedings of the GPR2016 Conference. Online publication in IEEE Xplore. |
| 2014 | ‘A military and civilian cemetery of the mid to late Tang maritime trade? Ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys and excavations at San Tau, North Lantau, Hong Kong’. In Siu, S.S.K., Yau, R.S.K., Chow, J.C.L., Wong, P.S.H. and Kwok, H.C. (eds) Collected Essays of the International Conference on Historical Imprints of Lingnan: Major Archaeological Discoveries of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. Hong Kong: Museum of History, pp.176-217. |
| 2012 |
‘A neglected heritage: towards a fuller appreciation of the landscapes and lifeways of Hong Kong’s rice farming past’. Asian Anthropology 11:1, 129-156. |
| 2012 | (Co-authored with Steve Roskams) ‘Pre-Medieval Transitions at Wharram Percy’ in Wrathmell, S. (ed) Wharram: A Study of Settlement on the Yorkshire Wolds, XIII. York: University of York Press, pp. 63-82. |
| 2018 | ‘Benefits of a Landscape Approach to the Understanding & Conservation of Archaeological Sites’, presented as an invited international scholar at the 4th Conference on Chinese Cultural Studies: Urban Archaeology of the Zhou Dynasty and Conservation of Major Sites, Department of History, Zhengzhou University and Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, Zhengzhou, Henan, China, 20/09/2018. |
| 2018 | (Co-written with Kennis Yip) ‘Sha Po Tsuen: A Multi-period Coastal Landscape in Hong Kong’, presented in a panel chaired by the writer entitled: East Asian Archaeologies of Landscape: Recent Perspectives, Future Prospects, at the 8th Conference of the Society for East Asian Archaeology, School of History, Nanjing University, China, 10/06/2018. |
| 2018 | ‘Social landscape perspectives on Bronze Age coastal societies in the Pearl River region’, presented at Reimagining Early Lingnan: A Workshop on Important Archaeological Discoveries and Interdisciplinary Research in the Recent Years, Departments of Anthropology and History, CUHK, 18/05/2018. |
| 2016 | (Co-written with Wallace Lai and Ray Chang). ‘GPR Surveys and Excavation Ground-Truthing at the San Tau Backbeach Site, Hong Kong’, presented at the 16th Conference for Ground Penetrating Radar, Department of Land Surveying and Geo-informatics, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, 15/06/2016. |