Principle investigator. This Post-Doctoral Research Project focuses upon copper casting processes at the Early Bronze Age II site at Khirbat Hamra Ifdan (KHI) in southern Jordan (2600-1950 BC). The data from KHI is crucial to understanding the processes of standardisation and replication which are central to the mass production of copper objects and ingots in the later Early Bronze Age. This detailed materials-based analysis of the moulds and crucibles will allow the reconstruction of ancient casting process and help us to understand the technology of both mould and cast production at a crucial stage in Old World metallurgy. This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Co-principle investigator. This project in the Faynan district of southern Jordan, one of the largest sources of copper ore in the Levantine mainland, is a diachronic study of metallurgy and its impact on societies in the Levant. The interdisciplinary research uses recent developments in paleoenvironmental studies, geology and geophysics, economic archaeology, archaeometallurgy and other fields to help reconstruct explanations which will lead toward a long-term social history of one part of the Old World. The project is affiliated with the American Schools of Oriental Research, and was funded by both public and private sources. See our publication in Antiquity 76: 425-437 (2002)

Co-investigator (with Professors G. Barker and D. Mattingly, Department of Archaeology, Leicester University and others). The projects full title is The archaeology of desertification and floodwater farming: an inter-disciplinary investigation of landscape evolution in the Wadi Faynan, Southern Jordan. The focus of the project, undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and geographers, is the long-term history of inter-relationships between landscape and people, as a contribution to the study of processes of desertification and environmental degradation. To date five seasons of fieldwork have been completed, and this project is in publication phase. The preparation of a monograph based on this research is in progress and will be published by Oxford University Press.

Iron Age Edom and Moab Project  1994-1998

Co-Investigator (with Piotr Bienkowski, Liverpool Museum and others). The objective of this project was to test the stratigraphic sequence of several sites previously surveyed by other projects in order to investigate the proposed occupation of these sites during the Late Bronze Age–Iron Age II period. The findings of the project cast serious doubt on the validity of the survey data and claims for settlement of the Edomite plateau during the Late Bronze Age and earliest phase of the Iron Age. This project was funded by the British Institute at Amman, The British Academy and the Palestine Exploration Fund. See our publication in Levant 31: 149-172 (1999)

Principal Investigator. This project undertook pioneering survey and excavation of the later prehistoric and Bronze Age settlement and metallurgical processing sites in the Wadi Fidan and developed a chronological and occupational sequence for this region of southern Jordan. This fieldwork formed the basis for a PhD thesis at Sheffield University entitled The Development of Copper Metallurgy During the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant: Evidence from the Faynan Region, Southern Jordan. The research was funded by a number of public and private funding bodies including the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History, Royal Anthropological Institute, Oxford University, The Royal Geographic Society, The British Council (ARC Program), The Society of Antiquaries of London, The University of Sheffield and the The Deutsches Bergbau-Museum