Bryony Coles

Bryony Coles is an archaeologist, formerly Professor of Prehistory at the University of Exeter and now retired. Her research has focussed mainly on wetland projects, initially in the Somerset Levels with John Coles, where her interest in the archaeology and history of beavers began with the discovery of ancient beaver-gnawed wood. In the mid 1990s she began fieldwork in European beaver territories to better understand how beaver activity might appear in the archaeological record. It soon became...See more

Bryony Coles is an archaeologist, formerly Professor of Prehistory at the University of Exeter and now retired. Her research has focussed mainly on wetland projects, initially in the Somerset Levels with John Coles, where her interest in the archaeology and history of beavers began with the discovery of ancient beaver-gnawed wood. In the mid 1990s she began fieldwork in European beaver territories to better understand how beaver activity might appear in the archaeological record. It soon became clear that beavers must have had considerable influence on the landscapes and human societies of the past . In 2006 she published Beavers in Britain's Past (Oxbow Books), which led on to research in Wales and the writing of Avanke, Bever, Castor: the story of Beavers in Wales. Professor Coles is a Fellow of the British Academy, and she has contributed to the current debates on the re-introduction of beavers to Scotland, England and Wales. See less