2011 Hertford College Magazine (Issue 91)

Hertford year: Subjects and research
A 12,500 year old Epipalaeolithic human burial
under excavation at Grotte des Pigeons. Photo:
Ian Cartwright, with permission from the Institute
of Archaeology
this workshop were published in 2011 in a
special issue of Quaternary International.
‘A second related project concerns research
into human responses to abrupt
environmental transitions (RESET), a
NERC funded consortium grant. Work
this year in North Africa focused on the
retrieval and identification of microscopic
tephra (volcanic glass) from cave sediments
in various sites including Grotte des
Pigeons and the Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica,
Libya. As a result a number of distinctive
ash fall events (marker-horizons) have
been pinpointed which will offer an independent
method of dating human occupation
in these and other caves. In addition
to providing greater precision in dating
this technique it will also allow occupation
sequences to be accurately correlated
with detailed environmental records in sea
cores and in stratified lake muds, where the
same tephras are preserved. Hertford postgraduate
and undergraduate students in
Archaeology and Anthropology continue
to contribute to the North African projects.
This year three of our undergraduates
also assisted in Professor Mark Robinson’s
long-term excavations at Pompeii’.
Biological Sciences
Martin Maiden writes - ‘While the degree
in biological sciences at Oxford
can lead to a wide range of careers, at the
time of writing all of last year’s biology
graduates were working in biology related
areas of one form or another. There was
much diversity within this, however, with
Hertford graduates contributing to fields
as diverse as biomedical research (malaria
and hospital acquired infection), ecology,
and conservation (including mice,
wolves, coral reefs and trees!). A highlight
of the Maiden family summer vacation
this year was participating in a “rock
pool ramble” on St. Mary’s in the Isles of
Scilly led by a former Hertford student.
“ All of last year’s biology graduates
are working in biologyrelated
areas of one form or
another ”
‘The Darwin Dinner held together with
the other “Life Sciences”, Biochemistry
and Human Sciences, has become an established
annual event every February. Inaugurated
in 2009, Darwin’s bicentenary
year, the dinner is held as close as possible
to Darwin’s birthday and this year previous
graduates still residing or working in
Oxford were invited, providing contact between
the undergraduate and post gradu-
58. HERTFORD COLLEGE MAGAZINE