Dr Rosie Luff

Dr Rosie Luff graduated from the University of St Andrews as a zoologist in the 1970s, and subsequently used her knowledge to help pioneer a new subdiscipline of archaeology: zooarchaeology.

Having gained a doctorate in this specialism at the University of Cambridge in the early 1980s, she directed a research unit within the Department of Archaeology from the ’80s to ’90s, which was responsible for advising on the excavation and analysis of animal and human remains from archaeological sites in eastern England, covering the prehistoric, Roman, and medieval periods.

Invited to Egypt to aid the recovery and analysis of faunal remains (fish, bird, and mammal) from Tell el-Amarna (Eighteenth-Dynasty city and Late Antique monastery), she later ran a collaborative, environmental enterprise comparing the use of aquatic resources (as opposed to terrestrial ones) among the city, monastery, modern-nearby Minya, and other archaeological sites along the Nile.

Dr Luff has analysed a huge amount of butchered animal and human bone, both in Britain and Egypt, and she became a recognized expert on the identification of cut marks in bone, acting as a consultant on forensic matters. Working on monastic material in Egypt stirred an interest in early Christian sites in Israel. This resulted in a research project using documentary and archaeological evidence to investigate the degree of discontent experienced by the people at the time of Jesus (The Impact of Jesus in First-Century Palestine, Cambridge University Press 2019).

Passionate about promoting excellence in academic writing, since 2003 Dr Luff has taught Academic English at postgraduate level at the University of Cambridge, in particular Clare Hall. She has been a Fellow at Clare Hall since 1988, having progressed from Research and Official Fellowships to an Emeritus Fellowship. She has also held the college positions of Steward, Librarian, Graduate Tutor, Communication Skills Tutor, and Acting Senior Tutor.