Harold Mytum’s research interests concentrate on the archaeology of western Britain and Ireland from the Iron Age to the present, and aspects of global historical archaeology (17th-20th centuries). He directs an annual archaeological field school (Ireland and Wales or the Isle of Man).
Iron Age and native Roman period research concentrates on materiality and enclosure (hillforts, especially Castell Henllys, and farmsteads), and experimental archaeology (roundhouse, four-poster reconstructions) in the context of site interpretation. He investigates the 'Long Iron Age' (late Bronze Age to early medieval on the Isle of Man), and the origins of nucleation and urbanism in Ireland through geophysical and surface survey of monastic settlements.
Harold’s historical archaeology research examines identity and memory through settlement and mortuary evidence from not only Britain and Ireland but also North America and Australia. He is also exploring the interface between archaeology and cognate disciplines including anthropology, oral history, folk life studies, vernacular architecture, and landscape history. One current research project involves the materiality of 20th-century internment, co-organising a major interdisciplinary conference in 2010; and it forms part of an on-going interdisciplinary research project on World War 1 and its impact on the Isle of Man.
Harold is also researching artefact biography as an approach and exploring new ways of writing archaeology.
