Dr Matthew Knight

Dr Matthew Knight

Senior Curator, Early Prehistory

Responsible for: Chalcolithic and Bronze Age collections

Research interests: The production, use and deposition of Bronze Age material culture particularly metalwork; the deliberate destruction of Bronze Age objects; the relationship between memory and material culture in prehistory.

E: m.knight@nms.ac.uk

Matthew is a Senior Curator of Prehistory responsible for the Scottish Chalcolithic and Bronze Age collections. He is also responsible for the Scottish archaeological human remains collections.

His research is largely focused on Bronze Age material culture, predominantly metalwork and depositional practices. He is interested in how people engaged with their materials in the past, particularly the treatment of objects before and during deposition. He has explored this in his research through the themes of memory, identity, and object biography, as well as undertaking experimental activities to better understand prehistoric processes.  

As part of his responsibility for the archaeological human remains collections, Matthew regularly engages with research undertaking radiocarbon dating, isotopic analysis and ancient DNA analysis, publishing annual results in Discovery and Excavation in Scotland. 

His current research focuses include: 

• Interactions with the past in the past, particularly rediscovered and curated objects 
• The collection and treatment of objects prior to deposition, particularly focusing on hoards 
• Reconsidering older discoveries in light of new data and new perspectives 
• Burial practices in Bronze Age Scotland 

Matthew completed his BSc and MA at the University of Exeter between 2009 and 2014, during which he explored links between Bronze Age metalworking evidence, settlement activities and the landscape setting of metalwork hoards in Devon and Cornwall, as well as the phenomenon of older Bronze Age objects found in later Bronze Age hoards and settlements across southern Britain. This latter research has recently expanded to incorporate heirlooms and other ‘out-of-time’ objects from across Britain and Europe and throughout prehistory, resulting in an edited volume published in 2019: Objects of the Past in the Past. 

In 2018, he submitted his PhD thesis to the University of Exeter: The Intentional Destruction and Deposition of Bronze Age Metalwork in South West England. This research involved an experimental programme analysing the deliberate destruction of swords, spears and axeheads to better understand what skills and equipment were necessary to undertake this practice. This allowed Matthew to reconsider and reinterpret a range of artefacts from a practice-based perspective, to better understand why objects were treated in this way. Several articles have been published from this PhD, as well as a monograph on this topic in 2022, entitled Fragments of the Bronze Age. 

From 2018-2019, Matthew was involved in the international collaborative project led by National Museums Scotland and Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museums Wales: Gold in Britain's auriferous regions, 2450-800 BC, contributing to the corpus of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age gold artefacts and regularly posting on key finds from the region. 

He is currently working on newly found metalwork hoards, as well as reanalysing historic discoveries of hoards from Scotland. He is currently working towards the publication of the Duddingston Loch weapon assemblage, the first donation to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 

Matthew is keen to make his work publicly available and disseminates regularly through blog posts, as well as speaking at local and international societies and conferences.