Toby Martin

Dr Toby Martin is a Departmental Lecturer in Archaeology. He directs the Weekly Class and Day and Weekend Event programmes in Archaeology, Anthropology and Ancient History, and he is the Commissioning Editor for short online courses in the same subject areas.

He obtained his BA in Archaeology and Anthropology as well as his MSt in European Archaeology from the University of Oxford, and studied for his PhD at the University of Sheffield. Since 2013 Toby has worked as a Research Fellow and a Lecturer at the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology. During his career Toby has also worked in developer-funded archaeology both in the field and in post-excavation publication.

Research interests

Toby’s research focuses on the early medieval period, and he is particularly interested in the social role of objects in Europe in the centuries that followed the collapse of Roman imperial rule. He has published widely in this area, looking particularly at subjects such as age, gender and identity, as well as biography and iconography. His monograph The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England looks at the role of dress in the construction of regional and gendered identities during the 5th and 6th centuries, and his edited volume Dress and Society explores cutting-edge approaches to dress items from the archaeological record from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern period. His recent British Academy postdoctoral fellowship investigated the role of jewellery in 5th- to 7th century Europe, particularly with regard to regional and supra-regional networks.