Angus Mol

I am a post-doctoral researcher, specialized in the study of archaeological networks as well as the indigenous cultures and societies of the Caribbean. I have undertaken fieldwork or collection research on many of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, but my current project looks at how we can combine the archaeological theory of entanglement with methods and theories from the network sciences. Building on previous fieldwork, this is applied to a study of indigenous North Jamaica communities and their encounters with other peoples and material culture from the late pre-historic period onward.

At the core of my research is a deep-seated interest in how human beings engage each other through and because of material culture, in the process of which enduring social and material networks are created that make-up part of the connective tissue that holds human societies together. The high connectivity and multi-cultural nature of the indigenous Caribbean means it provides many opportunities to study this. Still, my interests often take me far beyond the shores of the Caribbean Sea. As such, I have also studied examples of these types of networks in other times and places, often together with regional or disciplinal specialists: from contemporary online gaming and the Beowulf poem to Çatalhöyük.

I do not only enjoy working on transdisciplinary and collaborative research projects, but also take an active interest in the epistemology of science and particularly in the issue of consilience.