What archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
I am co-directing the investigation of a series of medieval coastal
settlements along the north-west coast of England, at a place called the Wirral Peninsular (just south of Liverpool). In collaboration with Dr Sarah Semple (University of Chester), we are investigating how changes to the coastline - particularly sedimentary deposition since the 12th century AD - led to the successive abandonment of a series of coastal settlements running up a major navigable channel, the Dee Estuary.

Tell us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.
The first site I ever worked on was an 18th century shipyard in the UK, Buckler’s Hard in Hampshire. It is where many of the ships of the Napoleonic Wars were constructed, including Nelson’s ‘favourite’ ship, the HMS Agamemnon. We demonstrated that the vessels had been built in mud-lined dry-docks cut out of the riverside, with a complex system of timber supports, but what really got me was the evidence of the shipbuilders themselves: we kept coming across broken pottery, clay pipes and oyster shells. It became clear that at lunchtime, the shipwrights had simply sat-down where they were working, and had their lunch of oysters, bread and beer, with a pipe of tobacco at the end. It’s the little details of daily life in the past like this that keep me hooked on archaeology.

Tell us about a funny/disastrous/amazing experience that you have had while doing archaeology.
As a postgraduate student I was involved in fieldwork in the eastern Egyptian desert, at a site on the Red Sea coast that had been a huge port in Antiquity. We lived in a tented encampment out in the middle of the desert, with a field crew of over 40 people from all over Europe and the Middle East. I had grown up in the big city and had never been outside of Britain at that time, so the dry, desert environment and all these cosmopolitan people were an eye-opener! We also had Egyptian police on site, both to look after us (there was the threat of terrorist attack) and protect the site. I shall always remember driving through the desert in a 4WD, listening to loud rock music, while a policeman sat nonchalantly with an assault-rifle in his lap in the front passenger seat.

What’s your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
I love the mixture of the theoretical and the practical in archaeology: for example, during my stay in Australia, I spent time writing and teaching at my University, but I also spent time diving off the coast of Tasmania, recording submerged 19th century remains at Port Arthur. There are very few jobs which allow you both to get outside and do something physical, but also stretch your brain.

Follow up reading:
For more information on me, go to my website!
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/profiles/flatman.htm

See also the home-page of my new MA in Maritime Archaeology:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/maritime/masters/MA-maritime.htm