Prehistoric Burials of the Phoenix Park
The Knockmaree tomb is a well-known feature of the Phoenix Park of Dublin, Ireland such a familiar sight to visitors that it is even featured on Google Maps. A neighbouring monument uncovered at around the same time was also investigated by antiquarians, with the stones subsequently moved to the grounds of the Dublin Zoo. Little is known about the individuals that were interred within these cists as the tombs were discovered in the late 1830s, before the development of contemporary archaeological standards for excavation and analysis. This project is a collaboration between team members Jess Beck, Jessica Smyth, and Zachary Cofran, who bring together expertise in osteoarchaeology, Irish prehistory, and CT data. We combine cutting edge methods from archaeological science, including osteoarchaeological analysis, micro-CT scanning, and radiocarbon dating, to understand the identities, lived experiences, and mortuary treatment of the prehistoric individuals from the Phoenix Park. By drawing together skeletal markers of age, sex, stature, disease, and trauma, archaeological traces of mortuary treatment, and absolute dating that establishes the use histories of these tombs and their chronology relative to the surrounding region, this project will provide a window into the lives and experiences of individuals from Irish prehistory.
Mortuary Archaeology of the Râmeț Bronze Age Landscape (MARBAL)
MARBAL is a collaborative bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology project that I co-direct with Horia Ciugudean (Muzeul Național al Unirii din Alba Iulia), and Colin Quinn (Hamilton College). Our project investigates mortuary practices, identity, and lived experience in one of richest resource procurement zones in Europe. So far we have conducted:
Subramaniam, Nandini, Colin Quinn, Jess Beck, Horia Ciugudean, Claes Uhnér, and Hannah Lau. (2026). A Histological Examination of Mortuary Variability in Early Bronze Age Transylvania. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 18(170): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-026-02532-3
Ciugudean, Horia, Anna Waterman, Jess Beck, Colin Quinn, and David Peate. (2025). The highlanders of western Transylvania and their neighbors: An interdisciplinary study of the Early Bronze Age Tumulus at Meteș. In The Bronze Age at the Edge of the Carpathian Basin: Archaeological Studies Dedicated to Carol Cacso on his 80th Birthday, edited by H. Ciugudean and B. Rezi. Editura Mega; Cluj-Napoca.
Ciugudean, Hora, Colin Quinn, Clae Uhnér, and Jess Beck. (2023). From west to east: Interaction between Copper Age Carpathian communities and Yamnaya groups seen in the funerary record. In Steppe transmissions. The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe. Edited by Bianca Preda-Bălănică, Marja Ahola, Piotr Włodarczak, pp. 205–245. Archaeolingua: Budapest.
Beck, Jess, Horia Ciugudean, and Colin Quinn. (2020). A bioarchaeological approach to contested mountain landscapes in Transylvania’s Golden Quadrangle. Thematic Issue “Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes,” co-edited by J. Beck and C.P. Quinn Bioarchaeology International, 4(2): 89–110. https://doi.org/10.5744/bi.2020.2002
Quinn, Colin, Horia Ciugudean, and Jess Beck. (2020). The Politics of Placing the Dead in the Mining Landscapes of Bronze Age Transylvania. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 34: 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102574
- Pilot mapping season of the cemetery of Râmeț-Gugu in October 2016
- Three weeks of bioarchaeological data collection at the Muzeul Național al Unirii din Alba Iulia in July 2017
- Off-mound excavations at Râmeț-Gugu in summer 2018 + more bioarch data collection
- Excavations of the southwestern quadrant of the major tomb in July-August 2019
- Excavations of the southeastern quadrant of the major tomb in May-June 2022
- Excavations of the northeastern quadrant of the major tomb in July–August 2023
- Excavations of the northwestern quadrant of the major tomb in July–August 2024
- Analyses of osteoarchaeology and material culture in July 2025
Subramaniam, Nandini, Colin Quinn, Jess Beck, Horia Ciugudean, Claes Uhnér, and Hannah Lau. (2026). A Histological Examination of Mortuary Variability in Early Bronze Age Transylvania. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 18(170): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-026-02532-3
Ciugudean, Horia, Anna Waterman, Jess Beck, Colin Quinn, and David Peate. (2025). The highlanders of western Transylvania and their neighbors: An interdisciplinary study of the Early Bronze Age Tumulus at Meteș. In The Bronze Age at the Edge of the Carpathian Basin: Archaeological Studies Dedicated to Carol Cacso on his 80th Birthday, edited by H. Ciugudean and B. Rezi. Editura Mega; Cluj-Napoca.
Ciugudean, Hora, Colin Quinn, Clae Uhnér, and Jess Beck. (2023). From west to east: Interaction between Copper Age Carpathian communities and Yamnaya groups seen in the funerary record. In Steppe transmissions. The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe. Edited by Bianca Preda-Bălănică, Marja Ahola, Piotr Włodarczak, pp. 205–245. Archaeolingua: Budapest.
Beck, Jess, Horia Ciugudean, and Colin Quinn. (2020). A bioarchaeological approach to contested mountain landscapes in Transylvania’s Golden Quadrangle. Thematic Issue “Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes,” co-edited by J. Beck and C.P. Quinn Bioarchaeology International, 4(2): 89–110. https://doi.org/10.5744/bi.2020.2002
Quinn, Colin, Horia Ciugudean, and Jess Beck. (2020). The Politics of Placing the Dead in the Mining Landscapes of Bronze Age Transylvania. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 34: 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102574
Los Melgarejos
I am continuing my work in Iberia as the bioarchaeologist on the Los Melgarejos project. Los Melgarejos is an enclosure settlement from Getafe, Madrid, Spain, excavated by the firm Área Arqeuológía in 2017–2018. The site is broadly dated to the Copper Age (c. 3250-2200 cal BC), and contains seventeen mortuary features which incorporate at least 49 distinct burials or deposits of human remains, plus nine deposits of human bones dispersed throughout the site in ‘non-funerary’ contexts such as ditches or other site features. I analysed the human skeletal remains from the site in 2018 and 2019.
Related publications
Beck, Jess, Marta Díaz-Zorita Bonilla, Rosa Domínguez, Luis Hernández, Javier Escudero-Carrillo, and Pedro Díaz-del-Río. (2024). Integrating bioarchaeology and chronology at Los Melgarejos to understand ditched enclosures in Copper Age Iberia. European Journal of Archaeology, 27(4):407–430. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2024.42
Related publications
Beck, Jess, Marta Díaz-Zorita Bonilla, Rosa Domínguez, Luis Hernández, Javier Escudero-Carrillo, and Pedro Díaz-del-Río. (2024). Integrating bioarchaeology and chronology at Los Melgarejos to understand ditched enclosures in Copper Age Iberia. European Journal of Archaeology, 27(4):407–430. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2024.42
Other projects
I am currently working on a range of projects involving knowledge production in archaeology. These include a Wenner-Gren funded workshop "The Socio-Politics of Knowledge Production in Archaeology and Anthropology", co-organized with Laura Heath-Stout in 2023, as well as recent collaborative projects on archaeological publishing and trends in hiring in academic archaeology, and open research in archaeology. As part of these efforts, I am also an associate editor at the journal Economic Anthropology, where I am leading the Peer Review Committee.
Related publications
Davin, Claire, Jess Beck, and Lai Ma. (2026). Open practices, closed realities? Archaeological perspectives on open research practices. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 29(1): 219–242. https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.7833
Beck, Jess, Rowan Flad, Bridget Alex, Ari Caramanica, Andre Costopoulos, Nicholas C. Kawa, Ben Marwick, Christina Warinner, Dana Bardolph, Lewis Borck, Kristina Douglass, Alan Farahani, Mackinley FitzPatrick, Lars Fogelin, Laura Heath-Stout, Scott Hutson, Matt Magnani, Natalia Magnani, Ana Cecilia Mauricio, Lisa Overholtzer, Matthäus Rest, Daniel Scott Souleles, and Renata Verdun da Silva Carmo. (2026). Changing the landscape of archaeological publishing. Current Anthropology, 67(1): 155–180. https://doi.org/10.1086/739789
Marwick, Ben, Anne Marie Poole, Ailin Zhang, Setareh Shafizadeh, and Jess Beck. (2026). Hire ed: Job market dynamics for tenure-track faculty positions in archaeology. American Antiquity, 91(2):259–281. https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2025.10117
Beck, Jess, and Julien Riel-Salvatore. (2023). Trickle-down equity: Reply to Shott (2022). The Society for American Archaeology Archaeological Record. 23(3): 33–46.
Beck, Jess, Erik Gjesfjeld, and Stephen Chrisomalis. (2021). Prestige or Perish: Publishing Decisions in Academic Archaeology. American Antiquity, 86(4): 669–695.
Related publications
Davin, Claire, Jess Beck, and Lai Ma. (2026). Open practices, closed realities? Archaeological perspectives on open research practices. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 29(1): 219–242. https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.7833
Beck, Jess, Rowan Flad, Bridget Alex, Ari Caramanica, Andre Costopoulos, Nicholas C. Kawa, Ben Marwick, Christina Warinner, Dana Bardolph, Lewis Borck, Kristina Douglass, Alan Farahani, Mackinley FitzPatrick, Lars Fogelin, Laura Heath-Stout, Scott Hutson, Matt Magnani, Natalia Magnani, Ana Cecilia Mauricio, Lisa Overholtzer, Matthäus Rest, Daniel Scott Souleles, and Renata Verdun da Silva Carmo. (2026). Changing the landscape of archaeological publishing. Current Anthropology, 67(1): 155–180. https://doi.org/10.1086/739789
Marwick, Ben, Anne Marie Poole, Ailin Zhang, Setareh Shafizadeh, and Jess Beck. (2026). Hire ed: Job market dynamics for tenure-track faculty positions in archaeology. American Antiquity, 91(2):259–281. https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2025.10117
Beck, Jess, and Julien Riel-Salvatore. (2023). Trickle-down equity: Reply to Shott (2022). The Society for American Archaeology Archaeological Record. 23(3): 33–46.
Beck, Jess, Erik Gjesfjeld, and Stephen Chrisomalis. (2021). Prestige or Perish: Publishing Decisions in Academic Archaeology. American Antiquity, 86(4): 669–695.
