Melanie Giles

Career

Giles' initial research looked at British Iron Age communities, especially the square barrow burials of East Yorkshire, resulting in her major monograph A Forged Glamour. The book combined evidence for landscape management and mobility, aspects of community, power and personal biography, approached through the study of material culture including Iron Age mirrors, swords, shields and jewellery. The book was described as "a model of how big questions can be addressed by close attention to the archaeological data". More recent work has addressed disease and violence in Iron Age Britain, and their relationship with funerary behaviour and mortuary treatment. Giles is a member of the Bog Body network, and has undertaken research on Iron Age bog bodies. She has also undertaken the study of material culture, including the aesthetics of martial objects, and the symbolic aspects of ironworking technology. Giles has also undertaken research on industrial archaeology, including horse lads in East Yorkshire, and the Whitworth Park Community Archaeology and History Project.

Giles joined the University of Manchester after having taught at University College Dublin and the University of Leicester.

In 2016, Giles was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA). In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. She was promoted to Professor in European Prehistory in January 2023.