Jaris Darwin is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology.

More information about Jaris Darwin

Office days

Monday to Friday

Research

My PhD research focuses on houses and settlements in late Cypriot prehistory. The main goal of this project is to reconstruct societal organization in the Chalcolithic (ca. 4000-2500/2400 BC) and prehistoric Bronze Age (ca. 2500/2400-1750 BC) in Cyprus to understand how built space was used to negotiated inequalities. Only limited studies have been conducted on the structures of these periods, none of which span the entirety of late Cypriot prehistory nor synthesize all data from published settlement sites. My work will bring together material from all major settlements, using quantitative methods to explore architectural configurations, their impacts on community, and how they may have formed and been formed by social inequalities. I am especially interested in the application of GIS methodologies which explore connections between spatial and temporal patterns and highlight architectural shifts. I will also analyze social inequalities and community heterogeneity by utilizing Gini coefficients for all socioeconomic markers, working to understand the way distributions of wealth may have varied across different social spheres.

My research centres around the concept of place-making, emphasizing the inherent relationality of Cypriot settlement space while avoiding artificial dichotomies and frameworks which rely too heavily on 21st century paradigms (ie. the property paradigm). The quantitative methods of my PhD will be supported by a qualitative study to contextualize results like Gini coefficients, which act like averages and need to be considered carefully to understand the underlying nature of what they represent. A theoretical framework which highlights the entanglements of built architecture, artefacts, and the humans who made and used them will be incorporated throughout my project. This will enable me to more easily work with and bring together settlement data from two periods of Cypriot prehistory which differ widely, prioritizing a nested approach to settlement contexts through time.

Curriculum vitae

I obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Thompson Rivers University (2018-2021), specializing in history and political studies. I graduated at the top of my class from the University of Cyprus (2023-2025) with a Master of Arts degree in Maritime and Landscape Field Archaeology. My MA research used GIS to analyze Late Bronze Age stone anchors at the harbour city of Kition, looking to understand temporal shifts in maritime rituality at the site. As a member of the Inequal Cyprus project, my PhD research continues this focus on temporal change and digital archaeological approaches, now in settlement and domestic contexts of prehistoric Cyprus.

I have worked at a wide range of sites in Cyprus, including the Late Bronze Age tombs of Hala Sultan Tekke, the Chalcolithic settlement of Chlorakas-Palloures, and the Ottoman-period Nissia shipwreck; my professional and field experience outside of Cyprus includes excavation supervision in Iraqi Kurdistan and museum work in Canada. I have also been employed as research and teacher’s assistants in both Canada and Cyprus, working on psychology, history, and archaeological projects.