I am currently a researcher at the University of Granada (Programa Captación de Talento-UGR Fellows) and the lead researcher of the R&D project (2018-2020): ‘Metal y Ámbar: Modelos de Circulación de Materias Primas en la Prehistoria Reciente de la Península Ibérica’. Previously I have been the lead researcher on the SMITH project funded bytheEuropean Commission under the IEF Marie CurieAction at UCL Institute of Archaeology (2014-2016). 

My research has focused on how metallurgy and other exotic materials influenced processes of social stratification and elite emergence combining theoretical approaches with science-based techniques of archaeometry. In order to be able to perform my own analyses while keeping archaeological questions as the main focus of my research, I have been trained in internationally recognized departments of Anthropology in USA and New Zealand as well as in leading laboratories of Archaeometry in the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain. I am therefore able to conduct my own analyses on a critical manner. This main research interest has been developed through three related themes:

I. The origins and development of copper-based metallurgy and its impact on social structures

II. Silver metallurgy and the implications of its productions on elite emergence and consolidation

III. Amber provenance and exchange networks

I have disseminated the results of my research through diverse publications, many of them in journals listed in the first quartile of JCR, conferences, books and book chapters.

Página de Mercedes Murillo-Barroso en Academia.edu