Biography

Xurxo Ayán Vila (Galiza, Spain, 1976) is an Extraordinary Bachelor’s Degree and Doctor in History by the University of Santiago de Compostela (2012), specializing in Archaeology. He currently enjoys a research contract of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

He has been trained and has worked in five leading Spanish research groups in Management of Cultural Heritage in which it has developed in a pioneering way lines in Public Archaeology, Community Archaeology and Archaeology of Contemporary Past. He has published in prestigious reviews as World Archaeology, Journal of Contemporary Archaeology and Archaeologies. His latest published books are Arqueología: Una introducción a la materialidad del pasado (Alianza Editorial, 2018) and Altamira vista por los españoles (JAS editorial, 2015). He is currently co-director of the project International Brigades archaeological project and director of the projects Archaeology of the Spanish civil war and socialization of the heritage in the Mount of San Pedro (Basque Country, Spain) and Valorization of the Saint Lawrence hill-fort (Galicia, Spain).

Research fields

• Community archaeology
• Archaeology of Iberian fascisms
• Heritage socialisation
• Ethnoarchaeology

Selected publications

• Ruibal, Alfredo González & Xurxo Ayán Vila. Arqueología. Una introducción al estudio de la materialidad del pasado. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2018. [link]
• Ayán Vila, Xurxo M.. “Altamira 1937: Grotta Aperta—Conflict Archaeology of a World Heritage Cave,” Archaeologies 13 (2017): 250-277. [link]
• Prieto, Manuel & Xurxo M. Ayán Vila. ““Although The Loneliness is Great, Greater Yet is the Love of my Country”: Archaeology of a Military Outpost on the Topaín Hillock (Antofagasta Region, Chile),” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1 (2014): 323-350. [link]
• González-Ruibal, Alfredo, Yonatan Sahle & Xurxo Ayán Vila. “A social archaeology of colonial war in Ethiopia,” World Archaeology 43 (2011): 40-65. [link]

Main projects

• Principal researcher in the project “Archaeology of the Estado Novo” — Hosted by the IHC – NOVA FCSH and funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (CEECIND/04218/2017). 2019-
• Researcher in the project “Red Internacional de Estudios Críticos del Patrimonio Cultural del Desierto de Atacama” — Coordinated by Fernanda Kalazich (Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo R. P. Le Paige de San Pedro de Atacama, Universidad Católica del Norte) and funded by CONICYT (Chile). 2017-2019 [REDES 170225] [link]
• Coordinator of the Proxecto Arqueolóxico castro de San Lourenzo  — Hosted by INCIPIT – Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio (CSIC, Spain) and funded by the Xunta da Galiza, the Pobra do Brollón City Council, and ABANCA (Spain). 2016- [link]
• Co-coordinator of the project “The International Brigades Archaeology Project”, with Alfredo González Ruibal (INCIPIT, CSIC)  — Funded by CSIC (Spain), the University of Nottingham (UK), and the Universidad del País Vasco (Spain). 2014-2018 [link]