This is a story about how the war in Ukraine was used to gain attention, without apparent regard to the harm it is/will cause. While I do share some information obtained while working as the Deputy-CEO of FAME, everything presented here are my own thoughts and not that of any of my employers. Bad Ideas After I posted about how getting refugees on work visas is bad, I reached out to those pushing and asked them to stop. They claimed it was never their intent, and that it is to encourage organisations to help archaeologists to join the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (USS). After reviewing that idea ..read more

On Twitter, several people have started a pressure campaign on CBA (Council for British Archaeology), CIfA (Charter Institute for Archaeologists) and FAME (Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers) to do more about Ukraine. I am going to side step lots of issues around that idea e.g. the racism involved in only advocating jobs for “white” people, etc. and focus on one of their demands – getting Ukrainian Archaeologists visas to work in the UK. Why just this problem? Well, it is coming up a more recently with world events and the points raised here applies to everyone trying to advoc ..read more

The Roman Rural Settlement Project in 2016, and other methodological studies (including the Review of the Standard of Reporting on Archaeological Artefacts in England report) have identified problems with re-using the data collected by archaeologica investigations from grey literature reports. Interim results from the Historic England funded Digventures/CIfA ‘Digital standards for archaeology’ project’s Dig Digital Survey suggest only 12% of respondents have completed metadata tables.This workshop poses the question: if metadata is a barrier to deposition, can we solve this by creating a minim ..read more

Engaging local communities is part of the remit of many development-led archaeological investigations, whether through open days, site visits, active participation, school outreach and evening talks. This engagement varies but its underlying aim is to support the understanding and enjoyment of the communities’ local historic environment. However, this is almost always short term, project focused and limited in terms of scope and impact – when the dig is over, the engagement is over. Often the only legacy is a box of finds deposited with a local museum.What happens with the communities that mov ..read more

This session is designed to highlight early career researcher’s work in various area of archaeology (including Marine/Maritime,Finds and Heritage Management) and to look at collaborative research being undertaken by early career professionals in the academic, public, commercial and voluntary sectors. Papers may focus on specific sites, methodologies, processes, artefacts or indeed, personal career journeys. The presentation of papers will be immediately followed by a networking session intended to be an open forum and to provoke discussion on values, benefits and legacies. During this session ..read more

We all tell stories; they are fundamental to constructing identity, as individuals, communities and nations, linking people to place and shared experiences. At the same time, heritage and archaeology are powerful sources of inspiration for many other sectors, such as art, engineering and architecture, which have used history as creative inspiration. This raises the question of how we present the material past; what stories do we tell, how do we tell them, to whom and to what purpose? This session will explore the creative and innovative ways that archaeologists can work with other sectors to p ..read more

In 2011 the UK Marine Policy statement clearly stated a view, shared by all UK Administrations, that heritage assets should be conserved through marine planning and that, opportunities should be taken to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of our past by capturing evidence from the historic environment and making this publicly available. Coupled with massive growth in offshore development in recent years, these steps forward in marine planning have resulted in the production of an enormous body of archaeological data, entirely funded by developers. Using both case studies and theoret ..read more

Since its inception as a scientific discipline archaeology has dealt with many challenging theoretical concepts. Among these the idea of landscape have seen significant debate from its earlier conception in processual archaeology. Today the study of landscape is accepted as an interdisciplinary field within archaeological research that brings together concepts and methods from a wide range of other disciplines ranging from geomorphology and ecology to cultural geography, performance theory and the arts. With this session, we would like to explore from concrete case studies the many possible wa ..read more

Within archaeology a degree of epistemological division still persists between ‘two cultures’ – with science and theory often poorly integrated in archaeological studies. However, as we experience archaeology’s third scientific revolution, driven largely by the increased application of biomolecular methods, the theoretical power of scientific and technological data is becoming increasingly apparent. As such, it is now important for the theorist to engage with scientific and technological approaches, and for the scientist to engage with theoretical frameworks. Can the gap between these ‘two cul ..read more

This session will focus on artefacts, and their journey from discovery to display. We invite papers that discuss this journey and the biases affecting finds and how they are interpreted, used and/or displayed. Practical frontiers are encountered when caring for our artefactual past as curators, while finds specialists often encounter the interface between the hobbyist and the archaeologist, the recorder and the researcher. Biases can also be inherited: our approach being strongly influenced by past methods of collection, past interpretations, political discourses, and earlier research goals. W ..read more