Archaeology At The University Of Reading

If you're considering joining us to study for an undergraduate degree in Archaeology, you can register for an online information session running on Tuesday Dec 11, at 2:00 PM GMT to learn more!
Dr Aleks Pluskowski will introduce the courses we offer, entry requirements, career prospects and answer any questions you have about Archaeology and student life at Reading - sign up at the link below.
https://bit.ly/2EhuPwU

Wednesday saw the second meeting of the Department’s new experimental archaeology group, led by current PhD students Katy Whitaker, Adam Turner and Becky Scott, with flint knapping the order of the day!

Our Silchester field school appears on Digging For Britain this evening (BBC4 9pm)! The whet your appetite, here's the first of a series of little videos we made ourselves, starting with what we were finding in week 1.

An article in the Guardian today reminds us that climate change is the most urgent challenge of the 21st century: https://bit.ly/2SoFoRx.
Starting in September 2019, we're offering a new BSc Geography & Archaeology degree that studies human-environmental relationships in the past and present, to help us address the problems of the future - watch this space...

Friday link! You can learn more about early medieval Europe by taking our modules, but in the mean time... check out this amazing replica of a helmet found in Staffordshire: https://bbc.in/2Qh9dWT

Experts working to safeguard Iraq’s heritage have called on the UN’s cultural rights investigator to visit the country to help it to benefit from its ancient heritage.
A report by RASHID International, whose president is University of Reading archaeologist Professor Roger Matthews, has been submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur for cultural rights, Professor Karima Bennoune, arguing a visit to Iraq would increase awareness of the importance of cultural rights in the country, as well as provide a boost to those defending them.
Read the full story: http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-ev…/r eleases/PR788741.aspx

Professor Hassan Fazeli Nashli from the University of Tehran is with us all week as part of an Erasmus+staff exchange visit, and he'll be holding a special guest lecture in our Archaeology Research Seminar series on Friday 23rd November at 1pm on his research at the important Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic site of Komishani in north-eastern Iran.
Hassan was previously at Reading for two years as a Marie Curie Incoming International Fellow, 2012-2014, and is working with Professor Roger Matthews on the final stages of their co-authored book ‘The Archaeology of Iran: from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire, 500,000-300 BC’.
Come along to Allen lab G08 at 1pm Friday!

Really interesting piece on the potential skills gap between experimental archaeologists and past peoples, with reference to spear experiments, by Annemieke Milks from UCL (https://bit.ly/2KnfATk; and her "Sticks & Stones" blog is well-worth a regular read too) - including a shout-out to our current DTP PhD student Alice la Porta (based in Exeter) as an example of good practice!

Introducing Reading students to the joy of lithics... part of our "Artefacts in Archaeology" module - hopefully leading to lots of lithic-focused dissertations next year!

Our Coastal and Maritime Archaeology module students had a busy week last week! Students visited the Severn Estuary where Dr Toby Jones, Director of the Newport Medieval ship project, gave an introduction to research on the ship and they viewed the ship research centre. The group then went down to Goldcliff at low tide to see the Mesolithic intertidal sites, and were able to see some footprints of cranes and humans in intertidal silts, accompanied by Prof Guijun Jin, a visiting academic from Shandong University, China.
The following Saturday students also attended the annual conference of the Severn Estuary Levels Research Committee which was held at St Fagans National History Museum, which provided the opportunity to view the major new developments at the museum which were opened recently.

The Society for Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium was held last week, where five of the speakers were PhD students from the department and the two Key Note lectures were given by Professor Roberta Gilchrist and Dr Karen Dempsey. The students were also given a tour of 'Medieval Reading and the Abbey Ruins' by Professor Grenville Astill.

Dr Duncan Garrow is interviewed for the BBC Radio 3 programme 'Free Thinking', for tonight's episode on Death Rituals.
You can tune in at 10pm or catch up later at the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001419

Would any of you like to volunteer to wash a bag of flint artefacts from our exciting Mesolithic site Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Islay in the next couple of days? Is so please call in on Prof Steve Mithen (Archaeology 1.15) or Sarah Lambert-Gates (Allen lab 136). Thankyou!

Our second year medieval archaeology students went to London this week, where they saw medieval artefact collections in the London Archaeological Archive Research Centre (LAARC) followed by visits to the Tower of London, the medieval Jewish quarter, guildhall and city wall, and finally the Museum of London.

Interesting piece in the Guardian this week on news from Australia - updated discussions of the likeliest colonisation routes (https://bit.ly/2zvaFKO) and the dates of the earliest occupations (https://bit.ly/2vDfNJd).
Time for Rob to update his lecture on the H/G of the New World...!

Professor Roberta Gilchrist has been elected as an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Fellowships are offered periodically to people ‘who have achieved real distinction in his or her field’. It is a permanent affiliation based on election by fellows of the College.
Many congratulations Roberta!
You can find out more about one of Roberta's recent projects by visiting https://research.reading.ac.uk/glastonbur yabbeyarchaeology/