13 September 2018

European Association of Archaeologists 2018

Well, another superb EAA conference - this time in Barcelona - which for me was characterised by two main strands of activity. The first, following on from last year, was developing the very exciting new 'Urban Archaeology Community' with my colleague from the Netherlands, Jeroen Bouwmeester. The second, in the wake of our exciting season at Beacon Ring, was to immerse myself in the world of European hillfort studies.


A bit of sightseeing before the conference.

First we reported progress in the Urban Archaeology Community (UAC) to the pre-conference meeting of all the Communities, which was hosted by the EAA President Felipe Criado-Boado. Felipe has been very keen to promote new communities which reflect the diversity of European archaeology, and it is very interesting to see the Association develop in this way.

Our session (on the Saturday) was intended to discuss the major issues facing urban archaeology in Europe. We had some great presentations, as you can see...


Christiane gave an excellent overview of the situation in Luxembourg, emphasising the ways in which political issues affected the ways in which archaeologists undertook urban archaeology. This was followed by a very different perspective from Malta by Smaranda, who discussed the interconnections between marine conservation and urban archaeology, and the relationships between urban places and marine pollution. She concluded by noting the important role for archaeologists on the interface between culture, society and the environment. Next, Alicia talked about the management of urban heritage from a World Heritage perspective, using the city of Toledo as a case study. She argued that archaeological voices were largely absent from touristic understandings of places, and suggested that this was an issue for archaeologists to resolve through dialogue and participation - communication was a big issue for archaeology.

This was followed by Valeria's analysis of the role of data, an Italian perspective on a universal issue. There is, she argued, too much inconsistency in the recording, storage and presentation of data - moreover most of it is inaccessible except to specialists. As a result, although there is a lot of data much of which is of high quality, it is not being used in urban design to best advantage. The final presentation was from Gugliemo, who talked eloquently about the many issues around using geophysics in urban places - with a series of case studies from the Mediterranean.

Discussion was, as ever, lively. We debated the role of the group and added some new recruits to its development and promotion. We also committed to develop the group outside the EAA meetings, and provisionally agreed to hold an interim meeting in the spring (hopefully in Rome).


Delegates at the UAC session posing outside the EAA venue.

Most of the rest of the conference was spent listening to several sessions on hillfort studies. I won't report those in detail, but suffice to say I learned a great deal about all sorts of things that I wouldn't otherwise have done. I was particularly impressed by ongoing projects in Lithuania, Germany, Spain and Ireland.

As ever it was great to meet new colleagues and catch up with existing friends and contacts. We also made a lot of progress on discussions around the role of existing groups in enabling a pan-European network of archaeologists at grass-roots levels - and I am hoping to work with DGUF to develop a project around this in the coming months.

Many thanks as ever to the organisers and the student volunteers who made this such an excellent conference. I am already looking forward to next year in Bern!




No comments: