Conference Report

Current Archaeology Awards LIVE! 2025: Archaeology’s equivalent of the Oscars

Samantha S. Reiter

Editor

Current Archaeology Awards LIVE! is billed as “The UK’s favourite archaeology conference”, and it is easy to see why! See Figure 41. The topics offered are fascinating. The line-up of speakers is comprised of top-calibre presenters. With the energy and dynamism of Carly Hilts and the Current Archaeology editorial team, this heady mix makes the one-day conference and awards ceremony the archaeological equivalent of the Oscars. Well… if the Oscars had more tweed, elbow patches, and fieldwalking boots, that is! Who needs a red carpet when you have all the heart-pounding excitement of new discovery, cutting-edge research, intriguing mysteries and thought-provoking reflections? Add a healthy dose of networking with British-based colleagues over coffee and a biscuit at the archaeology fair and the suspense of finding out who has carried the day within the four much-coveted award categories, and Current Archaeology Awards LIVE! is not to be missed.

Figure 41. Current Archaeology LIVE! is (quite rightly!) billed as “The UK’s favourite archaeology conference”. Photo by S. Reiter.

The day began with UCL’s own Prof. Dorian Fuller who gave a whistlestop tour of recent and ongoing investigations of the origins of agriculture in southwest Asia and the start and trajectory of what he calls “the culture of the oven” (breadmaking). He began with an acknowledgement, arguing that the astronomical population growth from the 4-10 million people estimated to live on this ‘pale blue dot’ of ours 10,000 years ago to the 8.2 billion individuals with whom we currently share our planet is entirely due to agriculture. Because of this, modern people tend to assume that the advantages of agriculture would have been self-evident to prehistoric peoples and that the adoption of agricultural lifeways would have been rapid. However, Fuller showed that this was actually not the case in southwest Asia. In fact, the route to domestication in that region took over 100 human generations, according to the case studies he cited. As agriculture came into more frequent use, people created an environment which first changed plants (like wheat and barley). It was only subsequently that human material technology altered—e.g. through the development and production of sickles— to reflect how those plants were harvested.

Once again, Fuller’s presentation highlighted how a modern and more particularly western perspective can colour how we see the past. We assume that bread and bread-like substances must have appeared after the domestication of grains due to the high amount of energy needed to harvest wild grains, grind them into flour and bake them into bread. Surprisingly, Fuller informs us that bread production appears to pre-date wheat cultivation. In fact, the earliest bread (a flatbread) dates from 14,300 BC, making the ovens so prevalent in our Western kitchens a “legacy of the Neolithic”.

Next up was Han Li of MOLA who gave a fascinating talk about a new find soon to be announced. More about this cannot yet be revealed, as the news is hot and is still under a press embargo. As such, Li began his talk by requesting no photos be taken and no statements be made on social media in order to keep the news under wraps. (But, no worries! I spoke to him after his presentation, and he expressed interest in writing up a brief research overview for TEA, once the news comes out so watch this space!)

The last presentation of the morning block was a thrilling walk led by EAA Member and EAA Heritage Advisory Board liaison Amanda Chadburn through the monuments in and around Stonehenge relative to the sun and moon. Since at least the age of the antiquarians, people have been intrigued by Stonehenge and the mystery behind its careful astronomic alignments. Chadburn methodically took us through some of the most groundbreaking new research relating to lines of sight, and the orientations of Stonehenge and surrounding monuments relative to the solstices’ sunrise and sunset and—fascinatingly—moon rise and moonset as well. But is this famous megalithic site a calendar, as has so often been previously argued? Chadburn and colleague Clive Ruggles’ research suggests that it was not. Chadburn tartly observed, “If it was a calendar, it was a pretty poor one, as it only showed two dates!” Instead, she argued that what was more important than using the site to measure time was the more amorphous connotation between Stonehenge and the death landscape that surrounded it, putting emphasis on the longest night with the Winter Solstice and the subsequent move to renewal and new life.

Shortly after a very British pause involving tea, biscuits and books during which attendees got to rub elbows with other hungry archaeology enthusiasts and have a nose through the archaeology fair, we were back in the saddle for the second session of the morning. Helen Gittos began with intriguing and careful deliberations regarding the possibility that Anglo Saxon warriors (such as the well-known man from Sutton Hoo) may have served in the Byzantine army. As a matter of fact, Gittos quite convincingly queried whether the Sutton Hoo ‘stand’ may actually have been a Roman standard and made mention of a plethora of varied concrete examples that indicate that the Anglo-Saxon cultural tendency to, as Giottos put it “fetishize long distance amazingness” should not obscure some serious scholarly thinking about “how things got where.”

From Anglo-Saxons in Byzantium the topic turned next to a Roman monumental complex which is currently under investigation in Carlisle. Presented by Anna Giecco and Nick Henderson, the Roman Carlisle project is a community-oriented project that has been ongoing since 2017. Their warm and engaging talk was peppered with intimate details, like the dramatic discovery of the site involving a local cricket club and a very wet pitch, 13 excavations, over 400 volunteers (as of 2024), beautiful Roman stamped tiles, 75 intaglios, a still-functioning drain (!), evidence of Tyrian purple dye and the upcoming 2025 excavation of what is suspected to be a temple of Jupiter. I personally can’t wait to hear about the next episode in this project!

The third talk before lunch break was by Oliver Creighton and Alan Outram, who presented the highlights from their Medieval warhorse research project. Why study the medieval warhorse, you might ask? Well, it hasn’t been done archaeologically before and, as Creighton put it “horses were present at and major players in every major event of the Middle Ages”. To wit, they cited as the epitomization of this importance Shakespeare’s recognizable words from Richard III, Act 5, Scene 4: “A horse! A Horse! My kingdom for a horse”. Highlights for me were learning that the English word ‘chivalry’ actually takes its etymological origin from the French ‘chevalier’—meaning knight—and that medieval horses were actually under c. 14 hands height, which is the size that is today considered to be a pony. Creighton and Outram’s well-rounded and -integrated talk covered osteological examinations, studies of horse armour, horse breeding records and even visual culture in a fascinating exploration of a little-known subject. The end result? Though horses were highly revered in life during the Middle Ages, it seems that they had little value in death, often being sold for parts once they had died.

Participants were so engaged in discussion of the morning’s talks that we were still deeply embedded in conversation when we arrived at a nearby chain sandwich shop to purchase lunch. Obviously, we weren’t the only ones! Upon overhearing our discussion of Byzantine garnet scallop shell pendants and Syrian flatbreads, the cashier raised an eyebrow and said “So, how are you enjoying the archaeology conference? What we’re hearing here at the cash register sounds super cool!”

Indeed it was! The first of the afternoon’s lecturers by Rosalie David had to be cancelled due to illness, though fortunately for us, Current World Archaeology editor Matthew Symonds stepped in at the last minute with a brilliant and erudite consideration of guerilla warfare on Hadrian’s Wall, discussing the practicalities of wall building and the considerations and difficulties of making war with people who fought in “un-Roman ways”.

He was followed by Behind the Trowel’s Natasha Billson who gave a forward-thinking presentation on archaeology “from the trench to the screen”. Billson made predictions and compared the development of archaeology science communication from the days of Time Team and TV to the changes needed for new and ‘up and coming’ formats like YouTube and TikTok. In an age in which human remains are being used as ‘clickbait’, how can we balance the need to be seen and to be relevant and scientifically accuracy with the melodrama so often required by television networks? Forward is the only way to go, suggested Billson, stating also some sobering figures. Apparently, while television tops the charts as a communication medium (used by 66.8% of the global population), social media is following very closely on its heels (being used by 63.9% of the population). Like it or not, the future of archaeology will have to take the social media stage.

The third presentation block by Mark Beattie Edwards took a deep plunge—literally! His talk presented the convoluted detective trail he and colleagues followed in order to deduce the identity of a seabed anomaly discovered off the coast of Sussex. This anomaly turned out to be the Dutch ship the Klein Hollandia, which was sunk in 1672. Its sinking sparking off the third Anglo-Dutch war. Edwards took us through the dramatic discovery of the wreck and followed along in the archaeological detective work needed to identify the remains while at the same time elucidating the political currents in which the Klein Hollandia was sailing at the time of its demise, making the sinking of the ship a “British act of piracy”. One fascinating fact is that the wreck site of the Klein Hollandia has never been excavated—all the archaeological research and all of the beautiful objects that have been recovered from the wreck site were lying on the seabed excavated only by the forces of Mother Nature. As Edwards pointed out “We have a no-take policy on lobsters at the site, because it would be like stealing a JCB!”

Normally, the last talk of a conference can be a difficult spot to fill and a bit of a drag for listeners who begin checking their watches or surreptitiously texting their colleagues about upcoming drinks and dinner plans. Not so for the Current Archaeology Awards LIVE! Nick Card’s keynote on the Ness of Brodgar was the perfect end to a perfect day. From UCL he took us to the heart of Neolithic Orkney and covered 20 years of discovery at a crucial World Heritage Site between the lochs. Ness of Brodgar is almost like a tell, with cultural layers over 4 meters deep in some places and a site footprint that covers the entire peninsula upon which it sits. Although the team only just opened trench ‘Z’, Card estimates that they have uncovered a mere 10% of the total site. The mysteries of Brodgar uncovered thus far nevertheless include the ‘Greater’ and ‘Lesser’ Walls of Brodgar (fortifications), palimpsests of buildings, an alignment with the Equinox sunrise, the ashy dumps of slow cookers that Card referred to as “the McDonald’s of its day” and some unusual ritual deposits of human bone, the wing bone of an eagle and a carved stone ball. The careful design and construction of the buildings—constructed of huge slabs of stone skirting were levelled to within a few centimeters of each other, and a functional draining system had been installed around structure 27—was staggering. In fact, the slate slab roofs at the site show a technique that is still used in Orkney today, some 5000 years later. That the mystery of Ness of Brodgar has great appeal is certain; the 2020 monograph on the site is already on its fifth reprinting. Although the site was backfilled at the end of 2024 (due to the threat of weathering on the stones), the work continues, including plans to do GPR across the whole peninsula. I know that I am not alone in looking forward to learning what new discoveries lie beneath the surface.

Finally, it was time for the presentation of awards. Each year, the winners for the four categories (Book of the Year, Rescue Project of the Year, Research Project of the Year and Archaeologist of the Year) are chosen entirely by Current Archaeology readers by means of an online vote. However, once again in 2025, those winners were announced live in front of an audience of 600 attendees.

This year’s nominees were as follows:

Book of the Year

Life in Early Medieval Wales by Nancy Edwards

WINNER—Crypt: life, death, and disease in the Middle Ages and beyond by Alice Roberts

Places for the living, places for the dead: archaeological discoveries on the N25 New Ross Bypass by James Eogan and James Hession

Death in Irish Prehistory by Gabriel Cooney

Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volumes 1 & 2 (landscape, architecture and occupation/specialist reports) by M. Knight, R. Ballantyne, M. Brudenell, A. Cooper, D. Gibson and I. Robinson Zeki

Excavations along Hadrian’s Wall 2019-2021: structures, their uses, and afterlives by Rob Collins and Jane Harrison

In Search of Norfolk’s First Stone Churches by Peter Wade-Martins

Stone Circles: A Field Guide by Colin Richards and Vicki Cummings

Stonehenge: Sighting the Sun by Clive Ruggles and Amanda Chadburn

and

Exploring the Antonine Wall with Terrestrial Remote Sensing by William S. Hanson, Richard E. ones and Nick Hannon

Rescue Project of the Year

People of Ranelagh: repopulating a forgotten settlement-cemetery in Co. Roscommon, IAC Archaeology/ Queen’s University Belfast/ Roscommon County Council/ Transport Infrastructure Ireland

If walls could talk: tracing Beaumaris’ lost town defences, CR Archaeology

Piety and plague: exploring evidence for life and death in Cambridge’s Augustinian friary, Cambridge Archaeological Unit/After the Plague

Frame of reference: rare wooden funerary finds from Roman London/ MOLA

A villa unveiled: uncovering luxury living and ‘ritual activity’ in Roman Oxfordshire/ Red River Archaeology

WINNER—From stronghold to Steel City: uncovering the ‘birthplace of Sheffield’/Wessex Archaeology

Buried at Bodicote: investigating unusual inhumations at an Iron Age farmstead in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds/ Archaeological Research Services Ltd.

and

Archaeology and climate change: cherishing our archaeology in the face of environmental challenges/ RCAHMW/ The Discovery Programme/ Aberystwyth University/ Geological Survey Ireland

Research Project of the Year

The Klein Hollandia: discovering a 17th century Dutch warship off Eastbourne/ Nautical Archaeology Society/ The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE)/ Historic England

From the Caucasus to Cambridgeshire: retracing the story of Offord Cluny’s ‘Sarmatian’ burial/MOLA Headland Infrastructure/ Durham University/Francis Crick Institute

Excavations over the White Cliffs of Dover: uncovering the Second World War story of Fan Bay and its surroundings/ National Trust/ Wanstone Rediscovered Project

Signs of the tines: tracing Viking Age comb production in Ipswitch/Ian Riddler and Nicola Trzaska-Nartowski

Building Roman Cirencester and beyond: Roman tile production in the north Wiltshire countryside/Cotswold Archaeology

Underground, overground: excavating an Iron Age fogou and Romano-British remains at Boden/ Meneage Archaeology Group

Unearthing ancient Tweeddale: ‘Merlin’s Grave’ and other lost stories embedded in the landscape/ GUARD Archaeology/Arthur Trail Association

WINNER—Pioneering spirit: exploring the archaeology and history of the Glenlivet whisky/ Pioneering Spirit Project (National Trust for Scotland/The Glenlivet)

Seeking a Scottish source: updating the story of Stonehenge’s Altar Stone/ R. Bevins, A. Clarke, S. Glorie, S. Hillier, R. Ixer, C. Kirkland, N. Pearce, D. Pirrie and P. Turner

Archaeologist of the Year

Professor Julian D Richards

WINNER—Professor Joyce Tyldesley

Dr Clive Waddington

To close, TEA congratulates all the nominees as well as the winners on their success. It is a wonderful thing to have an event such as Current Archaeology Awards LIVE! in our discipline, as it certainly sparks the imagination—both academic and personal. Kudos to the organizers once again on an engaging and star-studded event! I can’t wait to see what the team does next year! See Figure 42.

Figure 42. Mine was among many happy faces at the 2025 Current Archaeology Awards LIVE!. Photo by S. Reiter.

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