2019
Wednesday 16th Jan.
        Sam Leggett            ‘Food for thought: evidence for diet in Anglo-Saxon England’  
                                 
Very little is known about Anglo-Saxon food and diet, with scarce medical texts and limited archaeological evidence of plant and animal remains giving small glimpses into what was eaten in Early Medieval England. However, stable isotopes from bones and teeth can help illuminate what everyday Anglo-Saxons ate and drank. This talk explores published and new stable isotope data from Anglo-Saxon people, looking at changes in diet and mobility through time, space and over individuals’ lives. This will demonstrate how and when the English started eating fish (either freshwater or marine), and consider why this wasn’t common before the Anglo-Saxon period.
 
Sam is a third year PhD candidate in the Dorothy Garrod Laboratory for Isotopic Analysis at the Department of Archaeology and Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She’s excavated in Australia, England and Scotland, and worked on material from all over the world. Before moving to Cambridge she studied in Australia at the University of Sydney and the University of New England, with a background in immunobiology, as well as in archaeology and medieval history.

 Thursday 14th February

       Jody Joy                 ‘Shining light on an old treasure: the Iron Age hoards from Snettisham, Norfolk’
 
Over the past 60 years, astounding discoveries of precious metal objects, including torcs, bracelets and finger rings, have been made at Ken Hill, Snettisham, Norfolk. In total, 14 separate groups of objects, or hoards, dating to the second and first centuries BC have been discovered. Jody Joy is currently coordinating a major research project including a comprehensive scientific analysis of the objects and a reassessment of the site. He will discuss the results of the project, specifically the discovery of sophisticated metalworking techniques such as surface enrichment and mercury gilding.
Jody Joy is Senior Curator of Archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, responsible for British and European Archaeology. He previously worked at the British Museum, where he was Curator of European Iron Age Collections for eight years. He specializes in the archaeology of northwest Europe during the first millennium BC but his research interests also include the later Bronze Age and early Roman periods.
 
Tuesday 5th March
       Neil Wilkin              ‘The great gold torc: a 'new' Middle Bronze Age torc from near Ely’
                                        (NB venue: Willingham Baptist Church)
 
A remarkable Middle Bronze Age twisted gold bar torc was discovered in East Cambridgeshire in 26 September 2015. Weighing 732 grams, measuring 126.5 cm in length, it is one of the largest found in Britain, Ireland and the near Continent, and is regarded as the best to be found in England in more than a century. It is much larger than usual examples and is made of 730g of almost pure gold. The find was made by a metal detectorist in a ploughed field in East Cambridgeshire and was reported to the local Finds Liaison Officer. It is now on display in Ely Museum.
In his talk Neil Wilkin will highlight the skill required to make this spectacular item. He will compare it to other examples from across Britain, Ireland, and France and will then consider where the torc fits into the story of the Bronze Age, with special mention of the way fashions and ways of dressing the body changed over the course of 1,500 years. The talk will then address the big questions we all want to answer: what was the function of such a large and ostentatious torc, and why was it made and deposited, seemingly on purpose at the edge of the fens? 
Dr Neil Wilkin has been curator of Early Europe in the department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory at the British Museum, since 2012.
 
Thursday 11th April 

        Leah Damman           'All together now: analysis of human–animal burials in Neolithic Britain' 
 
In this talk Leah Damman will share with you her fascination with just how much bones can tell the story of those they belonged to – how much of the puzzle of the past they can represent.
Fragmented, mixed assemblages of human and animal bones are common in archaeological deposits, particularly in prehistoric contexts across Europe and the British Isles. Leah’s  research is focused on such mixed burials from Neolithic Britain (4000–2500 BCE), a period where not much more than the skeletal evidence remains. Standard approaches to studying human remains in these contexts yield only limited understanding of the burials; animal bones are usually analysed separately. Leah is studying both the human and animal material by using human osteological and zooarchaeological methods, combined with specialised methods such as cut mark analysis and ZooMS. The aim is to understand more fully what happened to these remains (human and animal) around the time of death, when they were buried and subsequently.
Leah moved from her native Australia to the UK to study for a Masters in Osteoarchaeology in Edinburgh. After a short spell as a field archaeologist, she took up a managerial role at Natural History Museum. Realising she’d rather be doing research than managing the researchers, she came to Cambridge where she is now in the third year of her PhD, studying her passion – bones – and the human–animal relationship in (pre)history. 
    
Wednesday 15th May
          Andy Peachey
                ‘Archaeology along the East Anglia ONE cable route: changing  the landscape  of the River Deben Valley in east Suffolk’

The excavation of a cable route to serve the East Anglia ONE off shore wind farm has allowed an unprecedented opportunity for archaeologists to investigate the landscape of the Deben Valley and its tributaries to the east and north of Ipswich.  Archaeologists have recorded remains of every period, including new evidence for late Bronze age settlement and enclosures, with field systems similar to those still present today; as well as Roman farmsteads that relate closely to a Saxon hall and village.  But most notable is a monumental prehistoric enclosure situated on a hill slope that contains a wooden trackway. The preservation of this trackway is exceptional due to the presence of springs that kept the vast ditch system waterlogged. The trackway may have acted as a platform within a monument that was designed to be viewed at the head of the river valley, with initial radiocarbon dates indicating it was established close to the beginning of the early Neolithic period, and re-laid subsequently in that period, coinciding with the establishment of agrarian communities in Britain. Prehistoric pottery is rare on the site, but other artefacts have suggested a hugely symbolic purpose.
 
Friday 14th June
           Alison Dickens         ‘Sites in a landscape: ongoing investigations at Northstowe’
                                              
The Cambridge Archaeological Unit excavations are continuing at the New Town of Northstowe. Project leader Alison Dickens will update about the latest findings on the large Iron Age and Roman settlement site (almost 1km long) on the airfield, and give a brief preview of the newest areas of investigation. The site, which is larger than Roman Cambridge, has produced thousands of artefacts providing evidence of the settlement, its industry, trade, religion and domestic life.
Alison is a senior manager at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit and has been investigating the archaeology of Cambridgeshire for over 25 years. She lives in Rampton.
 
NB: This meeting is at Rampton Village Hall, CB24 8QA
For details of how to find the hall, see http://www.ramptonvillagehall.co.uk/directions.html
 
Saturday 24th August
 FEAG visit: Church of St Mary, Houghton-on-the-Hill and Caistor Roman Town

Thursday 5th September
         Alyx Mattison               ‘Searching for the Anglo-Norman Criminal: how the Conquest affected capital punishment and deviant burial practices’
 
In this talk Alyx will present some of the highlights of her research on the archaeological and historical evidence for changes in judicial punishment and the funerary treatment of criminals evident around the time of the Conquest and explore the possible motivating factors. 
Alyx Mattison is interested in the funerary archaeology and judicial history of early medieval England, in particular the Norman Conquest. She recently completed her PhD on this topic at the University of Sheffield, using evidence from both historical documentation and previously excavated cemeteries from the late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods.
 
Saturday 28th September
Test pit excavations at Hatton Park School, Longstanton 
 
Wednesday 2th October
          Craig Cessford ‘‘Excavating Medieval cemeteries in Cambridgeshire: the After the Plague project and rural/village sites’ 
                                              (NB venue: Landbeach Village Hall)
Craig Cessford has worked in archaeology in Cambridgeshire for over 20 years with a particular focus on medieval and later urban archaeology. He is currently both a senior project officer with the Cambridge Archaeological Unit and a co-investigator on the After the Plague project at the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. His current research includes a study of the excavations of a number of rural cemeteries in Cambridgeshire from the Early Anglo-Saxon to Post-Medieval periods.
FEAG is also on facebook.  Click the link to visit our page.
 
Thursday 28 November, 7.30pm
 
‘Seeing the unseen: research into ancient Egyptian funerary culture at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge’ by Melanie Pitkin
 
Tony Cooper Suite, Cottenham Village College
 
To many people, an ancient Egyptian coffin is a mysterious container made to hold a mummified body, thousands of years old. They are often decorated with strange looking gods and enigmatic hieroglyphic signs. This decoration and text can sometimes tell us much about who the owner was. Techniques, such as CT-scanning and X-radiography to examine coffins, are now revealing unprecedented insights into how coffins were made, opening up a whole new way of thinking about the ancient Egyptian funerary industry and beliefs in the afterlife. This talk will focus on some fascinating finds made on coffins from the Fitzwilliam Museum’s collection.
Melanie Pitkin is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Egyptian Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Melanie has worked on several archaeological digs and travelled extensively throughout Egypt.
 
Followed by the AGM
 
2018
Thursday 18 January 
The Bedford Roman Villa Project: community archaeological investigations at Manton Lane and its Roman setting’ by Mike Luke
This talk will describe the discovery and give an account of the investigations to date of a possible Roman villa at Manton Lane, Bedford. Due to the unusual circumstances surrounding its discovery it has only been examined in a piecemeal manner by a mix of professional and community-lead projects. 
 The recovered evidence indicates that the site contains masonry buildings with painted walls, glazed windows and at least one room which featured an underfloor heating system (hypocaust). In addition, the presence of stucco work, a rare type of decorative moulding found at only a handful of Roman sites in Britain, including Fishbourne Roman Palace, suggests that at least one of the buildings had elaborate internal decoration. Surprisingly, very few villas have been found in the Bedford area and possible reasons for this will be discussed in the talk.
Mike Luke of Albion Archaeology provided professional help and guidance to the project. He spoke to FEAG about 'Life in the Biddenham Loop' in January 2013.
Tuesday 13 February
‘Roman glass in Londinium by John Shepherd

In this talk John Shepherd will focus on the Roman glass industry in Londinium.
John Shepherd was recently the academic consultant for the Bloomberg Mithraeum reconstruction project, having published Grimes’s original 1954 excavation back in 1998. He is currently a freelance archaeologist engaged in post-excavation analysis and publication work, mainly in London. He was at the Museum of London for 20 years, as curator of the Grimes London archive then manager of the London Archaeological Archive and research centre. Glass is his passion and he has been studying it since the 1970s. He was closely involved with identifying the evidence for the making of glass vessels in Roman London. 

Thursday 15 March

 

‘A bone to pick: (zoo)archaeology of the Cambridge region’ by Vida Rajkovaca 
Animals as economic assets and the relationship between people and animals are only a few themes central to our understanding of past societies, their diet, economy and social rituals. Basics of zooarchaeology will be introduced first, by looking at what we study and how we exploit the evidence from the animal bone. This talk will then give a broad overview of the current status of faunal record we have for the region, by discussing a range of environmental, socio-economic and cultural changes that were taking place across the region over time. 
Originally trained in Palaeolithic zooarchaeology and the Pleistocene fauna in the Balkans, Vida now works as the zooarchaeologist for the CAU. With over ten years of experience working in the commercial sector, Vida has studied assemblages from prehistoric rural settlements, Romano-British sites both within Cambridge and on the outskirts, as well as from city centre sites. Vida especially enjoys studies of butchery practices as one of the main tools to understand a range social rituals of collective food procurement and sharing. 
Tuesday 10 April
‘Before the flood: the late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the Fenland’ by Lawrence Billington
This talk provides an overview of the hunter gatherer communities who lived in and around what is now the Fenland, from the earliest colonisation by small groups of hunters at the end of the last glacial maximum (c. 12,700 BC) until the beginning of the Neolithic (c. 4000 BC). This is a timespan that saw major changes in climate, sea-levels, flora and fauna and the record of archaeological activity will be related to increasingly detailed understandings of these environmental changes. The talk will emphasise the effects of changing landscapes on the lifeways of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and explore the special opportunities that the Fens offer for studies of this period. 
Lawrence Billington recently completed a PhD on the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of Eastern England and is currently a project officer at Oxford Archaeology East
Thursday 17 May
‘Stonehenge: new discoveries’ by Mike Parker-Pearson
In the last 15 years, research on Stonehenge has revealed a wealth of new evidence about this enigmatic monument and its builders. Discoveries at Stonehenge and surrounding sites include new information of the people buried there, the houses that they lived in, and relationships of Stonehenge to its surrounding landscape. New scientific techniques such as analysis of ancient DNA and isotopes have also transformed our understanding of who these people were. Geological studies have also paved the way for archaeological excavations at some of Stonehenge’s distant quarries in Wales, to cast light on the mystery of when and why some of its monoliths were brought from so far away. Mike Parker Pearson is Professor of British Later Prehistory at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in London. Since 2003 he has been leading a multidisciplinary team investigating Stonehenge, and has also worked in many different parts of the world, from Greece and the Middle East to Madagascar and Easter Island, during his career as an archaeologist.
Monday 10 September 2018 at 7.30
'A Landscape Through Time: Archaeology of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme' by Tony Walsh
NB: This meeting takes place at Histon Baptist Church, Station Road, Histon, CB24 9LN and is a joint meeting between FEAG and the Histon and Impington Archaeology Group.
This illustrated talk explores the evidence uncovered so far, including prehistoric henge monuments, industrial Roman kilns and Saxon settlements and will focus on the eastern end of the scheme near Cambridge.
Tony Walsh, one of four Project Managers for MOLA Headland Infrastructure working on the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme on behalf of Highways England, discusses the archaeological findings from one of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects, which brings together the skills and knowledge of over 250 archaeologists.
Wednesday 3 October
‘The Relhan collection: recording south Cambridgeshire’s antiquities in the early 19th century’
by Alison Taylor
Richard Relhan was an apothecary who worked in Cambridge in the early 19th century and was able to devote time to travelling around south Cambridgeshire in a horse and cart, making water colour record drawings of attractive sites and buildings in many villages. There are over 300 of these drawings, many illustrating church monuments and scenes of topographic interest. Unusual items include Barnwell Priory and the Cellarers’ Chequer, Anglesey Abbey and Bartlow Hills. As the drawings were made before Victorian repairs etc were made to churches, and when memorials were still comparatively fresh, the drawings are a valuable historic record. They now belong to Cambridge Antiquarian Society. The University Library has digitised the drawings on behalf of the Society, whose members will prepare notes on many of the monuments recorded, and all will be made publicly available.
Alison Taylor was the first County Archaeologist for the new county of Cambridgeshire,  responsible for creating a Sites and Monuments Record, protecting sites through the Planning process, management of important field monuments,  educational programmes and extensive excavations. She wrote two volumes on the archaeology of Cambridgeshire for the County Council and was Editor of the Proceedings of Cambridge Antiquarian Society from 1996 to 2006.
(NB: Meeting at Landbeach Village Hall)

Thursday 22 November
‘Herculaneum: an archaeological postcard from the Edge’
   by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
 
2017

Thursday 19 January ‘Archaeology and genetics in Oceania: the history of humans and their crops in the Pacific’ by Andrew Clarke
 
The islands of Oceania (or the Pacific Ocean) are fascinating places to study human history. The Pacific Ocean covers one third of the Earth’s surface and, although dominated by water, contains some 25,000 islands. The majority of these islands were either inhabited in prehistory (the pre-European era) or show evidence of prehistoric human contact. Oceania is the location of some of the oldest human migration events (e.g., New Guinea) and some of the most recent (e.g., New Zealand). This lecture will describe how archaeology and genetics are being combined to understand how humans have moved across the Pacific, the tempo and mode of crop selection, and how agriculture has spread across a vast island world. Some areas of current research and unresolved questions in the human history of the Pacific will also be discussed.
Andrew Clarke is an Early Career Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.
 
Thursday 16 February ‘The Archaeology of Neanderthal Humanity: the Shanidar Project’ by Tim Reynolds
 
Tim will be talking about his research exploring the adaptations and behaviour of Neanderthals and Modern Humans against a background of changing climate. Excavations at Shanidar Cave (in Iraqi Kurdistan) have yielded evidence for occupation by Neanderthals and modern humans. A number of Neanderthal burials were recovered that showed care for elderly and injured individuals. Recent discoveries of interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans and a late date for the spread of the latter into Europe make sites such as Shanidar key to understanding the nature of Neanderthal/Homo sapiens relations and to answering the question of what happened to the Neanderthals. What was responsible for the demise of Neanderthals?
Tim Reynolds is a senior lecturer at Birkbeck College, London, and is a former county archaeologist for Cambridgeshire. He is currently preparing a book on the origin and spread of modern humans, completing work on the site of the Haua Fteah, Libya and planning renewed investigations for Shanidar cave, Iraq.
 
Thursday 16 March ‘Excavations at Northstowe’ by Alison Dickens
NB: The venue for this talk is Rampton Village Hall
 
In this talk Alison Dickens will talk about the excavations prior to the development of  Northstowe – what was found during Phase 1 and the early stages of Phase 2 and looking forward to further work. Phase 1 is on the site of the old golf course near Longstanton and the archaeology there was completed in late 2015. Evidence was found for occupation in the Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval periods. The Romano-British hamlet found in Phase 1 seems to have been a ‘standard’ Roman rural settlement, as actually a second Roman settlement has already been identified in Phase 2,  just half a kilometre away to the south and potentially around the same size as Roman Cambridge. FEAG members spent two weeks digging on part of the Romano-British settlement in 2015. As part of the second phase of excavations, there will be community work, open days, and work with primary schools.
 
Alison Dickens is a manager at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit and head of Access Cambridge Archaeology.
For more information on the site, see: https://accesscambridgearchaeology.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/northstowe-p...
 
Tuesday 4 April ‘The Twenty Pence Project’ by John Stanford
 
FEAG has been working for over 6 years at the Twenty Pence Project site near the scheduled site of Bullocks Haste just outside Cottenham. Based on our fieldwork and analysis by specialists, the site seems to have been a modest, small-scale agricultural site based on arable farming and animal husbandry. There is little evidence for structures, trade or industrial activities, though it is possible that local pottery production occurred not far away. The site was probably in use throughout the Roman period.
 
In this talk, John Stanford will present an overview of TPP activities and developments in the last 12 months and invite reflections on what the project might mean to archaeological understanding of the fen edge, its impact on FEAG and on individuals involved.
 
Thursday 18 May ‘The Sculptures of the Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral’ by Jonathan Rogers
 
The early 14th century sculptures of the Lady Chapel were intended to be a definitive statement of what a devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary should know. They were badly damaged during the 1540s in attacks on the images and practices of traditional religion. They were covered with thick whitewash for over three hundred years while the Chapel was in use as a parish church. Campaigns of cleaning, repair and conservation since the 1850s have restored the sculptures to our sight but not necessarily to our understanding: their mutilated state makes it difficult to read and appreciate them, the non-scriptural narratives that they illustrate are quite unfamiliar to many people. Even today they can be an uneasy reminder of England’s Catholic past and of its violent end. The talk will identify of some of the sculptures and describe how the tide turned from condemnation to conservation.
Jonathan Rogers is a specialised Guide at Ely Cathedral and the author of "Ely Cathedral: The Sculptures of the Lady Chapel" published in 2015 by The Ely Society. 
 
Wednesday 4 October  ‘Ouse Washland Archaeology  - Past & Future’ by Christopher Evans
 
This talk will review the more than 20 years of fieldwork in the Needingworth Quarry and what it tells of the Ouse's role in prehistory. Beyond this, it will also consider the recent findings forthcoming from the HLF Partnership Programme at both Earith and Manea. Finally, it will raise the question 'where next?' and explore possible future research initiatives.
Christopher Evans is Executive Director of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. He has worked in British archaeology at a senior level for more than 25 years. He has published widely and directed a number of overseas fieldwork projects (Nepal, China & Cape Verde), and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
  
Thursday 23 November 'Anglo-Saxon settlementalong A14 upgrade and the impending excavation of a Mercian "Kings enclsure"
 

2016

January 
‘Archaeology and Genetics in Oceania: the History of Humans and Their Crops in the Pacific’ by Andrew Clarke
April
‘Archaeology, ancient DNA and the changing nature of the horse-human relationship in Prehistory’ by Mim Bower‘
 
FEAG talk: Wednesday 13 April, 7.30 pm, Cottenham Village College (Tony Cooper Suite or Common Room, tbc)
 ‘Archaeology, ancient DNA and the changing nature of the horse-human relationship in Prehistory’ by Mim Bower
Mim Bower pioneered the use of ancient DNA in archaeology at Cambridge and has an eclectic research career including studies on the spread of agriculture into Europe and the origins of grape varieties, but the bulk of her research has been on the genetic consequences of the domestication of horses. Some of her more notable findings include the discovery of an imposter in the Thoroughbred General Studbook and the characterisation of a gene which predicts speed in race horses. This talk presents the results of a large-scale study of horse genetic diversity across the Eurasian continent and explores the changing nature of the relationship between horses and humans from Prehistory to the present day.
 
FEAG talk: Wednesday 18 May, 7.30 pm, at the Tony Cooper Suite, Cottenham VillageCollege
‘Looting Matters: Returning Archaeological Material to Greece and Italy’ by David Gill
Since 2006 several hundred objects have been returned to Italy and to Greece from major North American public collections, auction-houses and private collectors. This has been the result of research on three main photographic archives seized by police in Greece and in Switzerland. This co-called 'Medici Conspiracy' has placed the international movement of archaeological material in the spotlight.
Professor David Gill is Professor of Archaeological Heritage and Director of the Heritage Futures Research Unit at University Campus Suffolk. He was previously a member of the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at Swansea University.
 
FEAG talk: Thursday 22 September, 7.30 pm, At Willingham Baptist Church, George
St, Willingham, Cambridge CB24 5LJ
‘Landscape Survey in East Kent’ by Lacey Wallace
A large site in east Kent is raising questions about how the Roman imperial administration and military functioned in Britain. It is also shows that our categorisations of sites as ‘rural’, ‘villa’, ‘roadside settlement’, ‘industrial complex’, ‘military depot’ and ‘ritual/funerary’ are much more blurred than we might think. At this site, there are aspects of all of these categories. Its location, at the conjunction of the road that once connected the urban centre at Canterbury with the urban and military centre at Richborough and with the waterways of east Kent, was ideal for communication and transport from the Continent and to the rest of Britain. The landscape was dominated by Bronze Age barrows, which were probably of symbolic significance to the pre-Roman Iron Age population, but an enormous round barrow in this area may date to the Roman period. By the early third century, roadside industry was connected to a large storage and distribution complex with connections to the imperial administration.
Dr Wallace is a Research Associate in Roman Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. She conducts research on the archaeology of the western Roman Empire. She is currently the Principal Investigator of The Canterbury Hinterland Project.
 

FEAG talk: Wednesday 19 October, 7.30 pm, at Cottenham Village College

 

‘The International Illicit Antiquities Network: Dealers, Auction Houses, Private Collectors and Museums’ by Christos Tsirogiannis

 

Doors open 7.15 pm; meeting begins 7.30 pm

The talk will present the main members of the trafficking network dealing in looted and smuggled antiquities, contra the 1970 UNESCO convention and will highlight connections between dealers, auction houses, private collectors and museums. Christos will also make use of photographic evidence from confiscated archives of illicit antiquities dealers why antiquities should be repatriated and dealers and museum curators be prosecuted.

Christos Tsirogiannis is a forensic archaeologist researching smuggled antiquities and the market for looted cultural objects. He is a Senior Archaeologist at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. He studied archaeology and history of art in Greece and worked for the Greek Ministries of Culture and Justice from 1994 to 2008, excavating throughout Greece and recording antiquities in private hands. He was a member of the Greek Task Force Team that repatriated looted, smuggled and stolen antiquities from the Getty Museum and other collections. Since 2007, Christos has been identifying illicit antiquities, depicted in the confiscated Medici, Becchina and Symes-Michaelides archives, in museums, galleries, auction houses and private collections,  notifying the relevant government authorities.

 

FEAG talk: Thursday 24 November, 7.30 pm, at the Tony Cooper Suite, Cottenham Village College
‘Did Neolithic people really hate fish? – stories from the world of palaeodietary analysis’ by Tamsin O’Connell
Tamsin O’Connell started academic life as a chemist at the University of Oxford. The lure of applied science led her to archaeology, working with Prof Robert Hedges at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art in Oxford. She joined the Department in Cambridge in 2004 to set up an isotope and palaeodiet laboratory, now called the Dorothy Garrod Laboratory. Her research traces signals of diet and climate in human and animal tissues, using isotopic analysis.
 
January 2015

• Talk: ‘What did ancient people think about death?’ by Rob Wiseman

 
 
November 2014

• Talk: ‘Bronze Age copper mining in the British Isles’ by Simon Timberlake followed by AGM
• CAS autumn conference display

September 2014

• Talk: ‘Anglo-Saxon Oakington: settlement & cemetery in the borderlands’ by Richard Mortimer

 
July 2014

• Fieldwork at the Twenty Pence Project
• Open day at the Twenty Pence Project for the Festival of Archaeology

 
June 2014

• Visit to Pitt-Rivers laboratory, McDonald Institute, with Rachel Ballantyne
• Cottenham Festival display
• Visit to Anglo-Saxon cemetery excavation, Oakington

May 2014

• Visit to excavation at Harvest Way, Cambridge, with Rob Atkins
• Talk: ‘Fenland in the Roman period’ by Kasia Gdaniec 

 
April 2014

• Talk: ‘The Roman fort at Water Newton’ by Stephen Upex

March 2014

• Talk: ‘The Toba supervolcanic eruption of 74,000 years ago: investigating the eruption's impact on stone age hunter-gatherers in India’ by Sacha Jones

January 2014

• Talk: ‘Recent discoveries from the centre of  Londinium: The Return to Bucklersbury House’ by Michael Tetreau

 
December 2013

• Talk: ‘Common Rights and The Making Of The Medieval Landscape’ by Sue Oosthuizen followed by AGM

October 2013

• Car Dyke walk with Stephen Macaulay

September 2013

• Talk: ‘Bedford Castle’ by Jeremy Oetgen

July 2013

• Fieldwork at the Twenty Pence Project
• Open day at the Twenty Pence Project for the Festival of Archaeology

June 2013

• Digging of test pit and display at the Fen Edge Family Festival

May 2013

• Talk: ‘The Medieval Leper: the Huntingdon and Norwich Evidence' by Elizabeth Popescu
• Talk: Update on the Twenty Pence Project, including Katie Anderson’s presentation on the pottery

April 2013

• Visit to Ely Museum

March 2013

• Talk: ‘The Hallaton Treasure’ - A Late Iron Age shrine in Leicestershire by Peter Liddle

January 2013

• Talk: 'Life in the Biddenham Loop' by Mike Luke

 
November 2012

• Talk: 'The Archaeology of Medieval Children' by Carenza Lewis followed by the AGM

September 2012

• Talk: ‘Environmental Archaeology and the Roman Fen Edge, with particular reference to the Twenty Pence Project’ by Rachel Ballantyne

July 2012

• Fieldwork at the Twenty Pence Project

May 2012

• Talk: ‘Gone To Pot: How did Beck Row consume so much Roman Pottery?' by Andrew Peachey

April 2012

• Talk: 'Discovering Ancient Norton' by Chris Hobbs

March 2012

• Talk: ‘New Landscapes of the Cambridgeshire Claylands’ by Mark Hinman
• Visit to Must Farm

February 2012

• Talk: ‘The Twenty Pence Project – The Story So Far’

January 2012

• Talk: 'Drylands & Wetlands: Prehistoric excavations at Must Farm'

November 2011

• Talk about Rampton Church by Alison Dickens followed by AGM
• Presentation stand at CAS about test pits in Cottenham

September 2011

• Talk: ‘A Grave Situation: Mass Burials and Early Urbanism at Tell  Brak, Northeast Syria’ by Augusta McMahon

July 2011

• Fieldwork for Romano-British Project – the Twenty pence Project

June 2011

• Digging of test pit and display at the Fen Edge Family Festival
• Talk about the Willingham Mere Dig

 
May 2011

• Talk about the Portable Antiquities Scheme and finds management

April 2011

• Presentations on progress of the Twenty pence Project
• FEAG/Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology  Focus Group

March 2011

• A molehill survey and metal detecting on our Twenty Pence Project.
• 'Bumps, bombs and birds'  A Talk: the historic environment of the RSPB reserves by Robin Standring

February 2011

• ‘The Romans on the Fen Edge’ by Grahame Appleby from Cambridge Archaeology Unit
   

 
 
November 2010

• Visit to Cambridge Historic Environment Office.  More can be found here
• Test pits dug in Rampton
• AGM including a talk by Carenza Lewis

September 2010

• Talk: 'Geophysics: Archaeology without  digging’ by Ian Sanderson of the Archaeology RheeSearch Group

 
July 2010

• Visit to West Stow Anglo-Saxon site.  More can be found here
   

June 2010
Skills workshop
May 2010

• Talk by Gill Shapland on a Sutton community dig project to excavate a Bronze Age Round Barrow
   

April 2010

• Guided visit All Saints’ Church in Landbeach with Ray Gambell.  An article on this event can be found here.

March 2010

• Talk by Roger Palmer on aerial photography and archaeology
• Field walking in Cottenham

January 2010

• Talk by Richard Preece on archaeology in Siberia