Sussex Archaeology and History Ltd
Lectures, Conferences, Courses and Study Tours in Sussex and beyond
ONLINE ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Our online archaeology lecture series (previously USAS) runs from September 2025 through to March 2026
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Our annual subscription for 2025/2026 is just £18, which will entitle you to receive a link to the recordings of the archaeology lectures (provided we have the permission of the speakers). In addition, subscribers will this year also have access to the online lectures being organised by the Roman Studies Group of the Surrey Archaeological Society, and hopefully too some online lectures of the local National Trust Changing Chalk Project. There will also be discounted entry to our conferences and study days.
** Please note that the date of our March lecture has changed from 18th to 25th **
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or contact us for more information admin@sussexarchaeology.co.uk
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Details of our forthcoming online archaeology lectures for 2025/2026
Wednesday 18th February 2026
SAH Online Archaeology Lecture
7.30pm
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The Biology of Books
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Speaker: Dr Sean Doherty
(University of Exeter)
For millennia, parchment (animal skin) has been viewed principally as a writing surface, valued for the text it carries rather than for its own material history. Recent advances in archaeological science, including palaeoproteomics, stable isotope analysis, and ancient DNA, now reveal parchment to be an extraordinarily high-resolution biological archive through which centuries of craft, trade, and livestock economies can be explored.
This talk will detail how these approaches allow books to be reinterpreted as biological resources, preserving information about animal species, breed, health, origin, climate, and management, as well as evidence relating to the manufacture, trade, and use of these texts. By integrating molecular and imaging methods with traditional codicology and historical sources, parchment emerges as a cultural artefact that bridges the humanities and sciences.
About the speaker:
Dr Sean Doherty, University of Exeter
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Dr Sean Doherty is a Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and History at the University of Exeter. His research explores past human-animal relationships through the combination of biomolecular analyses (aDNA, isotope analysis, and radiocarbon dating) with evidence from history, anthropology and cultural geography.
Wednesday 25th March 2026
SAH Online Archaeology Lecture
7.30pm
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40 Years of World Heritage in the UK -Challenges and Opportunities
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Speaker: Chris Blandford
(President World Heritage, UK)
The protection of the UK’s 35 World Heritage Sites (WHS) over 40 years reflects a commitment to the principles set out in the 1972 Convention and the need to adapt this to changing national planning, economic, and conservation priorities. From the early iconic monument WHSs, the UK list has evolved to include more extensive, diverse, and complex cultural landscapes and cityscapes. Improved approaches to management, partnership, and stakeholder involvement have in part been successfully achieved to support these. However, significant challenges remain: the low awareness of World Heritage values, reduced public spending, and increased pressures for change and development in WHSs and their buffer zones. The WHSs as a whole have become a central part of the national cultural inheritance and have a significant contribution to make in local regeneration and Britain’s future on the world stage. However, a more coherent strategy and vision to promote their role as global assets and to ensure sustainable management in the future is critically needed.
About the speaker:
Chris Blandford, President, World Heritage UK
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Chris is a World Heritage Specialist, Master Planner and Landscape Architect whose career spans 60 years. He trained as a landscape architect and environmental planner in both the UK and the USA and established the CBA Studios Consultancy in 1977. Over the next 40 years his visionary and influential work for private and public clients attracted many awards for excellence and innovation in landscape planning and design. During the 2000s Chris led the international work of the practice in the Middle and Far East, India, and the North Africa.
During the 90s and beyond Chris became increasingly involved with the now more strongly emerging heritage conservation sector. Working at different scales, he undertook a variety of roles including leading projects for the restoration, conservation, and management of historic landscapes or destinations on the one hand, while providing strategic and policy advice to government and agencies on the other. Much of his work in this period was focussed on the nomination, management, and planning of over 25 potential and actual World Heritage Sites in the UK and Overseas – driven by a passion and deep commitment to the World Heritage concept which continues to the present day.
Following retirement in 2017 and in a voluntary capacity, Chris has continued to work in the charitable sector proactively providing leadership, technical, management, and advocacy advice to NGOs and on their behalf to Government Departments. These organisations and roles include World Heritage UK (President), The Gardens Trust (Trustee), the Design Review Panel of the South Downs National Park (Vice Chair), and the European World Heritage Associations Network (Founding Member . In 2025 on behalf of World Heritage UK Chris was appointed to the Council of the National Trust.
Chris was awarded an OBE in 2024 for his services to the World Heritage sector.
Lectures which have already taken place this year (2025-2026)
Wednesday 21st January 2026
SAH Online Archaeology Lecture
7.30pm
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Rural Baths in Roman Britain:
A Colonisation of the Senses
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Speaker: Dr Giacomo Savani
(University of Leeds)
Classical archaeology is currently experiencing a spatial and sensory turn, with scholars trying to interpret the range of sensory experiences connected to ancient practices and spaces. Compared to other structures, baths, an essential component of the 'Roman way of life', have so far received comparatively little attention. In this paper, I will explore the potential of applying a sensory approach to the study of rural baths in a precise geographical and chronological context: South-East England in the century or so after the Roman conquest.
As Yannis Hamilakis recently demonstrated, the senses are deeply connected with memory and feelings. Once new feelings become familiar and our sensorium is enlarged, this provokes a slow but steady modification in our perception of self and others. This phenomenon could be labelled a 'colonisation of the senses', a fascinating concept that has never been adequately explored in the literature. In some rural areas of South-East England, the bathing ritual might have acted as a bridgehead for this process.
This talk will discuss the nature of this exchange, investigating the role that bathing practices and the sensory elements associated with them had in constructing a 'middle ground' in the newly conquered province. Furthermore, by reading these buildings as 'sensorial assemblages', I assess their shifting function within the increased elite competition that characterised this early transitional phase. Instead of viewing rural baths as merely a prerogative of the elite, I will suggest that some of them might have been accessible to at least a part of the rural population living in the surroundings of villas, potentially influencing and affecting the lives and identities of a far larger group of people than previously thought.
About the speaker:
Giacomo Savani (University of Leeds)
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Dr Giacomo Savani is a Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leeds. His research explores the spread and adoption of Roman culture across different spaces and times, focusing on Roman material culture – especially baths and bathing – as a vector and an expression of political, social, and cultural relations. Before starting at Leeds in September 2024, he completed his PhD in Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester in 2017. Subsequently, he held an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship in the School of Classics, University College Dublin (2019–2022), a Royal Society of Edinburgh Saltire Early Career Fellowship in the School of Classics, University of St Andrews (2022–2023), and a Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at the School of History, Ca'Foscari University of Venice (2024).
Wednesday 19th November 2025
SAH Online Archaeology Lecture
7.30pm
THE SALLY CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURE 2025
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Monuments in Action: the ‘Medway megaliths’ and the making of new worlds
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Speaker: Paul Garwood BA, MSc
(University of Birmingham)
The unique group of megalithic monuments in the Medway valley in Kent includes some of the earliest built structures with surviving architectural features in the British Isles. Surprisingly, despite frequent mention in antiquarian and archaeological literature since the 16th century, these extraordinary sites have been subject to little investigation, and most recent interpretations simply relied on analogies with Severn-Cotswold tombs in western Britain. It is now clear, however, especially as a result of High Speed 1 fieldwork, new analyses of the Coldrum human remains, and new evidence generated by the Medway Valley Prehistoric Landscapes Project, that these interpretations are no longer tenable. This talk will redefine the ‘Medway megaliths’, their cultural landscape settings from the 41st to the 35th century BC, and their roles in the creation of the first farming societies in Britain.
Coldrum
About the speaker:
Paul Garwood BA, MSc (University of Birmingham)
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Paul Garwood is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Birmingham, specialising in European Neolithic and Bronze Age studies and funerary archaeology. His career spans both the commercial and academic sectors, including 20 years as a field archaeologist and consultant working for organisations such as the Museum of London, College Lecturer in Archaeology & Anthropology at Keble College and University Lecturer at Oxford, before appointment as Lecturer in Prehistory at Birmingham. His recent publication projects include surveys of the earlier prehistory of High Speed 1 and South-East England, and he is director of several field projects, including Medway Valley Prehistoric Landscapes and Stonehenge Landscapes EMI.
About Sally Christian
Sally developed a passion for archaeology as a mature student at the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) at the University of Sussex. Before her death, due to cancer, whilst still studying at CCE, Sally very generously established at Sussex University a Fund to help finance similar part-time older students, and also sixth-formers wishing to experience some archaeology before applying to university, to undertake practical archaeology training courses. Following the demise of CCE, the remainder of the Sally Christian Archaeology Bequest was transferred for administrative purposes to the Sussex Archaeological Society.
To remember Sally, Sussex Archaeology and History (SAH) holds an annual memorial lecture.
Wednesday 15th October 2025
SAH Online Archaeology Lecture
7.30pm
Selsey, Lewes and the Early Medieval Kingdoms of Sussex
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Speaker: Dr Michael Shapland
c1500 view of Selsey_Lambert Barnard Chichester Cathedral
Early medieval Sussex was a place of many kingdoms, a mosaic of folk territories of probable prehistoric origin. This talk will survey new research that is beginning to reveal more about these kingdoms, their names, cultural identities, where they lay, their places of power and assembly, even the burial places of their kings. The westernmost of these kingdoms, centred on the Selsey Peninsula near Chichester, appears to have been culturally British and already Christianised long before its supposed conversion by St Wilfred in the late 7th century. Another kingdom lay to the east, around Ditchling, with its cult focus at Lewes. This was a time when old gods were making way for new and ancient identities were amalgamating into something that for the first time becomes recognisable as Sussex, a process which we are only now beginning to understand.
King Aelle_John_Speed
About the speaker:
Dr Michael Shapland, FSA (Archaeology South-East)
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Michael is an archaeologist who specialises in early medieval buildings and landscapes. He has fifteen years’ experience in the professional sector, the last twelve with UCL’s Archaeology South-East. He also serves as the consultant archaeologist for Chichester Cathedral. His doctorate was on Anglo-Saxon towers and the development of early castles, he formerly lectured on early medieval kingship at the University of Winchester, and he has authored or co-authored numerous academic articles and several books.
Wednesday 24th September 2025
SAH Online Archaeology Lecture
Was Pevensey Castle the site of the Norman base in 1066? Revisiting the problem of ‘Hestenga ceastra’
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Speakers: Dr Rebecca Welshman and Simon Coleman
Following the recent identification of ‘Heathfield Down’, near Heathfield, in East Sussex as a possible location for the battlefield of Hastings, 1066 (Welshman and Coleman, 2024), this paper revisits the pioneering work of Pamela Combes and Malcolm Lyne (1995), which identified Pevensey, rather than Hastings, as the more probable site of the burh of Haestingaceaster, listed in the 9th-century Burghal Hideage.
The place named ‘Hestenga ceastra’ in the Bayeux Tapestry – the site of the Normans fortified base before the battle - is generally assumed to have been located within modern Hastings. However, a closer examination of Combes and Lyne’s theory may suggest that Hestenga ceastra referred instead to the town and port of Pevensey. We consider the evidence in favour of Pevensey, with its Roman fortress or ‘ceaster’, as the 9th-century burh and the lack of relevant Saxon-era archaeological evidence from Hastings. We then analyse the military options open to the Normans after their landing, comparing the suitability of Pevensey and Hastings as fortified bases in the build-up to the battle. With reference to the topography and ancient routes in the area, we reappraise the crucial question of the location of Hestenga ceastra.
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Works cited
Combes, Pamela, and Malcolm Lyne. “Hastings, Haestingaceaster and Haestingaport: A question of identity.” Sussex Archaeological Collections 133 (1995), 213–224, doi.org/10.5284/1086680
Welshman, Rebecca, and Simon Coleman. “Heathfield Down: An Alternative Location for the Battlefield of Hastings, 1066”. International Journal of Military History and Historiography (published online ahead of print 2024). doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/24683302-bja10061
About the speakers:
Dr Rebecca Welshman and Simon Coleman
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Dr. Rebecca Welshman is an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Liverpool. She works on projects concerning ‘the literary archaeology of place’ – the study of texts in the context of geography, history and environment. Her PhD (University of Exeter, 2010–13) titled ‘Imagining Archaeology’ focused on nature and landscape in 19th century literature. She has presented papers at the World Archaeological Congress, Archaeology in Conflict (Vienna, 2010), and ‘Theatres of War: The British Commission for Military History’s New Researchers’ Conference’ (Lancaster, 2019) where she presented a new interpretation of ‘The Hoar Apple Tree’ of the Battle of Hastings. She has published in historical, cultural, and literary studies. Her latest essay, which highlights military associations in the works of Shakespeare, will appear in Reading the River in Shakespeare’s Britain (2024).
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Mr. Simon Coleman obtained a BA degree in Ancient History and then qualified as an archivist. He has worked in various academic institutions, including the British Library and the universities of Bath and Sussex, and is now at West Dean College in West Sussex. His work has largely focused on archives from the 19th and 20th centuries covering subjects such as literature, art and political history. Outside work he has written articles for the Richard Jefferies Society. Before attending university, he developed an interest in medieval and ancient battles and investigated theories regarding the locations of some Anglo-Saxon battlefields. On moving to East Sussex in 2014 he started to explore the question of the site of the Battle of Hastings, looking at issues around interpretation of sources, landscape changes, and the influence of ‘official’ narratives of events on current debate.
Online Lecture Programme for 2025/2026
Wednesday 24 September 2025
Was Pevensey the Saxon Burh of Haestingaceastre, and the site of the Norman base in 1066?
Speakers: Dr Rebecca Welshman (University of Liverpool) and Simon Coleman (West Dean College)
Wednesday 15 October 2025
Selsey, Lewes and the Early Medieval Kingdoms of Sussex
Speaker: Dr Michael Shapland FSA (Archaeology South-East)
Wednesday 19 November 2025
The Sally Christian Archaeology Lecture 2025
The Medway Megaliths
Speaker: Paul Garwood BA, MSc (University of Birmingham)
Wednesday 21 January 2026
Rural Baths in Roman Britain: A Colonisation of the Senses
Speaker: Dr Giacomo Savani (University of Leeds)
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Wednesday 18 February 2026
The Biology of Books
Speaker: Dr Sean Doherty (University of Exeter)
Wednesday 25 March 2026
35 Years of World Heritage in the UK – Opportunities and Challenges
Speaker: Chris Blandford (President World Heritage UK)