UCL Institute of Archaeology

🎉Congrats to everyone on their A-Level results today! If you are in today we have a number of degrees with spaces available: do follow the link in our story to the University College London clearing page to find out more and how to apply!

Archaeological fieldwork continues in Worcestershire with Dr Murray Andrews and an ace team of UCL Social & Historical Sciences students from the IoA!

Berkan, a current second year undergrad, with the first Roman coin of the season, found via sieving (scroll for the BTS moment of Berkan’s find!). It’s a copper alloy as of Domitian, AD 86.

Blue skies and big finds this summer for all of the University College London IoA students!

Join IoA staff, students and alumni for a day of presentations exploring scientific approaches to archaeological ceramic analysis across diverse regions and periods.

Presentations will cover coarse ware, glazed pottery, figurines, refractories and plaster. Scientific analyses include thin-section petrography, geochemistry, SEM and XRD, exploring questions of provenance, trade, technology, tradition and identity through archaeological research from the UK, Europe, the Mediterranean, South America, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the Far East.

Non-UCL attendees must get in contact via the email in the link below 👇
🔗 tinyurl.com/35ma2jpu

Step inside the world of archaeology.

Join us at the UCL Institute of Archaeology for a free day of discovery at the Winter Archaeology Festival.

Get hands-on with archaeological objects, explore specialist labs and collections, hear from archaeologists, enjoy talks and walking tours, and discover how archaeology helps us uncover the stories of people, cultures and environments that have shaped our world.

Whether you're an archaeology enthusiast, a prospective student or simply curious, there's something for everyone.

🎟️ Book your free place: https://tinyurl.com/WAF26

UCL Institute of Archaeology staff, students, friends and colleagues will be saddened to hear of the death of Frank Roy Hodson (1930-2026) earlier this week.

"Roy Hodson was a prehistorian and a foundational pioneer of quantitative and computational archaeology. As Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology from 1973 to 1993, he radically reshaped the theoretical and methodological landscape of European Iron Age studies.

"He dismantled impressionistic, “invasionist” explanations of prehistory, replacing them with data-driven typologies. His landmark 1968 study, The La Tène Cemetery at Münsingen-Rain, utilised early computer-driven cluster analysis and matrix ordering to establish definitive relative chronologies for the earlier Iron Age. This established new dimensions of material culture, integrating mathematical modelling long before the ‘digital age’."

— Professor Sue Hamilton (UCL Institute of Archaeology)

Our thoughts are with Roy’s family and friends at this difficult time.

Read the full obituary: https://tinyurl.com/bdfh7ark

Frank Roy Hodson (1930-2026) UCL Institute of Archaeology staff, students, friends and colleagues will be saddened to hear of the death of Frank Roy Hodson earlier this week.

A new three-year archaeological project in Jersey is set to help "unlock Jersey's full story".

Led by Dr Matt Pope (UCL Institute of Archaeology) and supported by staff from Archaeology South-East, the excavation at Jardin de Perchard will investigate how the landscape was used 6,000 years ago while also uncovering evidence of much earlier Ice Age environments and human activity.

The project brings together international researchers, provides specialist training for UCL students and builds on UCL's long-standing archaeological collaboration with Jersey.

Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/yvrzhxt8

Image credit: Matt Pope

We are delighted to announce that Dorian Q Fuller, Professor of Archaeobotany, has been honoured as a UK Fellow by The British Academy.

The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. It brings together over 1,800 elected leading national and international academics, selected for their contribution to the social and historical sciences.

Professor Fuller said: “I am very pleased to be joining the British Academy and supporting its long tradition of fostering scholarship internationally on diversity of human cultural traditions, history and archaeology. For more than a century, it has fostered not just British scholarship around the world, but also international collaborations on the many contexts of humans and humanities. Through its many overseas institutes, schools and regional research societies, the British Academy supports cutting-edge archaeological research that I myself, my colleagues and students have often benefited from. I look forward to contributing to this legacy."

🔗 Read more about Professor Fuller's work: https://tinyurl.com/4dfck7e2

UCL

The University College London IoA and UCL Archaeology South-East ASE staff attended the 2026 Sustainability Awards Ceremony at UCL East Campus on Thursday 16 July to receive two awards. The IoA Green Team achieved two Green Impact Bronze Awards for sustainable practices, within the 31-34 Gordon Square site and ASE’s premises in Portslade near Brighton.

They were also awarded a LEAF laboratory sustainability award for the basement Wolfson Archaeological Science Laboratories. The IoA Sustainability Working Group led by Patrick Quinn, who is also UCL Social & Historical Sciences SHS Faculty Green Lead, includes Caroline Coleman, Fiona McLean, Ron Humphrey and Russell Bailey (pictured here), as well as other staff and students.

Massive congratulations 🎉 to all involved! A great achievement for all!