Archaeology at the University of Reading

Are you interested in studying anthropology and archaeology? Want to know more about anthropology?

Why not sign up to London Anthropology Day?!
This free event is taking place on the 25th of September at Senate House, London.

There will be workshops, careers talks and taster lectures. These include a taster lecture from our very own Dr Alanna Cant, who will be running a session on the Anthropology of Heritage and the Economy.

Alanna is the Programme Director for the Archaeology & Anthropology Batchelors here at Reading. Why not come along to her talk and find out more.

A huge congratulations to everyone who received their A-level results last week! We hope you’ve all had a wonderful weekend celebrating 🥳

And for everyone not completely sure of your next move, there's still time- apply through Clearing and take another look at the opportunities available to you

🔗https://www.reading.ac.uk/clearing/

There's still time to sign up for the 2026 REMADE Project Conference at the University of Reading

Join us this September for an exciting conference hosted by the Roman and Early Medieval Alloys Defined (REMADE) project.

This event will bring together researchers and heritage professionals to explore scientific and archaeological approaches to analysing ancient metals, highlighting the value of collaboration across the field.

Discover the latest findings from the REMADE team, insights from their work with partner organisations, and talks from guest experts across the heritage sector.

📍Whiteknights Campus (in person) + online via MS Teams
📅Tuesday 15th September, 10:00–16:30
🎟️Free to attend

Whether you're a student, researcher, or simply keen to know more about how archaeometallurgy can help us understand the people and objects of the past, this is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the work being done

🔗Book your place here: https://tinyurl.com/REMADE2026

For more contact info and to see a list of the speakers, check out the full conference poster in the photos!

Meet the Lexden Lady: new research into Roman Colchester

Around 1,700 years ago, a young woman was buried on the outskirts of Roman Colchester in an exceptionally elaborate decorated lead coffin. Rediscovered during excavations in 2024, her grave is now providing fascinating new insights into life and death in the late Roman period.

This research was undertaken by Reading PhD researcher Andrea Mobbs, whose work is helped to uncover what the burial can tell us about the woman, her community and Roman Colchester.

✨ Why does this discovery matter?

• Her rare lead coffin and carefully arranged grave goods point to considerable wealth and status.

• Rare glass vessels, jet hairpins from Whitby and valuable imported resins reveal far reaching trade and cultural networks connecting Colchester with Britain and continental Europe.

• The burial dates to the late 4th century AD, a period when Colchester was traditionally thought to have been in decline.

Rather than simply reflecting decline, the burial suggests that wealthy communities, long-distance trade and sophisticated funerary practices were still present in Colchester during this period.

The grave also offers remarkably personal glimpses of the past: fingerprints left by the craftsmen who made the coffin, hairpins that may have been used to style the woman's hair, and carefully arranged food and other offerings.

🧬 DNA and isotope analysis is now underway, which may reveal more about who the Lexden Lady was, her ancestry and where she lived during her life.

Andrea's research demonstrates how archaeology can use a single burial to challenge our understanding of an entire city and bring an individual from nearly 2,000 years ago back into focus.

📸from article
📖 to read the article go to (linkInBio): https://the-past.com/feature/the-lexden-ladyand-examining-a-rare-lead-coffin-burial-from-roman-colchester/

Friday Featured site: Lago do Cochila, Amazonas, Brazil

A surpise discovery wa made here recently by local fisherman who found seven massive pre-Columbian ceramic funerary urns, after a 50-foot Paricarana tree toppled over.

While funerary urns have been found elsewhere in the Amazon, archaeologists say this discovery is unprecedented because of the urns' unusual size, distinctive design and remarkable burial setting. Two of the largest vessels contained human bones, while the others held seeds and the remains of fish, frogs and turtles offerings thought to have formed part of ancient funeral rituals. The find could provide important new insights into the burial customs, ceremonial practices and engineering skills of the Indigenous societies that lived in the Amazon centuries, or even millennia, before European contact.

"The vessels are now undergoing analysis at the IDSM’s lab in Tefé. The researchers hope that further study will reveal more about the people who created the urns and the worldview reflected in their burial practices" - Smithonian article

Read the Live science article: https://shorturl.at/7FTPB
Read the Smithsonian article: https://shorturl.at/gtEbG

Instagram LinkInBio

📸from the Smithsonian article. credit: Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development / Geórgea Layla Holanda

We hope you all enjoyed watching yesterday's solar eclipse! And perhaps, like us, it made you wonder if people in the past were just as captivated by eclipses as we are today?

Archaeological evidence suggests that humans have been fascinated by eclipses for thousands of years. While solar eclipses have occurred since long before humans walked the Earth, the earliest recorded eclipse may come from Loughcrew in Ireland. There, a series of petroglyphs featuring spiral motifs and overlapping concentric circles have been interpreted by some researchers as depicting an eclipse thought to have occurred around 3340 BCE.

Other societies left more explicit records. In China, inscriptions carved onto ox shoulder blades and tortoise shells, known as oracle bones, from around 1200 BCE describe eclipses as times when "the Sun has been eaten". Meanwhile, Maya inscriptions and codices record eclipses alongside other astronomical observations, highlighting their significance within broader systems of celestial knowledge. At Chaco Canyon in present-day New Mexico, a petroglyph created by Ancestral Pueblo peoples may even commemorate the total solar eclipse of 1097 CE.

From rock carvings to written records, these traces reveal how past communities observed, interpreted, and remembered one of the sky's most dramatic phenomena. And who knows, perhaps the archaeologists of the future will uncover our eclipse glasses and pinhole camera boxes, and learn a little about how we experienced eclipses, too.



📸The Sun and Moon by Hartmann Schedel, the Nuremberg Chronicle

Just like for our ancestors solar eclipses are a big deal! This eclipse is the deepest one we will have in the UK until 2050, and out next total eclipse will be in 2091. So you don't want to miss it!

The eclipse begins at 6:17pm, reaches maximum at 7:13pm, and ends at 8:06pm.

Are you planning to watch the eclipse this evening? If you are but haven't managed to get yourself some solar glasses, don't worry, use a projector instead!

Here are 3 easy ways to do it!

1️⃣ The colander method
Stand with your back to the Sun and hold up a colander. Project the light onto a piece of white paper — or, as in the picture, an umbrella! 🌞

Each hole in the colander acts like a tiny projector, creating lots of little images of the Sun. As the eclipse progresses, you’ll see those tiny circles turn into little semi-circles and get smaller and smaller! 🌑

2️⃣ The pinhole method
There are two easy versions:

📌 Version 1: Make a small hole in a piece of card or paper using a pin or toothpick. With your back to the Sun, hold it above another piece of paper or card. You’ll see an image of the Sun projected onto the surface below.

📌 Version 2: Cut a square out of some card and tape a smooth piece of aluminium foil over the opening. Make a tiny hole in the centre of the foil with a pin or toothpick. Use this to project an image of the Sun onto paper or the ground.

✨ Both methods are simple, fun ways to observe what’s happening in the sky — without looking directly at the Sun.

🎥 Full instructions for the pin hole version here (or link in bio):
https://youtu.be/vVg6AAV8UIQ?is=fAJhBlQmeWsIZdKK

📸Image 1 is a still from the youtube video, Image 2 the colander method

Now that the digging season is over, why don’t we take a look at who has helped run and support both the students and the dig over the past 4 weeks! 🪏🎉👀

Thank you to everyone who came and supported the dig, it has been a fantastic time.
Keep an eye on our socials to see what we have uncovered during our time there in our last 2026 Weekly Roundup, out later this week. A link to the Archaeology Dig 26’ playlist will be put up on our Story (and highlights) later today so you can listen and vibe.

Personal note from Ro - Social Media Supervisor: Thank you for all the love and support on the posts, it has been so fun to share what we have learned on site and to engage with you all across all platforms! I hope you have enjoyed :)