McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Seminar Room


2023-10-17 17:00: From ideas to models: spatial approaches to the Nuragic landscapes of Sardinia (Davide Schirru, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza")

2023-10-25 15:30: Aspects of Iron Age Burial Customs in the Hegau Region (Southwest Germany)/ A hotspot of the Early Bronze Age – Aschheim and Kirchheim b. München (Upper Bavaria): a multi-phase settlement site with a nearby cemetery (Clara Schaller and Sabrina Kutscher)

2023-10-31 17:00: Reviewing Early Rome Through New Approaches (Dr Nikoline Sauer, Danish Institute in Rome )

2023-11-07 09:00: The Personality and Legacy of Cyril Fox (1923-2023) (Speaker to be confirmed)

2023-11-21 17:00: The Sabines of the Apennines before the Roman conquest: settlement patterns, culture and society of a mountain community. (Dario Monti, UCLouvain)

2024-01-18 16:00: Finding difference in kinship and gender in the European Neolithic: Posthumanist approaches to biomolecular data (Dr. Penny Bickle, University of York)

2024-01-25 16:00: It’s biocultural all the way down: Understanding the Pleistocene hominin niche (Prof. Agustín Fuentes, Princeton University)

2024-01-30 17:30: Reconstructing the burial ritual in the monumental Early Iron Age tumulus of Eberdingen-Hochdorf (Baden-Württemberg) (Dr Thimo Brestel, Friedrich Schiller University Jena)

2024-02-01 16:00: Animals, ancestors and plants: Shaping genders in the more-than-human worlds of Bronze Age Northern Europe (Dr. Mark Haughton, Aarhus University)

2024-02-08 16:00: Playing with things: The Moche sex pots (Prof. Mary Weismantel, Northwestern University)

2024-02-15 16:00: Before, during and after gender: Towards a non-essentialist history of difference (Prof. John Robb, University of Cambridge & Prof. Oliver Harris, University of Leicester)

2024-02-22 16:00: Girls, girls, girls: The importance of (modern) bodies in envisaged Viking Age social experience (Dr. Marianne Moen, University of Oslo)

2024-02-27 17:30: From the ground up: Spatialized Practices of La Tène communities in the Paris Region (Dr Carole Quatrelivre, Kiel University)

2024-03-05 17:30: Invisible Etruscans. A study on rural landscape and settlement organisation during the urbanisation of Etruria (7th - 5th  centuries BC) (Camilla Zeviani, University of Cambridge )

2024-03-07 16:00: “We were shaped by space”: An archaeological perspective of presence, identity and the materiality of Black life ( Prof. Whitney Battle-Baptiste, University of Massachusetts Amherst)

2024-03-14 16:00: Intersectionality in past populations: Examining frailty at the intersections of identities (Asst. Prof. Samantha Yaussy, James Madison University)

2024-06-19 14:00: 24th Annual Cambridge Heritage Research Centre Symposium Heritage Expertise: Paradigm or Platitude? (Speakers - see below)

2024-06-20 09:30: 24th Annual Cambridge Heritage Research Centre Symposium Heritage Expertise: Paradigm or Platitude? (Speakers - see below)

2024-07-04 09:00: The Transition to Agriculture at the edges of Eurasia ~ Neolithisation in the British Isles and the Jomon-Yayoi transition ~ (Speaker to be confirmed)

2024-07-05 09:00: The Transition to Agriculture at the edges of Eurasia ~ Neolithisation in the British Isles and the Jomon-Yayoi transition ~ (Speaker to be confirmed)

2024-10-23 10:00: Envisioning Decolonial Futures Through Archaeology (Speaker to be confirmed)

2024-11-05 17:00: Crafting Clarity: Standardizing Terminology and Typology of Iron Age Pottery Kilns,The case of Northern Italy (Elena Paralovo  (Institute of Classical Archaeology, Charles University))

2024-11-19 17:00:  S.P.A.C.E. - Settlements in the Prealpine Area: Como and its Evolution (Francesca Di Maria (Sapienza Università di Roma & Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München))

2024-12-03 17:00: Rivers and Rituals: The Sacred Landscape of the Fiora Valley (Mariachiara Franceschini (Universität Freiburg))

2024-12-10 16:00: Bones and funeral inscriptions in the late antique coemeterial basilica Trier-St Maximin (Wolf-Rüdiger Teegen (Ludwig Maximilian Universität München))

2024-12-10 17:00: The economic transformation of Iron Age Britain under Roman colonisation, with a special focus on Cambridgeshire (Rob Wiseman (Cambridge Archaeological Unit))

2025-01-23 16:00: The 'Wood Age' at Kalambo Falls, Zambia (Professor Larry Barham, University of Liverpool)

2025-01-28 16:00: Overview of the territory of Vetulonia during the Etruscan period: from 9th to 4th century B.C. (Giuditta Pesenti (University of Florence))

2025-01-30 16:00: Archaeology, (Absence) Heritage and the Capitalocene Bog (Dr Benjamin Gearey, University College Cork)

2025-02-06 16:00: From deep past to future horizons: the practical role of wetland archaeology in peatland restoration (Dr Hannah Fluck, National Trust)

2025-02-13 16:00: An animal-oriented perspective on the Neolithic transition in the Dutch wetlands (Dr Nathalie Brusgaard, Leiden University)

2025-02-20 16:00: Understanding long-term spatio-temporal ecological changes in degraded peatlands to inform restoration (Dr Matthew Adeleye, University of Cambridge)

2025-02-27 16:00: Prehistoric Lakeshore Settlements of the Alpine Region and the Balkans Six Millennia of Human History Preserved in Lakes and Wetlands (Professor Albert Hafner, University of Bern)

2025-03-06 16:00: ‘Rewilding’ later prehistory: Archaeological wildlife and its role in current nature recovery (Dr Anwen Cooper, Oxford Archaeology)

2025-03-13 16:00: Where Land and Waters Meet’; 10,000 years of ‘Wildscape’ human eco-dynamics and implications for sustainability and land use change (Professor Nicki Whitehouse, University of Glasgow)

2025-03-14 17:00: Materialising ideas, idealising beings, and being material: animals in Bronze Age Scandinavian Southern Tradition rock art. (Joanna Lawrence (University of Cambridge))

2025-10-16 16:00: The Social Life of Food (Tamara L. Bray, Wayne State University)

2025-10-23 09:00: Conference: Alternative Geographies for Egyptology in the 21st Century (Speaker to be confirmed)

2025-10-29 13:00: Piprahwa’s Archaeological Finds: When Colonial Specimens Turn Holy (Naman P. Ahuja, Jawaharlal Nehru University)

2025-10-30 16:00: Culinary Archaeologies of Chocolate: Holistic Approaches to Food Histories of Mesoamerica (Katie Sampeck, University of Reading)

2025-11-05 17:00: Copper and Its Role within New Kingdom Craft Networks (Frederik Rademakers, British Museum)

2025-11-06 16:00: Meat consumption and the shaping of a Romano-British culture (Umberto Albarella, University of Sheffield)

2025-11-13 16:00: Tasting the Past: Sensory Archaeology and Roman Foodways (Erica Rowan, Royal Holloway University of London)

2025-11-20 16:00: Beyond Faith? Biomolecular Insights into Foodways in Multifaith Medieval Mediterranean Societies (Michelle Alexander, University of York)

2025-11-27 16:00: The Transition Revisited: Exploring the Culinary Origins of Agriculture in Southwest Asia (Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, University of the Basque Country)

2025-12-04 16:00: An Archaeology of Food Security in West Africa (Amanda Logan, Northwestern University)

2026-01-28 17:00: Between Orality and Books in Third Millennium Egypt (John Baines (University of Oxford))

2026-02-05 16:00: Governing the Future: Ethics, Power and Responsibility in Archaeological AI (Alphaeus Lien-Talks, University of York)

2026-02-12 16:00: Machine Heritage: Controversies in AI-Generated Meanings and Values of the Past (Chiara Bonacchi, University of Edinburgh)

2026-02-19 16:00: The COST Action Managing AI in Archaeology (MAIA): Building an International Network (Holly Wright, University of York / MAIA)

2026-02-23 13:00: Old Data, New Stories: The Afterlife of the Gubbio Survey and an Umbrian-Roman Landscape In Between (Marianna Negro, University of Cambridge)

2026-02-25 17:00: Sudan at the Petrie Museum: Past, Present, and Future (Anna Garnett (Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, UCL))

2026-02-26 16:00: Between Codices, Archives and Algorithms: On How AI is Transforming Historical Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Lancaster University)

2026-03-02 13:00: Valencina: Centrality, Monumentalism and Female Leadership in a Copper-Age Mega-Site (Leonardo Garcia Sanjuan, University of Seville)

2026-03-05 16:00: Palaeoclimate Forecasting and the Next Stage of AI in Archaeology (Mark Altaweel, University College London)

2026-03-11 17:00: The View from the Port: the Maritime Façade of Alexandria and the Royal Port of Antirhodos Island from the Ptolemaic to the Roman period (Damian Robinson (University of Oxford))

2026-03-16 13:00: Lefkandi and Lusehoj: Homeric Archaeology Revisited (James Whitley, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research)

2026-03-19 16:00: Fireside Chat: Roundtable Discussions & Reflections (Alan Blackwell and Maya Indira Ganesh, University of Cambridge)

2026-05-07 17:00: Unveiling the curtain with ukubuyisa or go lata: complicated roles of museums and nation states in the cultural repatriation discourse and practice in southern Africa (Dr Siyakha Mguni, Senior Lecturer - University of Cape Town)