School of Humanities | Sgoil nan Daonnachdan

Archaeology Seminar Series 2026-27

The Archaeology Seminar Series at the University of Glasgow showcases current research in archaeology and related disciplines, bringing together speakers from diverse backgrounds to share insights, stimulate debate, and strengthen our research community. 

Organised by doctoral researchers in the Department of Archaeology, Isobel Harvey, Savinay Sood and Julia Hopkin, the series provides opportunities for dialogue and exchange among staff, students, and visiting scholars. 

Each session is followed by an informal social gathering at Curlers Rest on Byres Road from 17:30 onwards. All are welcome. 

Unless otherwise stated, seminars will be delivered in a hybrid format and can also be attended on Teams:
https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/322769070694793?p=1OqNGlxhQ5M9lQ9GMD

Meeting ID: 322 769 070 694 793

Passcode: uN3Qq7RS

We aim to ensure all people have equal access to events. If you need alternative formats or other reasonable adjustments, please contact the chair of the session (will be circulated in advance) or Julia Hopkin via email (j.hopkin.1@research.gla.ac.uk) so that arrangements, where possible, can be made.

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Semester 1

Seminars are held every Wednesday between 16.00 - 17.30 in Room 301, 15 Southpark Terrace, Glasgow G12 8LG

23rd September 2026
Dr. Catherine Keane
Funding faith: The Early Byzantine church as an economic agent

30th September 2026
Prof. Kenny Brophy
Excavations at Camphill - Glasgow's enigmatic enclosure

7th October 2026
Instead of a seminar we will be hosting a welcome event for the incoming PGRs in the Molema conference room! Further details to be circulated in advance.

14th October 2026
Dr. Patrick Quinn and Prof. Iain Borden (UCL)
Revealing a Hidden Sporting Legacy – Documenting the UK and Ireland’s rich late 1970s Skatepark Heritage

21st October 2026
2 short papers: 
Dr. James O’Driscoll, Burnswark and the choreography of a Roman assault
Dr. Kimm Curran, title TBC

4th November 2026
Prof. Hannah Cobb (University of Manchester)
Care-full: Exploring the potential of posthuman pedagogies of care in archaeology and heritage

Inaugural Lecture, Wednesday 4th November at 5.30pm
Prof. Susanna Harris 
The Archaeology of Textiles: Value and Connection in Early Societies
Yudowitz Lecture Theatre, Wolfson Medical Building

11th November 2026
Dr. Tânia Casimiro (University of Stirling)
Archaeology of Social Forgetting: Care, Precarity and Belonging

18th November 2026
Prof. Dan Hicks (University of Oxford)
Title TBC

25th November 2026
Prof. Michael Given
Updates from Glencoe 2026

2nd December 2026
Prof. Allison Mickel (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Turning Over the Spade: Startup Approaches to Archaeological Labor

Seminars 2025-26

Semester 1

24 September 2025
Derek Alexander, Dr Gareth Beale, Dr Michael Given, Dr Lizzie Robertson, Dr Nicole Smith, Dr Edward Stewart
Earth colours, watery landscapes, and the house with many hearths: Glencoe 2025

1 October 2025 
Dr Kelechi Ugwuanyi 
Nature conservation, traditional ecological knowledge, and more-than-human ontologies in Africa 

8 October 2025 
Professor Alison Beach 
Reimagining Disability in Premodern Europe 

15 October 2025 
Dr Orla Craig 
A Lonesome Spot? Unpacking the Landscape Context of the Galloway Hoard 

22 October 2025 **at 17.30**
Professor Michael Given's inaugural lecture: Rock and river, soil and forest, herd and home: Landscape and conviviality in Scotland and Cyprus
Part of the Humanities Lecture Series 2025-26
In the Yudowitz lecture Theatre, Wolfson Medical School Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

5 November 2025 
Dr Guillaume Robin 
Excavations at Punta Ferulosu: a Copper Age settlement in Sardinia, Italy 

12 November 2025 [CANCELLED]
Prof Richard Oram 
The Cultured and the Wild: Environmental History and the Reconceptualisation of Historic Land-use in Scotland 

19 & 20 November 2025 
Professor Stephen Driscoll 
Dalrymple lecture series 2025 – Archaeology and Glasgow 850  

Wednesday 26 November 2025 
Professor Nicki Whitehouse, Dr Kenny Brophy 
Filling in gaps and expanding horizons: Drumadoon 2026 updates 

3 December 2025 
Dr Helen Wickstead 
Inside the Secret Museum: Magic, sex, and secrecy in the British Museum’s Secretum, 1866–1896 
(Adult Content Advisory: This presentation includes images of sexual antiquities and is not suitable for children. This lecture is in-person only.) 

 

Semester 2

14th January 
Prof. Cyprian Broodbank and Dr. Toby Wilkinson
The other Mediterranean or a Mediterranean other? Perspectives on late prehistoric society in North Africa from Oued Beht

21st January 
Prof. Stephen Driscoll
Dig Where You Stand: Govan Old 2025: a progress report

28th January
Dr. Adrián Oyaneder
Beyond the ‘Royal hunts’: cultural and material traces for the collective capturing of ungulates in the South-Central Andes
Online only – feel free to join us in the usual room or online.

4th February
Dr. Effie Photos-Jones
Transcribing myths into current bio-medical research: the case of Lemnian Earth (terra sigilata) and the beneficial modulation of the gut microbiome

11th February
Dr. Eddie Charles Stewart
'Once our hillsides were ringing': challenging wildness with a repopulating archaeology in upland Scotland

25th February
Dr. Daniel Calderbank
Voices from the Ahwar: (dis)connections with cultural heritage in Iraq's marshlands

4th March
Dr. James O'Driscoll
Under Siege: Burnswark Hill and the Roman Iron Age 'Boom Towns' of Northern Britain

11th March
Dr. George Prew
Faux Heraldry and Faux Research: Reconsidering 'Pseudo'-Heraldic Medieval Harness Pendants and the Recent History of Treasure Trove

18th March
Dr. Alex Antoniou
Worshipping the Roman Emperor: Space, Place, and Meaning

25th March
Prof. Damian Robinson
The changing maritime facade of Alexandria from the Ptolemaic to the Roman period: survey and excavation in the Portus Magnus 

Seminars 2024-25

Semester 1

Wednesday 2 October 2024
Cauldrons, kailyards and microphones: Excavation, survey and creative media in Glencoe, 2024
Derek Alexander (National Trust for Scotland); Gareth Beale, Michael Given, Elizabeth Robertson, Nicole Smith and Eddie Stewart (UofG)

Wednesday 9 October 2024
Recent investigations of the Drumadoon and Machrie Moors (Arran) prehistoric landscapes and their wider significance 
Nicki Whitehouse, James O’Driscoll & Kenny Brophy (Archaeology, UofG)

Wednesday 16 October 2024 - CANCELLED!
Mummification Embalming Balms – Text vs Science, Fact vs Fiction
Margaret Serpico (UCL)

Wednesday 23 October 2024
Late Holocene hunter-gatherer interactions through oxygen and strontium isotopes: cautionary tales, machine learning and mobility in the South American Cone 
Alejandro Serna (Archaeology, UofG)

[Wednesday 30 October 2024: reading week - no seminar]

Wednesday 6 November 2024
The beginnings of bureaucracy: new approaches to clay tablets and sealings in Mesopotamia and Iran 
Amy Richardson (University of Reading)

Wednesday 13 November 2024
Stable isotopes as tools to reconstruct natural environments and the lives and ecology of prehistoric humans from the arid Atacama coast 
Chris Harrod (Director, SCENE)

Wednesday 20 November 2024
Mummification Embalming Balms: Text vs Science, Fact vs Fiction
Dr Margaret Serpico

Wednesday 27 November 2024
Power in this Place: Unfinished Conversations 
Zandra Yeaman (Hunterian Museum)

Wednesday 4 December 2024 - special events: Night of Archaeology

  • at 4pm in the Boyd Orr Building (room 507)
    Professor Tony Pollard, University of Glasgow: Waterloo 1815: The Archaeology of a Battle and its Aftermath
  • at 5.30pm in the Yudowitz Lecture Theatre, Wolfson medical School Building
    Professor Karen Hardy's Inaugural Lecture: Paleo fact or flintstone fantasy? The Palaeolithic and its relevance to today’s world - Please register on Eventbrite

 

Semester 2

Wednesday 15 January 2025
Dr Kenny Brophy, University of Glasgow
The archaeology of the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival

Wednesday 22 January 2025
The Govan Old Research Group, University of Glasgow
Govan Old '24: Dig where you stand

Wednesday 29 January 2025
Greg Michaelson, University of Aberdeen
George Morrow’s prehistoric cartoons: bridging Prehistoric Peeps and The Far Side
(on zoom and not in person: this lecture will not be livestreamed or recorded, so this will be your only chance to see it! If you are interested in watching this lecture, please email kenny.brophy@glasgow.ac.uk for more details)

Wednesday 5 February 2025
Dr Sheahan Bestel, Powerful Plants Project, University of Glasgow
Subsistence - plant and animal - in ancient China prior to the established farming period: detailed information on the Palaeolithic and on the origins of agriculture from residues and flotation samples

Wednesday 12 February 2025
Dr Jonathan Gardner, University of Edinburgh
Making Mountains and Gaining Ground: an Archaeology of Waste Modified Landscapes

Wednesday 26 February 2025
Jenna Kirk, Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow
Exploring the legacies of steel slag at Glengarnock, North Ayrshire

Wednesday 5 March 2025
Dr Astrid Nyland, Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger
More than a disaster story? Investigating social impact of the Storegga tsunami and Mesolithic communities on the Norwegian west coast

Wednesday 12 March 2025
Dr James O'Driscoll, University of Glasgow
Navan Fort: Landscapes of Power and Ceremony in Later Prehistoric Europe

Wednesday 19 March 2025
Professor Katherine Forsyth and Dr Megan Kasten, OG(H)AM Project, University of Glasgow
OG(H)AM: Harnessing digital technologies to transform understanding of ogham writing, from the 4th century to the 21st

Wednesday 26 March 2025
Dr Claire Nolan, University College Cork
Touching the Numinous: finding meaning through engagement with archaeology

 

Seminars 2023-24

Semester 1

Recording of semester 1 seminars

Wednesday 20 September 2023
Fieldwork Discoveries by Glasgow Archaeology 2023.
Claudia Glatz, Daniel Calderbank and Francesca Chelazzi; Kenny Brophy and Nicki Whitehouse, University of Glasgow
Chair Susanna Harris 

Wednesday 27 September 2023  CANCELLED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION
The Power of Plants: The origins of the human carbohydrate diet.
Cynthia Larbey, University of Glasgow
Chair Karen Hardy 

Wednesday 4 October 2023
(with formal welcome to new PGRs)
Archaeological Research of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone & the impact of the war in Ukraine on Scientific and Rescue Excavations Alla Kurzenkova, University of Glasgow
Chair Stephen Harrison

Wednesday 11 October 2023
The Enigmatic Roman Annexe: An Approach to Characterising the Defended Spaces.
Kathleen Clifford, University of Glasgow
Chair Susanna Harris

Wednesday 18 October 2023
(Un)Shrouding the evidence. Uncovering textile-related gestures in burial practices of ancient Sudan.
Elsa Yvanze, University of Copenhagen

Wednesday 25 October 2023
Reading Week: no seminar

Wednesday 1 November 2023 - CANCELLED

Wednesday 8 November 2023
Hiding and finding in Glencoe: creative celebrations of the local past, coffin roads, and a 17th-century house and coin hoard
Gareth Beale, Michael Given, Lizzie Robertson, Nicole Smith, Eddie Stewart (plus students TBC), University of Glasgow
Chair Susanna Harris

 

Semester 2

Recording of semester 2 seminars

Wednesday 17 January 2024
Prof Graeme Warren, University College Dublin
Chair: Dr Nyree Finlay
The Mesolithic of the Cairngorms?
(sorry, this seminar was not recorded)

Wednesday 24 January 2024
Dr Jim Leary, University of York
Chair: Dr Kenny Brophy
Footmarks: A Journey into our restless past

Wednesday 31 January 2024
Dr Cynthia Larbey, UoG
Chair: Prof Karen Hardy
The Power of Plants: The origins of the human carbohydrate diet

Wednesday 7 February 2024
Dr Kenny Brophy
Chair: Prof Steve Driscoll
8000 years before Dunning – revisiting the 2012-2017 phase 2 SERF excavations

Wednesday 21 February 2024
Prof Kate Britton, University of Aberdeen
Chair: Prof Nicki Whitehouse
PALaEoScot: Archaeo-ecological approaches to Scotland’s Elusive Pleistocene Past

Wednesday 28 February 2024
Dr Anwen Cooper, Oxford Archaeology
Chair: Dr Kenny Brophy
Rewilding’ later prehistory: Archaeological wildlife and its role in contemporary nature recovery

Wednesday 6 March 2024
Prof Shadreck Chirikure
Chair: Dr Susanna Harris
How archaeological science can address global challenges

Thursday 14 March 2024
Professor Tony Brown
sedaDNA
Please note different in person location: Joseph Black Building, room A504

18-21 March 2024
Dalrymple Lectures 2023-24

Wednesday 27 March 2024
Gabriele Giacosa (University of Bologna and University of Glasgow)
Imperial reflections: studying the impact of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the Levant through material culture.

Tuesday 30 April 2024
Dr Gretel Boswijk (School of Environment Te Kura Mātai Taiao, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, Aotearoa New Zealand)
The potentials and challenges of dendroarchaeology in Aotearoa New Zealand
in the Conference Room (320), Molema Building - this seminar will not be livestreamed

Seminars 2022-23

Semester 1

Recordings of autumn seminars

Date

Speaker

Title

Chair

21 Sept 2022

Susanna Harris

Kenny Brophy (UoG)

The Galloway Hoard; an update.
Glasgow’s Garden Festival

Michael Given

28 September 2022

Karen Hardy;

Kenny Brophy & colleagues (UoG)

 

From the Late Pleistocene to the mid Holocene. Archaeology of the earliest human inhabitants of Scotland's north-west;
Arran and Drumadoon;

Michael Given

5 October 2022

Rowan McLaughlin Hamilton Inst, Maynooth, Republic of Ireland, in person

Modelling and understanding cultural change through the millennia 

Nicki Whitehouse

12 October 2022

Karen Hardy, UoG

People and Plants before Agriculture

Susanna Harris

19 October 2022

Gareth Beale, Michael Given, Mónica Palmero Fernández, Tessa Poller and Eddie Stewart, UoG

Remarkably fat cattle: Shielings, Hut Circles and Creative Practice on Cochno Hill

Rachel Opitz

26 October 2022

Sadie Watson, Mola (remote)

Rethinking Value from Development-led Archaeology

Rachel Opitz

2 November 2022

Seren Griffiths, University of Manchester (in person)

Making Time in 4th and 3rd millennium Ireland and Britain

Kenny Brophy

9 November 2022

Mel Giles, University of Manchester (remote)

Bog Bodies: face to face with the past

Nicki Whitehouse

16 November 2022

Antonia Thomas, UHI
(in person)

Contemporary Art and Contemporary Archaeology

Kenny Brophy

23 November 2022

Laura McAtackney, University of Cork, Republic of Ireland (in person)

Materials and Memory: conducting contemporary archaeologies of Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries

Kenny Brophy

30 November 2022

CANCELLED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION

Xiaolin Ren, Chinese Academy of Sciences (remote) 

Incipient urbanism, environmental consequences, and social resilience in the Central Plains of China

Daniel Calderbank

 

Semester 2

Date

Speaker

Title

Chair

*19 Jan 2023

Mark Altaweel (UCL)

The Rise of Complex Societies and Mesopotamia’s Climate: New Results and Lessons for the Future

Claudia Glatz

25 Jan 2023

Laura Longo (Ca' Foscari, Venice)

Stone tools as bioarchives

Karen Hardy

1 Feb 2023
CANCELLED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION

Tina Greenfield (Cambridge)

"Royal Cattle for a Royal Cemetery?" Animals from The Early Dynastic Cemetery of Ur

Daniel Calderbank

8 Feb 2023

Peggy Brunache (UofG)

Digging a Difficult Past and Actualising a Better Future: Historical Archaeology and Social Activism of the African Diaspora 

Claudia Glatz

22 Feb

Karina Croucher (Bradford)

Continuing Bonds - Past and Present: Using funerary archaeology to talk about death and dying today, and implications for archaeological interpretations of the past

Daniel Calderbank

1 March

Jessica Pearson (Liverpool)

Mobility and kinship in the world’s first village societies 

Claudia Glatz

8 March

Dan Lawrence (Durham)

Sustainable Urbanism, past, present and future: Exploring long-term trends in settlement persistence in Mesopotamia 

Rachel Opitz

16 March 2023
CANCELLED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION

Elsa Yvanez (Copenhagen)

(Un)Shrouding the evidence. Uncovering textile-related gestures in burial practices

Susanna Harris

22 March 2023

Aphrodite Sorotou (Inherit)

"No Future Without Past": How heritage becomes a driver for change for the marginalised Bedouin of Lebanon

Claudia Glatz

 

Seminars 2021-22

Semester 2

19 January 2022
Jeremy Huggett, University of Glasgow Data: what is it good for?

26 January 2022
Dig It! team Diversity and participation in Scottish archaeology

2 February 2022
INCAScot team (Alex Hale, Kenny Brophy, Gavin MacGregor, Antonia Thomas, Rachael Kiddey) Contemporary Archaeology in Scotland network

9 February 2022
Matt Jacobson, University of Glasgow Climate change and settlement in southwest Turkey during Late Antiquity

16 February 2022 - POSTPONED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION
Monica Nicolaides Ramsey, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research University of Cambridge Archaeological Starch Spherulites: A New Plant Food Processing Proxy for Baking, Brewing and Boiling
 
23 February 2022
Luise Loges, University of Glasgow & Stephanie Döpper, Frankfurt University: The ArchaeoTrail App Project - Opening Windows into the Past

2 March 2022 - POSTPONED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION
Sadie Watson, MOLAS Rethinking Value from Development-led Archaeology

9 March 2022
Dr. Monica Nicolaides Ramsey, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research University of Cambridge:  Archaeological Starch Spherulite: A New Plant Food Processing Proxy for Baking, Brewing and Boiling

16 March 2022
Martin Carruthers, UHI Biography of a Broch: Excavating The Cairns, Orkney

23 March 2022 - POSTPONED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION
Xiaolin Ren, Chinese Academy of Sciences Incipient urbanism, environmental consequences, and social resilience in the central plains of China 

Recordings of Semester 1 seminars 'Terrestrial archaeology: archaeology for a changing planet' are available here.

Previous Seminars