Overview of Past Lectures

02 Feb 2010 – Michael Harris - ' Invasions of Armies and Ideas into India'

05 Jan 2010 – Elisabeth Szlezak-Wittmann - ‘The Romans in Vienna’. For details see Reports of recent lectures.

09 Dec 2009 - Richard Harrison: Lost Worlds from the Spanish Bronze Age.

03 Nov 2009 – Jean-Yves Blot  talked about Jean Boudriot and the Battle of Lagos of 1759.  Boudriot’s studies on French men-of-war of the period are so crucial to the study of any naval event from the second half of the 17th Century that they raise the question: where does archaeology start? For details see Reports of recent lectures.

06 Oct 2009 – Carolyn Perry : ‘Islam in Art’. The lecture focussed on the idea of Islamic art, how it related to beliefs and how influenced by earlier cultures.  For details see Reports of recent lectures.

02 June 2009 - John Bennet  talked about Mycenaean Greece seen through the lens of Late Bronze Age Pylos, Messenia’. The site of Pylos, first excavated by Carl Blegen in 1939, offered a unique opportunity to examine a Late Bronze Age society in operation because it combines textual evidence (in the form of over 1000 Linear B documents) with high-quality archaeological evidence not only from the palace site itself, but also for its probable territory.     For details see Reports of recent lectures.

05 May 2009 - Mike Pease gave a talk titled “The Roman Legions – A British Soldier’s perspective”. The talk focussed on the Roman Legions as they were developed by Gaius Marius (157 – 86 BCE) and with periodic references of the relationship between the development of that brilliant fighting force and the similarities with the British Army as experienced 60 years ago.     For details see Reports of recent lectures.

07 Apr 2009 - Derek Roe and Sarah Milliken returned to speak about Two and a half million years of stone tools.   Derek Roe covered the Palaeolithic period and Sarah Milliken later Prehistory and more recent times.  For details see Reports of recent lectures.

03 Mar 2009 - Professor John Burland made a welcome return to speak to the AAA with a lecture titled ‘A Tale of Two Towers – Rescuing Pisa and Big Ben’.     For details see Reports of recent lectures.

03 Feb 2009 - Dr. John Crook gave a lecture called ‘Living Stones – The below-ground foundations of Chichester, Winchester and Salisbury Cathedrals’.      For details see Reports of recent lectures.

06 Jan 2009 - Professor Trevor Haywood presented The Romans in Iberia.      For details see Reports of recent lectures.

02 Dec 2008 -Sonja Frisell and Peter Schroeder presented Further Archaeological Journeying in Peru.  In 2005 Sonja and Peter spent 5 weeks travelling around Peru visiting the archaeological evidence of the ancient and intriguing cultures of this fascinating country. Having previously given a very popular and well received talk to the AAA which concluded with the Moche culture they returned to speak about the Nasca, Chan Chan, Lambayeque, Chachapoyan and Inca cultures.    For details see Reports of recent lectures.

04 Nov 2008 - João Marreiros and Luis Jesus the 2 students who received a grant by the AAA, returned to speak on the subject of Nautical Archaeology as applied to Ship Construction. At Loulé, João Marreiros talked about the vessel known as the ‘caravel’ and how this kind of ship was constructed and put to use by the Portuguese seafarers. At the Lagoa venue, Luís Jesus talked on the various types of ship construction concentrating on shell-first building and skeleton-first building. He then talked in detail about the methods used by the Vikings in particular and how a modern reconstruction has been carried out using the same techniques as in the past.     For details see Reports of recent lectures.

07 Oct 2008 - Prof. Nuno Bicho presented a lecture on The Last Neanderthals of Southwestern Iberia. Neanderthals seem to have occupied Iberia longer than anywhere else. In fact, they may have lived in an area that reached from modern day Lisbon to Malaga in Spain up to about 27.000 years ago. This is a different scenario from other parts of Europe or the Mediterranean Basin. This talk covered the present evidence and discussed possible explanations for the existence of the last Neanderthals in Iberia.   For details see Reports of recent lectures.                                       

03 June 2008 - Dr. Jorge Pereira who is a practicing medical radiologist in Tavira  talked about Radiology, Art and Archaeology and how the newest techniques in human diagnostic radiology have been applied to the archaeological work carried out at the ‘Campo Arqueológica de Tavira’. He described how some of these newest techniques can give an interesting and new vision of some very old artefacts. The main applications in art (painting and sculpture) and archaeology (human remains, glass, and ceramics) were shown with special emphasis on the analysis of the XI century Islamic ceramic – the ‘Vaso de Tavira’.

06 May 2008 - Tiago Fraga: The investigation into the wreck of the Santo António de Tanná in Mombasa Harbour.  In 1697 the Omani Arabs laid siege to the Portuguese Fort São Jesus in Mombasa Harbour. In response the Governor of Mozambique led a small force which included the Santo António de Tanná. 300 years after the sinking two skin divers located an odd collection of rocks and concretions resting at a depth of 15 metres and about 40 metres from the shore in the old harbour of Mombassa. Even though the original crew had salvaged many items, more than 15.000 artefacts were recovered during 4 years of excavation. Amongst the finds were a vast amount of weaponry, luxurious tableware, two large jars of Persian origin, and the entire contents of a carpenter's locker.  Personal items like sailors' sweetheart medallions, ivory lice combs and Items associated with smoking (English pipes, African pipes, water pipes) were also present  which  have helped to understand the make up of the crew. 'Hitting the jackpot’ was the discovery of compass parts which have now shown how the Portuguese devised a navigational compass for nautical use (believed to be the only surviving compass from a shipwreck of this period). Through his studies and work Tiago has produced a computer model of all the structural components of the Santo António de Tanná allowing us for the first time to have a visual and 3D understanding of a 17th century Iberian vessel.

01 Apr 2008 - Prof. Peter Drewett: The People Columbus Met: Prehistoric Archaeology in the Caribbean. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492 he found densely populated islands. Organized into villages, the population used stone and shell tools, grew crops, made pottery and met together for rituals and games in ball-courts.  As they had no writing we only know of them from early European settlers and more significantly from archaeology. The earliest pre-ceramic settlers probably came from the Yucatan and the Orinoco Basin before 4000BC and around 2000BC. Soon after 200BC the first horticultural peoples, who made pottery, arrived spreading throughout the Caribbean. They may well have merged with the pre-ceramic peoples and became the direct ancestors of the people who met Columbus. The talk described how these people lived, illustrated by the findings from Prof. Drewett’s extensive rescue excavations during the construction of the Port St. Charles marina on Barbados and the village and ball-court at Belmont in the British Virgin Islands.

04 Mar 2008 - Dr. John Bennet: Understanding the Minoans: life in Crete in the mid-second millennium BC. The societies of Minoan Crete, with their monumental, elaborately decorated palatial buildings and extraordinary rich material culture, offer rich opportunities for understanding life in the island in the mid-second mill. BC. In this lecture Dr. Bennet explored the material world of the Minoans, emphasizing the palatial complexes, suggesting ways in which the architectural complexes both shaped and were shaped by their occupants and visitors in a mutual relationship. In doing so, he also considered another important feature of Minoan society – writing, primarily in the Linear A script. The existence of this script is both useful and frustrating: useful because it allows us some insight into the administration of the Minoan palaces; frustrating, because the script remains undeciphered. At the end he examined some of the issues surrounding the transformation (not collapse) of this sophisticated culture in the mid 5th century BC and the implications of the appearance of a new script, Linear B that recorded the Greek language.

12 Feb 2008 - Luiz Oosterbeek: Housing the Ancestors/ Empowering the living: changing landscapes during the Neolithic Period in the North Ribatejo, Portugal.The talk  concentrated on the chronology and method of agriculture and pasturage into western Iberia which has been the subject of continuous controversy for over 40 years. The model and method of the spread, the introduction of domestic species, material culture and ideology together with the pace of the process have been under discussion. Greater consensus and understanding is achieved when considering megalithism as associated with the spread of farming in general; however, this is considered to be a later phenomenon as and such has been neglected from the point of view of the beginning of the process. Research carried out in the Alto Ribatejo may provide some new insights into the process, suggesting an inland spread, in which megaliths and rock art are central to the process from its earliest stages, possibly pushed by major environmental crisis leading to a process of social differentiation. Through this talk the evidence was reviewed and discussed.

08 Jan 2008 - Mark Merrony: The Nemesis of the Caesars, the First Jihad. Conflict in the Middle East has dominated world headlines for several decades, and this has especially been the case in recent years, culminating in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and escalating bloodshed. Dr. Merrony explained how we have reached this situation. The astonishing truth is that the seeds of these disputes were sown in the temporal mists of antiquity in the First Jihad (Holy War) between the world’s then great superpowers: Rome in the West and Persia in the East. This period of history is fascinating in its own right and because of its knock-on effect: not only did the West- East divide set a trend that continues to the present day, but the ancient conflict has so many parallels with the present situation between powers of the Judeo-Christian West and the Muslim East, and there is so much that we can learn from this. 

04 Dec 2007 - Peter Booker: Implantation of the Republic in Portugal.
06 Nov 2007 - Jill Lisk: Peter the Great and Catherine the Great: creators of modern Russia.
02 Oct 2007 - João Marreiros and Luis Jesus: Nautical Archaeology as applied to Ship Construction.
05 June 2007 - Peter Booker: The Fortifications of Tavira.
08 May 2007 -Sonja Frisell & Peter Schroeder : An Archaeological Journey in Peru and Bolivia.
03 Apr 2007 - Prof. Derek Roe: Working with the Leakeys at Olduvai Gorge.
06 Mar 2007 - Mark Merrony D.Phil: Roman Mosaics: New discoveries, New perspectives.
06 Feb 2007 - Peter Booker:  Prince Henry, “the Navigator”
02 Jan 2007 - Tiago Fraga: The Lagos Survey
05 Dec 2006 - Michael Pease:  Walk along Offa’s Dyke.
07 Nov 2006 - Frank Vermeulen: Geo-archaeological studies carryied out around Potenza on the Adriatic coast of Italy and at Ammaia in the Alentejo region of Portugal.