| Board of Trustees |
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As an educational charity we are governed by a Board of Trustees. Drawn from a wide range of backgrounds from amateur archaeologists through to senior academics and heritage professionals, and those with a commercial background, our Board sets policy and oversees our activities to ensure that OA achieves its charitable objectives. Chairman, Professor Chris Gosden Chair of European Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. Research Interests: Anthropology and archaeology, archaeology and colonialism, archaeology and intelligence, Iron Age Britain, Turkmenistan, Papua New Guinea. Current Activities: Co-Director of the "Discovering Dorchester" Training Excavation with Oxford Archaeology and the people of Dorchester-on-Thames. Co-Director of the excavation site at Marcham, Oxfordshire – a late Iron and Romano-British site with large religious structures which throws light on ritual and belief before and during the Romano-British period. Chris is also co-director of the Relational Museum Project examining the sets of connections between people and objects which make up the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. He is currently working on a book on archaeology and intelligence. Publications: Archaeology and Colonialism. (Cambridge University Press, 2004) Prehistory. A very short introduction. (Oxford University Press, 2003) Collecting colonialism: material culture and colonial change in Papua New Guinea – with C. Knowles. (Berg, 2001) Archaeology and Anthropology. (Routledge, 1999) Social Being and Time. (Blackwell, 1994)
"I am a founder member of the Henley-on-Thames Archaeological & Historical Group and with them have carried out many investigations in the area. In 1993 I was part of the team involved in the planning of the River & Rowing Museum at Henley and have played a large part in the design and content of the gallery relating to the town’s past." "I gained an introduction to archaeology during my time at Bristol University, carrying out surveys of prehistoric sites with Leslie Grinsell and excavations at a Saxon burh site at Cricklade, Wilts. This sparked an interest that has remained with me ever since. After graduating, I joined the Wiggins Teape Group of papermakers and spent 35 years in jobs ranging from production and distribution management to what was then called personnel management. This was at a time when the industry was rapidly changing from a craft to a closely controlled scientific process. I retired in 1991 and decided to rekindle my interest in archaeology by embarking on an MA course at Reading University (with Paul Backhouse as a fellow student). During this I was involved in a wide variety of investigations with Mike Fulford, most notably excavations at Silchester and a spectacular, if wearing, inter-tidal excavation on the Severn foreshore near Newport
"There is a lot to be said for having had a much-travelled childhood - you learn to be self-reliant, to accept differences, to take the long view. So, wartime austerity education, service as a WRNS driver, time with the War Office in London led eventually to settled family life in Standlake, where, in the early 1970s, I handled a trowel for the first time at The Devil’s Quoits. Archaeological study at Rewley House opened many doors and I became Hon. Sec. to the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society and to the Management Committee of what was then OAU. Work as a Field Monument Warden for English Heritage beckoned, agreeably combining archaeology, public relations and exploration of the countryside. I am proud of my long association with OA and now, as a Trustee, to support its undoubted position as a leader in British and European archaeology. Unfulfilled ambition? To visit Marcel Proust’s tomb in Paris."
Lawrence can trace his connections with OA back many years, to when he and Julian Munby were young in the 1970s, and to when he met Dave Wilkinson twenty-five years ago on a big excavation directed by Lawrence at Prudhoe Castle. He also got to know Ben Ford’s family who live in Dorchester, Dorset, his home town. It is one reason why he is so delighted to have been asked to become an OA Trustee. In 1972 he was appointed Director of the Southampton Archaeological Research Unit, and served as Chairman of the Dorset Archaeological Committee from 1975 - 1999. From 1989 - 2004 Lawrence was President of the British Archaeological Society. In his capacity as County Archaeologist for Dorset he always tried to employ OA because he was confident of our professionalism and trusted the quality of our work. And when it came to accepting a place on the Board of Trustees, he decided to sever ties with the Dorset Archaeological Committee. Lawrence received his O.B.E. for services to British archaeology. "OA’s move into the French archaeological market is an excellent development. I studied at University in Caen and am delighted to witness the company’s expansion. I am enjoying my Trusteeship enormously and want to contribute in any way I can, as long as it is useful. I would like to have more opportunities for contact with the staff, once a year at the A.G.M. is really not enough to get a feeling for the many projects that are going on, although we do now have the company magazine which is doing a great job of keeping everyone informed."
Since March 2004, David Gaimster has been General Secretary and Chief Executive of the Society of Antiquaries of London. From 1986 to 2001, he was Assistant Keeper in the Department for Medieval & Later Antiquities at the British Museum in London, and from 2002 to 2004, he served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Cultural Property Unit, Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) in London. David Gaimster is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and is Visiting Professor in Historical Archaeology at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Turku, Finland. He has published widely on medieval to early modern European archaeology and material culture and on international cultural property policy issues. He was President of the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology from 2002 to 2005 and is now Vice President. He received an Award of Merit from the Society for Historical Archaeology in 2005 for his contributions to European post-medieval and historical archaeology. He is author of German Stoneware, 1200–1900: Archaeology and Cultural History (British Museum, 1997) and The Historical Archaeology of Pottery Supply and Demand in the Lower Rhineland AD 1400-1800 (Archaeopress, 2006); and editor of Pottery in the Making: World Ceramic Traditions (British Museum, 1997), The Age of Transition: The Archaeology of English Culture 1400–1600 (Oxbow, 1997), The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580 (Manley, 2003), and Making History: Antiquaries in Britain 1707–2007 (Society of Antiquaries of London, 2007).
"After graduating in Chemistry from Sussex University in 1965, I worked at BP’s Kent refinery and in London. I did the UCL Diploma in Archaeology and took part in local excavations, publishing Palaeolithic (Cuxton) and Bronze Age (Wouldham) sites [Arch. Cant. 1983, 1987 & 2007]. This led to my joining The Prehistoric Society, where I’ve been active for over 30 years, serving as a Vice-President in 2000-4. I moved to Aberdeen in 1986, working on joint-venture North Sea pipelines. After over 20 years’ membership of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, I’ve just completed my 2004-7 term as its Vice-President. Retirement back to Yorkshire came in 2000, taking on Don Spratt’s mantle as the Quern Survey Coordinator. Since 2003, I’ve been on Yorkshire Archaeological Society’s Board and run its Prehistory Research Section. In 2005, I became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and, in the following year, joined Oxford Archaeology as a Trustee."
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