George is a former Deputy Director and Head of Consultancy at OA and Director of the Council for British Archaeology. Now working as a freelance consultant, George has had a wide experience of archaeological research, having directed several major excavations in rural and urban areas, including extensive excavations of the medieval Dominican Friary in Oxford. George’s work has involved many aspects of archaeological policy development, especially with specialist environmental assessment studies.

George’s special interests are in collaboration with environmental archaeologists, specialising in ecological interpretation of past environments; an approach which has underpinned regional research on diverse issues, and has been published in excavation reports and synthetic papers. Special studies of archaeology and nature conservation, the archaeological implication of modern cultivation methods, and the management of archaeological sites in the countryside; related issues such as forestry, draining (including the Code of Practice for the Water Act). Particular research interests include regional research on issues such as the late prehistoric and Roman intensification of farming, the development of lowland grassland ecotypes and their socio-economic context, and the impact of human activity on hydrological and alluvial processes.

A selection of projects:

1997-8: project director for a strategic review of urban archaeology in Ireland, undertaken for the Irish Heritage Council.

1997: collaborated with CBA on a landscape assessment for the Avebury World Heritage Site management plan, and is involved with the same team drawing up the draft management plan for Stonehenge.

1995-6: contributed specialist historic input for the Countryside Commission National Landscape Character Programme, in charge of OAU's preparation of the historic settlement pattern data set and more general advice on cultural heritage aspects in the initial stages of the main contract undertaken by Chris Blandford Associates.

1994-5: acted as specialist adviser to Cobham (now Scott Wilson) Resource Consultants in developing English Heritage's recommended approaches to and methods of identifying, characterising and evaluating landscapes of historic interest at a wide range of scales from regional to site-specific, and for a wide range of purposes (policy, management, impact assessment etc