16.10.2023

Newsletter October 2023

Dear all,

It has now been over a month since the EAA’s annual congress in Belfast. It was a beautiful and well-organised meeting where at times you could hardly realise that there were so many of us archaeologists together. However, several people that period, including myself, got Corona. I hope those affected were not too much inconvenienced.

This congress also hosted the annual general membership meeting of the EAA Urban Archaeology Community. There were some start-up problems with the online connection which meant that only after 15-20 minutes the meeting was accessible online. Fortunately, not everyone had dropped out as a result. Several matters were discussed during the meeting, which can be found in the minutes at the bottom of this email, with thanks to Paul Belford who prepared them.

Online meetings
It was agreed to organise an online meeting every month. These will take place on alternating days to allow as many people as possible to attend. If you would like to join a meeting, please leave a message on the contact form. The schedule will be:

2023
- Thursday 26 October (15.00-16.00 CET)
- Friday 24 November (15.00-16.00 CET)
- Monday 18 December (14.00-15.00 CET)
2024
- Tuesday, 30 January (15.00-16.00 CET)
- Wednesday 28 February (14.00-15.00 CET)
- Thursday 28 March (15.00-16.00 CET)

- Friday 26 April (15.00-16.00 CET)
- Monday 27 May (15.00-16.00 CET)
- Tuesday, 25 June (15.00-16.00 CET)

- Wednesday 31 July (15.00-16.00 CET)
- Wednesday 28 August on location in Rome. Time is still unknown.

The book
We have now received word from the series editors about the outline of the new book “In search of the Urban Habitat”. Basically, they were very positive. The main comment was mainly a task for the editors, namely to guard the coherence of the book because of the great diversity of the different articles around this topic. This is certainly something we were already mindful of. So at least the process can continue.

EAA 2024 - Rome
Rome will host the next EAA congress next year. We would like to ask you to start thinking about topics for one or more sessions during this congress. It would be great if we could link several sessions to our community at this meeting. On Thursday 26 October we can, of course, discuss this further. But do not hesitate to e-mail us with suggestions and ideas.

Finally, I wish you a great (working) week and hope to meet you online on 26 October!

All the best,
Jeroen

The EAA Urban Archaeology Community business meeting took place at Queen’s University Belfast on 30 August 2023. The following topics were discussed:

1. Urban Habitat book proposal. The proposal has been submitted to Springers for publication in the EAA ‘Themes’ series. This will include around 20 papers presented at previous EAA meetings, including virtual events in 2020 and 2021 and Budapest 2022. The proposal has been peer-reviewed and some suggestions for minor changes are expected. We will hear more news in the next couple of weeks.

2. This discussion about the Urban Archaeology Themes volume led to a more general conversation about the Community’s desire to see the whole Themes series as an Open Access publication to reach the widest possible audience. It was felt that the EAA would be sympathetic in principle but the cost may be challenging. We agreed to try and approach the EAA Board through various channels to highlight this issue on an EAA-wide basis.

3. Nordic Urban Archaeology. Jeroen attended the Nordic Urban Archaeology meeting in Copenhagen in May. This was an interesting and valuable meeting which highlighted the important work being undertaken by colleagues in Scandinavia.

4. Urban buildings meeting. Jeroen has been in discussion with Dirk Rieger about organising something next year (or in 2025) in Lübeck. This might have a northern (Hanseatic?) focus rather than a southern one.

5. It was agreed to restart the regular online monthly meetings. These had been very successful a couple of years ago but had lost momentum. Paul Johnson suggested that we keep a regular monthly slot but change the days to accommodate as many people as possible. Everyone agreed, and the last week of the month was decided, with the next meeting on Thursday 28 September 2023, followed by Friday 27 October and then Monday 27 November. Further dates will be confirmed at the September meeting.

6. The Urban Archaeology Community was represented at the EAA Community Assembly held earlier in the day. Topics discussed included the potential €500 funding for each community, and the need for closer links between conference organisers and communities - especially for notifying communities of affiliated (or potentially affiliated) sessions being proposed. There was also a widespread feeling that there should be more flexibility about the timing of the individual community business meetings (not limited to the Wednesday before the conference).

7. All members of the Community were encouraged to send information to Jeroen about meetings of interest to other members to include on the website.

8. It was agreed to pursue a funding application to the EAA for €500 to support the ongoing maintenance and development of the Urban Archaeology Community website