19.12.2023

Newsletter EAA Urban Archaeology Community (12/2023)

Hello all,

This is the community’s very last newsletter of 2023.

Online meeting
Yesterday we had our community’s third consecutive online meeting. Apart from a short introduction round, nice to see new faces joining us all the time, the main theme of the meeting was selection and deselection in urban archaeology. Member Kasper van den Berghe gave a short kick-off to the discussion. A number of issues played a role in this:
- due to the large amount of find material, selection in urban archaeology is difficult. Thereby, the choice often falls on the special objects instead of the most representative objects;
- collection in the field is limited;
- specialist research is carried out only to a very limited extent and then also with very archaic techniques;
- selection is largely driven by the interests of the archaeologist concerned.

A major cause of these problems has to do with time and money.

The discussion does show that this is a shared problem and not specific to one country.
But what are the solutions? Some were suggested during the discussion:
- developing research frameworks (at different levels);
- choices in the field on what to research and what not to research but then consciously using state-of-the-art techniques;
- awareness of what is uber-highly possible with these kinds of techniques.
In addition, we should not forget that there is also a lot of Pre-Malta research that has not yet been worked out, if at all. How should we deal with that and what do we gain from it?

It does appear that a whole range of new topics emerge from the discussion that are worth elaborating on.
For the next meeting, I would like to put synthesising research in urban archaeology on the agenda. If there is anyone who would like to give a short kick-off for this, I would love to hear about it!

Our next online meeting will be: Tuesday 30 January from 15.00-16.00 CET.

EAA 2024
Our session for the EAA 2024 has been approved! It is session number 1040: Tracking the Urban DNA. Unravelling the Rise and Fall of Towns and Cities.
The session is now open for submission of papers. You can do so via this link: https://eaa.klinkhamergroup.com/eaa2024/sessions/contribution/?step=2 
The deadline for submission is 8 February 2024

Hopefully we will manage to have a nice big session on Urban Archaeology in Rome next year!

EAC 2024
Apart from the EAA in Rome, the annual EAC Congress will also take place next year. The theme of 2024 is Urban archaeology. The deadline for submitting proposals will be extended until January. Participation in the congress is free and open to anyone interested in this theme. It is not mandatory for participation to also present a paper. More information can be found on the site: https://www.europae-archaeologiae-consilium.org/ 

It only remains for me to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year. I hope to meet you again next year, online, in Brussels or of course in Rome!

All the best,
Jeroen