All posts by webmaster

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 7:30pm – BAS Finds Group

The agenda for this meeting is:

The background to this meeting is that for Blounts Court I have reached the position where I have a good understanding of the stratigraphy, contexts have been collected into sets which represent human activity and for the finds (pottery, glass and clay pipe) we have dates for their manufacture and details of the contexts of where they were found.

This meeting will be a discussion on how we use this information to date contexts and sets.  

We will start by reviewing some of the Blounts Court data so we can see the available data and try doing some dating.  Based on this experience the discussion will reflect on what we have been doing and gain some understanding of this task.

Please note that for the Wickham excavation Keith has reached a similar position with his pottery.

Please note that the meeting fee is £3 per head

Committee Room, Woosehill Community Centre, Emmview Cl, Wokingham RG41 3DA. Starting 19:30 and ending 21:30 (please don’t arrive before 19:15). There is ample parking alongside the Community Centre and in the adjacent Morrisons supermarket car park.

Also on Zoom

Anyone else wishing to join should contact Andrew Hutt on andrew_hutt(at)talktalk.net

For security we are not publishing email addresses as direct links. Please re-type substituting the @ symbol for (at)

Saturday 21st February 2026 – BAS Lecture: Vikings on Scottish islands

Searching for the Vikings on small Scottish islands

by Professor Steven Mithen, University of Reading

The lecture will look at my excavations at Dunyvaig Castle and Olistadh on the Isle of Islay, and then at the recent discoveries made on Nave Island.

Steven Mithen has a BA (hons) in Prehistory & Archaeology from Sheffield University, an MSc in Biological Computation from York University, and a PhD in Archaeology from Cambridge University. 

Between 1987 and 1992, he was a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall and then Lecturer in Archaeology at Cambridge. After moving to the University of Reading, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer (1996), Reader (1998) and then Professor of Early Prehistory (2000). In August 2002 he was appointed as the first Head of the School of Human & Environmental Sciences, formed by the Departments of Archaeology, Geography, Soil Science and the Postgraduate Institute of Sedimentology, a post he held until August 2008 when he became Dean of the Faculty of Science. 

In 2010, he was appointed a Pro Vice Chancellor for Internationalisation, a position he held for four years during which he developed a series of research and teaching partnerships for Reading, notably the Reading-NUIST Academy in China. In 2014 he was appointed Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, during which he undertook a major reshaping or research leadership, management and organisation at the University. Between 2014 and 2018, Steven also held the post of Deputy Vice Chancellor. In 2018 Steven completed his management roles at the University and returned to the Department of Archaeology as Professor Early Prehistory. He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004.

2.00 pm for 2.30 pm at the RISC Centre, London Street, Reading RG1 4PS and from 2:15 on Zoom

Google map reference

Image: Dunyvaig Castle by Henning2254 – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia

Wednesday 4th February 2026 2:30pm – BAS Study Group

The agenda for this meeting is:

A discussion and hands on work of drawing matrices to support the interpretation of an excavation.  We will discuss drawing matrices of contexts, sets and the phases of use of a site and groups of sets that represent features and areas of activity. 

There will be an opportunity to practice your use of Draw IO.   If you are having difficulty using this application, download it on to your laptop and bring it with you.

2:30 to 4:30pm. Please do not arrive before 2:15pm

This meeting will also be available on zoom. To register to attend please email Andrew on andrew.hutt(at)berksarch.co.uk*

Committee Room, Woosehill Community Centre, Emmview Cl, Wokingham RG41 3DA. There is ample parking alongside the Community Centre and in the adjacent Morrisons supermarket car park.

*For security we are not publishing email addresses as direct links. Please re-type substituting the @ symbol for (at)