Archaeology Section

Lectures and Visits in 2025

2025 David Johnston Memorial Lecture - Thursday 27th March

"Beneath the Hob Nailed Boot: The Roman Army in the 'civil' zone of Britannia'

Hampshire Record Office Cinema, Winchester, SO23 8TH

Dr. Edwin Wood delivered the annual David Johnston Memorial Lecture in 2025. Dr. Edwin Wood's research into the nature of life in Roman Britain (Britannia) shows a mixture of occupation and assimilation. He is Archaeology Officer for East Berkshire Archaeology and completed his PhD at King’s College London.

It is usually presumed that the Roman army was present in small numbers within the ‘civil zone’ to construct infrastructure, perform administration or simple transience. Edwin’s study argues that their presence may have been far greater and might be interpreted as a force of occupation and control. His work uses archaeological small finds as a tool to deepen our understanding of how different communities within Roman Britain interacted. Exploring and challenging the presumed military association of several object types, such as harness fittings.

He concludes that far from sitting on the frontiers looking outwards, the Roman army was active within the province and that interactions with it were often far from positive.

Aims

The Archaeology Section aims to entertain and inform those who are concerned for the past and its material remains.

We organise an annual conference and a programme of lectures which keep members abreast of developments in archaeology, both within the county and beyond. Field trips are arranged to view current excavations and exhibitions and to visit some of the notable sites and monuments in Hampshire and adjoining counties.

Some of the work undertaken in the county is published in the Field Club's own Proceedings (Hampshire Studies) and Newsletter. If you have any contributions for the Archaeology Section of the Newsletter, please email them to archaeology-newsletter@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

Current programme - a full listing of all events organised by the different sections of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society.

Some Archaeology Section's previous events include:

• Past conferences on themes such as:
  • ‘Death & Burial’
  • ‘Monastic Houses’
  • 'Peopling the Past'
  • ‘Conflict and Defence’
• Past conferences on specific time periods:
  • ‘Early Anglo-Saxons – buckets and bodies’
  • ‘Neolithic New and Bronze Age Breakthroughs’
  • ‘Romans – AD410’
  • ‘Trade and Living in the Late Iron Age’ 

Through the year we run a series of lectures including the annual Roman-themed ‘David Johnston Memorial Lecture’ and archaeological topics from top academics such as Sir Barry Cunliffe and Professor Mike Fulford, with leading archaeologists from the commercial world of development-funded research, which is doing so much to expose the past beneath our feet.

The Section prides itself on providing (normally in summer) visits to extant archaeological excavations, and pays regular return visits to ongoing work to assess progress. Some of the key sites visited of recent years include: Silchester; Meonstoke; Basing House; Winterbourne Kingston (Duropolis) and the Leper Hospital on Magdalen Hill above Winchester.

Visiting the Roman Bath House Excavations at Silchester

A visit to the excavations at the Magdalen Hill Leper Hospital

Committee Members