Lecture Program 2017 - 2018. All meetings will be held at Friends Meeting House, Hill Street, Coventry, at 19:30 on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.
There is a £1 door charge per member (excluding children of family members) to defray room hire fees. Door fee for non members is £3.
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2018
9th January Title: Parish Churches & Medieval Society in the West Midlands.
Lecturer Dr John Hunt www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/history/hunt-john.aspx
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13th February Title: The Archaeology of Bradgate Park; 15,000 Years of an Upland Leicestershire Landscape.
Lecturer Dr Richard Thomas www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/people/academics/thomas
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13th March Title: Stories of the English Coinage.
Lecturer Philip Griffiths
This is a one hour presentation that tells the story of coinage from the earliest coins some 2700 years ago, via the first coins to circulate in Britain 2000 years ago, up to the latest post- decimalisation coinage. The talk illustrates how coin design is not only a product of the then current technology and economy, but also the art, culture, language and politics of their time.
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10th April Title: War and Worship: Kenilworth Castle and Church.
Lecturer Jan Cooper
Jan Cooper is the chair of Kenilworth History and Archaeology Society and has worked with English Heritage at Kenilworth Castle The talk will cover the history and development of Kenilworth Castle and Kenilworth Priory ( later Abbey ) from their foundations to destruction and demonstrate how closely linked the two were throughout several centuries. One of the most dramatric and significant events was the Great Siege of Kenilworth - the longest siege in English medieval history 1266. A year in which, for some six months, England was governed from Kenilworth
The Abbey was dissolved in 1538 leaving the Castle as the main source of power in the town. Elizabeth I visited and was entertained royally by its then owner Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. However in 1649 it was partly demolished by parliamentarian forces and its glory days were over.
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8th May A.G.M.
Members only
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11th September Title: Margaret Rylatt Memorial Lecture: Romans in the West Midlands.
Lecturer Dr Roger White www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/caha/white-roger.aspx
The Romans and their culture left their mark all across this area and amongst other aspects of the archaeology and history the lecture will include conclusions from the Roman Research frameworks for the region.
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9th October Title: Castle Hill - In Search of the Knights Hospitallers.
Lecturer Mathew Morris
Mathew is a Project Officer at University of Leicester Archaeological Services and has worked on a wide range of sites including the famous Richard III excavation.
On the edge of Leicester, in Castle Hill Country Park at Beaumont Leys, is a large enigmatic rectangular earthwork. Speculation in the past has variously suggested that was an Iron Age, Roman or Anglo-Saxon encampment, whilst more recent research indicated that it might be a medieval manorial site associated with the Knights Hospitallers. The lecture will cover the excavations that have taken place and what they tell us about the fascinating history of the site and its links with the mediaeval military order.
www2.le.ac.uk/services/ulas/discoveries/projects/
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13th November Title: The Akrotiri Project.
Lecturer Vicki Score www2.le.ac.uk/services/ulas/images/staff-profile-pics/vicki-score-1/view
Deputy Director at University of Leicester Archaeological Services she has worked on a wide range of sites and in 2017 was awarded the Marsh Archaeology Award for Community Archaeologist of the Year.
The lecture will cover not only the ancient Roman and Byzantine port on the Akrotiri peninsula and also the fascinating wider archaeological picture including Classical and Late Antique settlements which are being excavated in a project involving local people, service personnel and veterans involved with Operation Nightingale
www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/research/projects/ancient-akrotiri
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11th December Title: J.B. Shelton Memorial Lecture: Urban Hopes and Urban Destinies: the Coventry Friaries (covering both Whitefriars and Greyfriars).
Lecturer Deirdre O'Sullivan www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/people/academics/osullivan
Lecturer in Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester who has worked at various sites including Lindisfarne and whose current research work has been centred on the archaeologies and histories of the Dissolution and on friaries.
What remains of Coventry's Greyfriars is now known as Christ Church spire while what is left of Whitefriars is a lovely building obscured by the ring road and it can be difficult to imagine them in their heyday. This lecture will bring them back to life in their original form, influence and power in the Middle Ages.
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2019
Lecture Program 2018 - 2019. All meetings will be held at Friends Meeting House, Hill Street, Coventry, at 19:30 on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.
There is a £1 door charge per member (excluding children of family members) to defray room hire fees. Door fee for non members is £3. Non members door fee is refunded if you join CADAS on the evening. Membership is £15 for individuals; £20 for family. Membership includes a bulletin.
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8th January Title: Recent Excavations near to the Lunt Fort, Baginton.
Lecturer Nigel Page heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/archaeology/welcome-to-archaeology-warwickshire/the-team/
Nigel is a Project Officer at Archaeology Warwickshire who has worked on a range of sites
CADAS has links going back over decades to the Lunt and Baginton so these excavations which were in preparation for a new Jaguar Landrover site are of special interest especially since they have revealed a range of finds from a Roman cremation cemetery, prehistoric barrow not to mention a Saxon cemetery.
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12th February Title: A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge Improvement works: A brief overview of archaeological discoveries 2016-2018.
Lecturer Simon Markus
Simon Markus is a project officer for MOLA who has worked on a number of sites including Hayle Harbour in Cornwall as part of its regeneration and Wolston about which he lectured to the Society in 2016.
This site which is being excavated by MOLA Headland Infrastructure and employs approximately 250 archaeologists. It has revealed a cornucopia of finds from some 6000 years of Cambridgeshire’s history from the Neolithic to the Mediaeval periods.
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12th March Title: Title Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia.
Lecturer Dr John Hunt
Dr Hunt is an honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, a medievalist working primarily on regional history and archaeology. His many publications include a book and articles on Mercia. www.birmingham.ac.uk/.../history/hunt-john.aspx
For three hundred years Mercia was a great power in Anglo-Saxon England with a capital based at Tamworth. Its most famous king was Offa. Eventually it became part of the Danelaw and ultimately was absorbed in to England but items such as the Staffordshire Hoard and the Lichfield Angel attest to the kingdom's wealth and culture.
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9th April Title: A unique Iron Age feasting and ritual site: Excavations at Glenfield Park, Leicestershire.
Lecturer John Thomas
John is a Project Officer, University of Leicester Archaeological Services.
www2.le.ac.uk/services/ulas/about/staff-folder
As well as information about the settlement the lecture will cover the discoveries which include a unique collection of Iron Age metal artefacts which sheds new light on rituals in this era
www2.le.ac.uk/services/ulas/discoveries/projects/
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14th May A.G.M.
Members only.
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8th October Title: From Viking Boats to Whitby Jet: new discoveries on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, Western Scotland.
Lecturer Dr Oliver Harris
Dr Harris is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester, author of numerous journal articles and books. In 2016 he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Archaeology, He is co-director of the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project, a long running research project into changing lifeways on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, western Scotland. and he spends his summers digging there. www2.le.ac.uk/.
The aim of the project is to understand how human occupation in one specific area changed at key moments such as the start of farming or the arrival of the Vikings and beyond .Through this project Dr Harris has directed excavations of a Neolithic chambered cairn, a Bronze Age kerbed cairn and a Viking boat burial. The project was awarded the Archaeological Training Forum award at the 2014 IfA conference. The lecture will look at the latest finds from this fascinating site.
