Celebrating 50 years of the Society for Museum Archaeology
SMA Annual Conference Part 2
Programme
Hosted Online 4th December 2025
NB Members and conference delegates should receive an email containing the online meeting link with instructions for joining. Please contact admin@socmusarch.org.uk if you do no receive the email.
Due to adverse weather conditions, sessions on Friday 14th of November were disrupted. The programme of rescheduled talks and the SMA AGM are listed below.
We thank both speakers and attendees for their patience through this unexpected disruption and thank you all for your continued support.
Download a copy of the revised programme here
AGM Papers can be found here
| 13:00 – 13:05 | Welcome and Introduction |
| Elsa Price, Lead Curator of Archaeology, National Museums Liverpool | |
| 13:05 – 13:25 | ‘Times they are a changing’ – how do we best communicate archaeology for multiple audience needs? |
| Neil Redfern, Executive Director, Council for British Archaeology | |
| 13:25 – 13:45 | It’s not all about the finds: managing Kings Weston Roman Villa |
| Kate Iles, Senior Curator of Archaeology, Bristol Museums | |
| 13:45 – 14:05 | Putting the archaeology back into the antiquarian: analysing the Dr HA Fawcett Collection of Typology for archaeological significance. |
| Gail Boyle, Freelance | |
| 14:05 – 14:25 | Archaeology and the persistence of mystery |
| Jenny Durrant, Freelance collections and ethics consultant | |
| 14:25 – 14:30 | Comfort Break |
| 14:30-14:45 | Questions |
| 14:45 – 15:00 | AGM & Awards |
| Ben Donnelly-Symes, Chair, SMA | |
| 15:00-15:10 | 2024 Grant Recipient: Access For All: Treasures of Oxfordshire |
| Angie Bolton, Curator of Archaeology, Oxfordshire Museum Service | |
| 15:10-15:20 | 2024 Grant Recipient: The Bidston Hogback Stone |
| Vanessa Oakden, Curator of Regional and Community Archaeology National Museums Liverpool | |
| 15:20-15:30 | Questions and Close |
Watch our Conference 2019 videos online!
Keynote:The Telling of Human Stories
Waiting in the Wings (digital archaeological archives)
Driving Community Engagement and Research: a vision for Watling Street
Numismatics, Norman England and other Tricky Issues
Is Disposal a participatory practice?
Experiencing the gods: Displaying and interpreting Romano-British religion in museums
How can I put this? Interpreting the Evil Eye for a modern audience
Watch our Conference 2018 videos online!
And the individual videos are:
Bristol’s Brilliant Archaeology: planning for all ‘event’ …ualities
Your Dig: York Archaeological Trust’s new Participatory Community Engagement Programme
Visitor perceptions of, and engagement with, British prehistory displays
Positive Action with a 3D Printer
Documentation and Curation of 3D Visualization Projects
Displaying the Dead: results of the Leeds Museum visitor survey
A new approach to rationalising archaeological shell
Charging Ahead: Exploring fees for the transfer of archaeological archives in museums in England
I like to move it, move it……into archive suitable boxes
Pottery Shop? What Pottery Shop? Re – thinking Corbridge from the base up
Improving Archaeological Reference Collections and Typologies
Archaeology matters: pass it on!
Forging a positive collaboration between Swindon Museum & Art Gallery & Cardiff University
Old Collections, New Questions: Researching the Roman collections of the Yorkshire Museum
Birmingham: rediscovering archaeology for a superdiverse city
Putting Cyprus on the Map: promoting the Cypriot archaeology collections at Museums Sheffield
Papyrus for the People at the Petrie Museum