Wessex Archaeology was exceptionally well represented at this years’ Institute for Archaeologists’ conference Research in Practice in Glasgow.
 
 
At the ‘Creating Research Communities for Maritime Archaeology’ session, Peta Knott and John McCarthy spoke about recent projects that have involved community groups. Peta’s presentation outlined how English Heritage, Wessex Archaeology and Tyneside 114 British Sub Aqua Club can have worked successfully together, as demonstrated on the recent investigation of Gun Rocks wreck in the Farne Islands. John McCarthy spoke about Wessex Archaeology's very successful SAMPHIRE project building upon local maritime knowledge, augmenting it with archaeological techniques and then disseminating this new knowledge back to the local Scottish communities.
 
Andy Bicket added a welcome watery component to the otherwise very terrestrial session on ‘What’s new in British Archaeology – Prehistory’. He spoke about ongoing research in the area of submerged prehistory and working with the offshore industries that unearth these significant artefacts. Phil Andrews showed the diversity of Wessex’s work by presenting in the ‘What’s new in British Archaeology – Medieval’ session on the Longforth Farm excavations that have been taking place over the last few years. Not only did this project reveal a high status medieval building complex with excellent research potential, it also provided opportunities to share new discoveries with the almost 2000 people who visited the site in one open week and thousands more who accessed the project online.
 
Online access and sharing of information was a key feature of the Glasgow IfA conference with tweeting encouraged throughout the presentations as shown here -