Lecture programme

From October to May, the Institute presents a series of lectures by visiting speakers on the latest archaeological research.

Lectures are held in the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London at 5 p.m.

The 2022 - 2023 Lecture Programme

Members are welcome to bring a guest to lectures. Non members are welcome to attend lectures but should contact the administrator in advance.

Don't forget! Members of the RAI are invited to attend the lecture programme of the British Archaeological Association.

Online lectures

Some of our recorded lectures are restricted to our Ordinary members, but the debates and lectures listed below are available to everyone. These lectures and more can also be found on our YouTube channel.

• 11 January 2023, Tony Wilmott, Recent excavations in the amphitheatre, fort and town of Richborough

• 9 November 2022, Dr Steven Brindle, Reconstructing Bury St Edmunds Abbey

• 12 October 2022, Nathalie Cohen and Eliott Wragg, Investigations at Smallhythe in Kent by the National Trust

• 11 May 2022, Lindsay Allason-Jones, A 'scandalous trough' and Other Tales of Romano-British Sculpture

• 13 April 2022 - 5 P.M., Dr Rena Maguire, Best of British? A practical analysis to later prehistoric equitation in Britain

• 13 April 2022 - 3 P.M., Kelsey Madden and Chris Dwan, Postgraduate speakers from Sheffield University

• 9 March 2022, Dr Anne Crone, The life and times of Black Loch of Myrton, an Iron Age wetland settlement in SW Scotland

• 9 February 2022, Lisa Westcott Wilkins and Brendon Wilkins, Lindisfarne: new research and new ways of working, the DigVentures model in action

• 8 December 2021, Dr Tessa Machling and Roland Williamson, Talking torcs: a craft perspective on Iron Age gold

• 10 November 2021, Dr James Wright, Tattershall Castle: The Newly Built Personality of Ralph Lord Cromwell

• 13 October 2021, Dr Richard Nevell, Putting the Pieces back Together: what slighting can tell us about the past

• 22 June 2021, Professor Barbara Yorke, The Staffordshire Hoard and the History of Seventh-Century England

• 12 May 2021, Dr Jane Sidell, The Archaeology of the Greenwich World Heritage Site

• 14 April 2021 - 5 P.M., Dr Richard Hoggett, M.R. James's East Anglia

• 14 April 2021 - 3 P.M., David Ratledge, Rob Entwistle and Mike Haken Work by the Roman Roads Association

• 10 March 2021, Professor David Breeze, Roman Frontiers in Their Landscape Settings

• 10 February 2021, Professor Gordon Noble, Fortifying Rulership: The Emergence and Development of Pictish Power Centres in Northeast Scotland, c. 300-1000 AD

• 13 January 2021, Dr Peter Halkon, Petuaria Revisited: New light on Roman Brough-on-Humber

• 9 December 2020, Neil Mahrer, Le Catillon II: investigating and conserving the world’s largest Iron Age hoard

• 11 November 2020 - 5 P.M., Dr Rob Collins, The Genesis of Northumbria: Reconsidering the origins of an ‘English’ kingdom in light of new data

• 11 November 2020 - 3 P.M., David Marsh, Theo Reeves and Abigail Taylor, Current Postgraduate Research at The University of Birmingham

• 14 October 2020, Dr Rachel Swallow, Legend, Lordship and Landscape: Understanding the Queen's Gate, Caernarfon Castle, North Wales

• 12 February 2020, Dr Mark Gardiner, Anglo-Saxon timber buildings: archaeological evidence for the forms and the processes of construction

• 8 January 2020, Alison Telfer, From the Romans to the Saxons: results from the archaeological fieldwork at the site of St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square

• 11 December 2019, Dr Matt Pope, The Boxgrove Horse Butchery Site: Solving a Puzzle from the Deep Past

• 13 November 2019, Professor Howard Williams, Hydraulic Borders? The Ebb and Flow of Wat’s Dyke and Offa’s Dyke

• 9 October 2019, Professor John Collis, Celts and the end of Roman Britain (Due to severe travel disruption, Maya Hoole's lecture on 'Re-Discovering Ava: the Achavanich Beaker Burial project' had to be postponed and rescheduled for 13 May 2020. Prof John Collis kindly agreed to present an impromptu lecture which was only at draft stage.)

• 8 May 2019, Blaise Vyner, Wade's Causeway: a road to nowhere?

• 10 April 2019, Dr Stephen Sherlock, Excavations at Street House, Loftus, North East Yorkshire: Neolithic - Anglo-Saxon

• 12 December 2018, Beverley Ballin Smith, Bringing a large legacy project to publication - the Neolithic and Bronze Age Udal, North Uist

• 14 November 2018, Richard Mortimer, The excavation of a Middle Anglo-Saxon 'King's Enclosure' at Conington, Cambridgeshire

• 9 May 2018, Professor Timothy Champion, Archaeologists at war

• 14 March 2018, Dr Stephen Sherlock, The Archaeology of Large Infrastructure Projects: Roads

• 14 February 2018, Nathalie Cohen, Knole Unlocked: uncovering the hidden history of a great country house

• 13 December 2017, Dr Michael Lewis, 20 Years of Treasure

• 11 October 2017, Dr Duncan Garrow, The Lewis lochs project: exploring the earliest crannogs in Britain

• 10 May 2017, Professor Timothy Champion, A brief history of RAI Presidents

• 8 March 2017, Rónán Swan, New Routes to the Past: discoveries by road and light rail scheme archaeology in Ireland

• 8 February 2017, Dr Antony Firth, The East Coast War Channels in the First World War

• 11 January 2017, Professor Colin Haselgrove, The rise and fall of the late Iron Age royal site at Stanwick, North Yorkshire

• 14 December 2016, Rachel Newman, Dacre, Cumbria, the early medieval monastery described by the Venerable Bede

• 12 October 2016, Jay Carver, Portals to the Past. Controlling risk and maximising benefit on the Crossrail Archaeology Programme

• 11 May 2016, Professor Timothy Champion, The making of the southern English landscape: a prehistorian's view

• 13 April 2016, Shaun Richardson, Wressle Castle, East Yorkshire: Beginning to End

• 13 April 2016 (Early Career Archaeologists) Lawrence Billington, 'Squeezing Blood from Stones': lithic scatters and landscape occupation in Mesolithic Eastern England

• 13 April 2016 (Early Career Archaeologists) Dr Marcus Brittain, The Mundane and the Macabre: A brief outline of the Ham Hill Archaeology project

• 9 March 2016, Dr Andy Jones, The Whitehorse Hill Cist and its Remarkable Contents

• 10 February 2016, Steffie Shields, 'Moving Heaven & Earth' - celebrating Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (1716-1783) and his legacy

• 13 January 2016, Dr Frank Meddens, Ports, Limbs and other appendages; the archaeological signature of Cinque port confederation sites

• 9 December 2015, Dr Rebecca Jones, Roman Camps in Britain: known unknowns

• 8 April 2015, Sadie Watson, Excavations at Bloomberg London; New discoveries along the Walbrook

• January 2014 Debate, Dr Alison Sheridan, Professor Julian Thomas and Professor Alasdair Whittle, How and why did Britain become Neolithic?

• February 2013 Debate, Professor David Breeze and Professor Eberhard Sauer, The limits of imperial power: the function of military frontier walls