Oxford Archaeology (OA, trading name of Oxford Archaeology Limited) is one of the largest and longest-established independent archaeology and heritage practices in Europe, operating from three permanent offices in Oxford, Lancaster and Cambridge, and working across the UK. OA is a Registered Organisation with the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), and carries out commercial archaeological fieldwork in advance of development, as well as a range of other heritage related services. Oxford Archaeology primarily operates in the UK, but has also carried out contracts around the world, including Sudan, Qatar, Central Asia, China and the Caribbean. Numbers of employees vary owing to the project-based nature of the work, but in 2023 OA employed over 350 people.
The registered head office is in Osney Mead, Oxford, southern England; this address is also the base for OA's Oxford office. Other offices are in Lancaster, northern England, and Cambridge, based at Bar Hill, Cambridgeshire, eastern England. Between 2007 and 2011, OA had offices in Mauguio (OA Méditerranée), southern France and Caen (OA Grand Ouest), northern France.
Oxford Archaeology, Oxford Office
In the late 1960s, the recently created Oxford City and County Museum led the archaeological response to a development boom in Oxfordshire. However, the museum lacked the resources to tackle the rescue crisis alone. The museum's answer was to form independent excavation committees in response to specific development threats, starting in Oxford in 1967. These committees were registered charities with public benefit at the heart of their purpose. They employed short-term contract staff, supplemented by volunteer diggers.
Soon a number of committees were operating, which tended to have the same governing members drawn from Central and Local Government, Oxford University and local archaeological societies. They also competed for the same funds. A consensus rapidly emerged that this duplication was wasteful and that all the committees should pool their resources to provide a county-wide service for archaeological research, using the opportunities presented by development. Thus, the Oxfordshire Archaeological Committee and its executive arm, the Oxfordshire Archaeological Unit, came into existence in 1973.
In the following years, the company adjusted flexibly to changing conditions, and expanded outside the county (hence the change in name to the Oxford Archaeological Unit). It also became a limited liability company, adjusted to new funding streams, and it embraced new methods and technologies. The company began trading as Oxford Archaeology in 2001.
Recent notable excavations include the excavation of prehistoric flint scatters and a Roman bloomery at the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road, the medieval friary of Greyfriars at Westgate Oxford, and a WWI mass grave of Australian soldiers at Fromelles.
Oxford Archaeology, Lancaster Office The Lancaster University Archaeological Unit (LUAU), together with its staff, became the northern office of Oxford Archaeology on 1 November 2001. This followed a decision that the needs of a professional archaeological unit could no longer be best served by its continuance within the university. The Lancaster office continued the wide range of work undertaken in the past, from desk-based assessments, through evaluation and rapid surveys of both the landscape and the built and industrial environments, to major excavations. Particular specialisations are upland survey and the excavation and recording of standing industrial remains.
The Lancaster office has taken the lead within OA on all archaeological projects carried out by the organisation throughout the north of England. It has worked on a great number of sites across northern England, and brought them to publication. These have included infrastructure projects on the A1(M), A66, the Asselby to Pannal and West East Link Main pipelines, and the Carlisle North Development Route (CNDR). The Lancaster office has also worked extensively on cemeteries and burials across northern England, including a Viking cemetery at Cumwhitton, medieval and post-medieval graveyards, and at Furness Abbey where a high-ranking clergyman was excavated. Since the North was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, the investigation of factories, mills and workers’ housing also forms an important part of the work carried out by the Lancaster office.
Oxford Archaeology, Cambridge Office In 2008, Cambridgeshire County Council's Field Unit, CAMARC, joined Oxford Archaeology as its third regional centre. CAMARC itself was a recently revised name for an organisation that had been given a variety of titles over more than 20 years of existence. Its lineage started in the early 1980s with Manpower Services Commission-funded community programme projects, and it continued to carry out developer-funded work in the mid-80s as the 'Archaeological Field Unit'.
The Cambridge office continues to deliver major programmes for infrastructure projects and for smaller-scale developments in both rural and urban areas. Its large rural landscape projects include complex Middle Bronze Age field systems, enclosures and settlements at Clay Farm, Trumpington. Recent urban schemes include the Itter Crescent Roman villa excavation in Peterborough and excavations of Victorian and Medieval settlement relating to Stourbridge Fair at Harvest Way, Newmarket Road, Cambridge.
Publication Having published some 230 monographs, reports and booklets, Oxford Archaeology has established itself as a major publisher of archaeological reports with the production of monograph series, such as Thames Valley Landscapes and Lancaster Imprints, and contributions to other major series, including East Anglian Archaeology Reports. OA has also produced many ‘popular’ publications, pamphlets and booklets written in a less technical style.
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