The Spring London Archaeological Forum with CBA London

CBA London is bringing together a great variety of speakers and topics for its biannual London Archaeological Forum this Spring.

**Join us in person on Monday 19th May at 6pm. **

Booking is free and anyone with an interest in London’s archaeology is very welcome. To register for your place, just click the orange box above before 1pm on 19th May.

We have three terrific short presentations lined up this time:

• One of our top specialists in medieval and later ceramics, MOLA's Jacqui Pearce will be looking at the most recognizable of all German early modern products, encountered on archaeological sites across the world: the stoneware container with distinctive male bearded face mask and applied medallions, commonly known as the Bellarmine or Bartmann jug. Produced in huge quantities, mostly for export, they are found in contexts, mainly c. 1500–1750, in urban centres such as London and Amsterdam, on smaller sites and in shipwrecks and, thanks to colonial expansion, across continents. This talk focuses on a major 3-year international, integrated, interdisciplinary and interactive project to advance the frontiers of Bartmann research not only in north-west Europe but on a global scale.
• Mike Curnow, Project Officer at MOLA, joins us to discuss the surprising Tideway Site 4: Barn Elms. Between July 2015 and June 2022, archaeological works were conducted by MOLA at on behalf of Tideway near the confluence of the Beverley Brook and the River Thames uncovered part of a mid-late Iron Age settlement, that was occupied for multiple centuries before falling out of use around the 1st century BC. The evidence suggests that this now unassuming corner of sports field may once have been the site of an oppidum with a wealthy population using coinage, producing various crafted materials, and trading with other parts of Britain and continental Europe.
• Andrew Mayfield, who has been behind a fantastic, wide ranging programme of community archaeology in Greenwich Park over the course of 4 years, will update us on recent projects for the Royal Parks there. These include excavation of a WWII air raid shelter, works ahead of landscape improvements such as the Grand Ascent under the Greenwich Park Revealed project, plus work on the precinct of the Roman temple. He'll be joining us for an update straight from this year's dig, again on that Roman site, which runs from May 12th to 31st.
• Cover image: investigating the Grand Ascent in Greenwich, designed under Charles II

NB: The LAF is in person only. To register for your place, just click the 'get tickets' box on this page, before 1pm on 19th May.

Note too that there is a short CBA London Annual General Meeting before the start of the LAF.

Please contact Becky Wallower through the contact button below with any queries.

Examples of Bartmann jugs produced in Germany and found across the world. (C) MOLA

Detail of a bearded man, after which the Bellarmine ceramic vessels became known as Bartmann jugs (C) MOLA

Panoramic aerial view of the site of excavation of Greenwich Park's Roman temple precinct by volunteers and students in 2024 PHOTO: Pete Barry

Selection of recent Roman finds from excavations in Greenwich Park, displayed at new Learning Centre in the park

Images from the site of the mid-late Iron Age settlement occupied for several centuries, discovered in Barnes during works for the Thames Tideway Tunnel. (C) MOLA