International Women's Day 2023 in Archaeology

The Institute of Archaeology has a long history of women’s leadership and expertise in the discipline. 

The origin of the Institute goes back to Mortimer and Tessa Verney Wheeler’s vision of creating a centre for archaeological training in Britain. When the Institute was officially opened in 1937, early staff members included Kathleen Kenyon, a renowned field archaeologist (who served as Acting Director during WWII), whose excavations in Jericho and Jerusalem are amongst the most famous in the history of archaeology, Joan du Plat Taylor, who was a founder of underwater archaeology as well as pioneering archaeological conservators, Ione Gedye and Delia Parker. Read more about the women of the early Institute. 

More recently Sue Hamilton, an expert in gender archaeology, served as the first permanent female Director of the Institute of Archaeology from 2014-22 and during this period we received the Athena Swan Bronze Award in recognition of our ongoing commitment to advancing gender equality. Our Bronze Award affirms that we have a solid foundation for eliminating gender bias and developing an inclusive culture that values all staff and students.

The Institute’s Women’s Forum (established in 2000), which is open to all staff and students, provides an additional platform to support these aims and discusses issues of gender equality and inclusion in a wider sense while our Equality & Diversity Forum provides a supportive and inclusive environment for discussion of any issues relating to Equality, Diversity, Gender and/or Sexuality. 

A selection of research and engagement activities led by current Institute of Archaeology female staff and students, as well as Archaeology South-East colleagues, are highlighted below. These have been published by UCL Press in recent issues of Archaeology International, which is fully online and open access.

Recent articles

• Urban life in early Islamic Morocco - Elizabeth Fentress, Corisande Fenwick and Hassan Limane
• Iso-Wetlands: unlocking wetland ecologies and agriculture in prehistory through sulfur isotopes - Rhiannon E. Stevens, Hazel Reade, Daniel S. Read, Simon H. Bottrell, Delphine Frémondeau, Sarah Wexler
• Teens, manga and replica shabtis - Amanda Ford Spora
• Neolithic bone shovels of Britain: replication and reflection of a neglected artefact type - Charli Mansfield (ASE)
• The Annual Report of the Institute of Archaeology (1937–58): history, development and access - Katie Meheux
• Co-creating sustainable food futures with botanical gardens and communities: reflections from the BigPicnic project - Georgios Alexopoulos and Theano Moussouri
• Heritage questing with Virginia Woolf: UCL Institute of Archaeology’s ‘spirit of place’ and new pedagogies of the pandemic - Beverley Butler, David Francis, Ellen Pavey
• Corporate or commercial? Considering modes of ceramic roof tile production in Chichester in the medieval and beyond - Hayley Nicholls (ASE), with a contribution by Rae Regensberg
• Citizenship and religion in the first-millennium BCE Mediterranean: from Etruria to Iberia - Corinna Riva
• Judging a book by its cover: a new project analysing leatherwork from Sur Island, Sudan - Paige Steen, Paulina Wandowicz 

In Summer 2022, Kayt Hawkins (ASE) and Charlotte Frearson organised the display of the Archéo-Sexisme exhibition at UCL, in collaboration with Laura Mary, Béline Pasquini, Ségolène Vandevelde and Amanda Gaggioli. The travelling exhibition aims to raise awareness among the public from the world of heritage and archaeology in the hope of changing the situations female archaeology students and archaeologists face as a result of their gender.

The Institute collaborates with Trowelblazers, co-founded by Brenna Hassett, who pioneer the contributions of women in archaeology, geology, and palaeontology - past and present - and encourage participation in these fields, especially from under-represented minorities.

Read more

• International Women’s Day 2023 campaign theme: #EmbraceEquity
• UCL marks Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day