We are delighted to announce that Alison Sheridan is the winner of this year’s Archaeologist of the Year award
Alison Sheridan collects the award for Archaeologist of the Year 2020 at the Current Archaeology Awards. [Photo credit: Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam]
Top archaeological honours at the prestigious Current Archaeology Awards went to Professor Alison Sheridan, who has been named Archaeologist of the Year for 2020.
An eminent archaeologist who has enjoyed an impressive career, Alison has just retired from (and become a Research Associate at) National Museums Scotland, where she had been Principal Archaeological Research Curator.
She was President of the Prehistoric Society between 2010 and 2014, and co-Chair of the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework’s Neolithic panel. Her research spans the Neolithic, Chalcolithic (‘Copper Age’), and Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland; she has collaborated in major international projects including the Beaker People Project, Projet JADE, and Projet JADE2, and was Principal Investigator for a project studying gold in Britain’s gold-bearing regions 2450-800 BC.
Alison has published widely; lectured in Europe, the USA, and China; curated exhibitions; and appeared on TV and radio. In 2018, she was awarded the British Academy’s Grahame Clark Medal for prehistoric research; in 2019, she won the Prehistoric Society’s Europa Award and was made a Fellow of the British Academy.
Accepting the award, Alison said:
“Wow – what can I say? I am overwhelmed – thank you to all who voted, I am honoured and very grateful.”
Below are all the nominees in this category:
Roy Friendship-Taylor
Roy has led excavations at the Roman villa site at Piddington, Northamptonshire, since 1979. Working with the Upper Nene Archaeology Society (of which Roy is the chair, directing UNAS excavations for over four decades), he has investigated the villa complex and ancillary buildings, as well as uncovering a preceding Iron Age settlement and traces of a possible Roman fort. In 1993, UNAS bought the local Wesleyan chapel, converting it into a museum displaying the project’s finds, as well as housing research and educational facilities. Roy began work as a graphic designer in London. He later took a Diploma in Archaeology at the University of Leicester, and later still an M.Phil in Archaeology at the University of Nottingham. For more on Piddington, see CA 358, 356, 297, 200, 194, 182, 146, 117, and 82.
Dr Alison Sheridan
Alison has just retired from (and become a Research Associate at) National Museums Scotland, where she had been Principal Archaeological Research Curator. She was President of the Prehistoric Society 2010-2014, and co-Chair of the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework’s Neolithic panel. Her research spans the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland; she has collaborated in major international projects, including the Beaker People Project, Projet JADE, and Projet JADE2, and was Principal Investigator for a project on gold in Britain’s gold-bearing regions 2450-800 BC. Alison has published widely, lectured in Europe, the USA, and China, curated exhibitions, and appeared on TV and radio. In 2018, she was awarded the British Academy’s Grahame Clark Medal for prehistoric research; in 2019, she won the Prehistoric Society’s Europa Award and was made a Fellow of the British Academy.
Dr Steve Sherlock
Steve is an independent archaeologist who has worked in archaeology since the late 1970s, particularly on major infrastructure and commercial projects across north-east England. As part of work on the A1 in North Yorkshire, he led an Operation Nightingale Project at Marne Barracks, Catterick, published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal in 2016. He was Archaeology Manager for Highways England on the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon Improvement Scheme (see CA 339), and in October became Archaeology Lead for works on the A428. Since 2004, while Chairman of Teesside Archaeological Society, he has directed excavations at Street House, Loftus, including a 7th-century cemetery with the north-east’s only known Anglo-Saxon bed burial (see CA 281), as well as significant Neolithic and Iron Age occupation. He published the prehistoric finds in October 2019, and the Street House Anglo-Saxon finds and an Iron Age volume in 2012.
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