Elizabeth and Thomasina Campbell: Mother – Daughte...

May 22, 2025 | Archaeology, Articles

Elizabeth Campbell (1783-1861) and her daughter, Thomasina (c. 1804-88) are two of Scotland’s earliest female archaeologists. This rare mother-daughter investigative duo published at least one prehistoric site in the Georgian era, while renting Kilravock Castle. Born Turner and raised by her stepfather Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745-1810) at Parlington, near Leeds, Elizabeth grew up in a […]

Selma Al-Radi

Feb 24, 2023 | Archaeology, Articles

Tucked within the busy streets of Rada, Yemen sits the 15th-century palace of Amiriya Madrasa, named for the last Sultan of the Tahirid Dynasty: Amir ibn Abd Al-Wahhab. Killed in 1517, Al-Wahhab’s successors left the Amiriya Madrasa, causing the beautiful domed palace to fall into ruin over the next five centuries. When first discovered, the […]

Katharine MacDonald: A Burning Light in Prehistory

Jan 31, 2023 | Archaeology, Articles

Katharine MacDonald (Kathy) was an archaeologist specializing in the Palaeolithic period, and especially the Neanderthals. She did her most important work not with a trowel, but through careful study of pre-existing literature to construct databases, exploring the complex factors in the evolution of humans and their extinct relatives. Her work was widely impactful in painting […]

The Birka Warrior of Grave BJ 581 – How Archaeolog...

Jan 18, 2023 | Blog

In 1878, archaeologist Hjalmar Stolpe excavated a grave at the Viking Age site Birka that he described as “perhaps the most remarkable of all the graves in this field” (1879, 2); it was later on documented as Bj 581. Located on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren, Birka was considered one of the most […]

Mildred Mott Wedel

Oct 26, 2022 | Archaeology, Articles

Mildred Mott Wedel (1912–1995) was a pioneering Iowan archaeologist and a distinguished scholar, most notably in Prairie-Plains ethnohistory. Born in Marengo in Iowa County, Mildred majored in History at the University of Iowa and subsequently studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Her Master’s thesis in 1938 entitled “The Relation of Historic Indian Tribes to […]

Crystal-Margaret Bennett

Oct 19, 2022 | Archaeology, Articles

Crystal-Margaret Bennett, OBE, FSA (1918-1987) was born on the Channel Island of Alderney on 20 August 1918. She studied English at Bristol University, before enrolling in a postgraduate diploma at the Institute of Archaeology, London in 1954. While undertaking study of the Archaeology of the Roman Provinces in the West, she took part in excavations […]