Society for Medieval Archaeology Annual Symposium

Our theme is Heritage Science.

The event will be based in the historic Grade I/II-listed Guildhall – once a centre of civic governance, now newly refurbished as a state-of-the-art events facility on the banks of the River Ouse. We hope that this will provide the perfect context for lively discussion of the ways in which breakthroughs in heritage science have impacted, and stand to impact upon, our understanding of the Middle Ages.

Heritage Science provides a timely focus given the recent creation of RICHeS (the UK’S Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science), with its aim to create a distributed infrastructure of collections and equipment, while we equally wish to highlight the accelerating impact of scientific approaches and data on medieval archaeology in a wider sense.

Contributions may provide research case studies or critical overview, and are welcome on subjects including (but not limited to):

• Archaeometry and Dating: New insights from the chemical analysis of/ dating of organic and inorganic materials
• Materials science: new discoveries and applications, from pXRF to CT-scanning
• Bioarchaeology: Genetic and proteomic techniques applied to the study of archaeological objects, environmental and human remains.
• Digital Medievalism: 3D-scanning, imaging, modelling and visualisation of medieval buildings, landscapes, and artefacts.
• Ethics of Analysis: Navigating destructive and non-destructive techniques in the study of medieval objects, buildings and human remains.
• Applications and implications of AI and machine-learning in researching the Middle Ages

Talks will be 15 minutes in length; abstracts of approximately 200 words should be sent to Dr Steve Ashby (steve.ashby@york.ac.uk), by Friday 10th April  2026. We will also consider submissions of posters where there is interest.

https://medievalarchaeology.co.uk/sma-conference-2026-call-for-papers/