Join us this Saturday for Milton Keynes Archaeology Day!
PCA will be out in force at this year’s event, with a full display and hands-on activities in the morning, plus an afternoon talk by Mark Hinman, Judy Mlynarska and Jenn Hulse:
“Cups, Coins, and Cows: Unravelling the Late Iron Age at MK East.”
When: 1 November 2025 10am-3.30pm
Where: Church of Christ the Cornerstone, 300 Saxon Gate, Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2ES
Tickets: The event is FREE and open to ALL
Programme: Download here
Pre-Construct Archaeology is one of UK’s largest archaeological companies, with seven regional offices across the country. We have been delivering professional heritage services for more than 30 years, working on some of the largest and most complex sites in Britain.
We are looking for an Operations Officer or Manager, depending on experience, to join our Cambridge team, who will contribute to PCA operations as well as help Project Managers to ensure the smooth running of projects, primarily in the eastern region. Applicants should be able to demonstrate a proven track record of operations management. The successful candidate will be supported by an Operations Assistant.
Reports to: Directors, Regional Managers & Project Managers
Location: Cambridge Office
Working Week: 37.5 hours, Monday to Friday
Salary: £35,886.25 to £44,156.09 depending on experience and position offered
Probationary Period: 3 months
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Job Description and Duties:
The successful candidate will be responsible for the following duties and responsibilities. This list is not exhaustive and may vary.
Operations Duties/Responsibilities may include:
Minimum requirements:
The post-holder is expected to be flexible in their approach, taking on other duties as required and complying fully with PCA’s confidentiality regulations with regards to client and staff data.
The post-holder is expected to be an effective organiser, allowing the smooth running of operations and projects from start to completion. They are required to assist as and when required, and expected to multi-task effectively, ensuring all elements of their role are kept up to date and organised.
Finally, the post-holder is required to meet the Company standards of performance and behaviour, including honesty, integrity, commitment, professionalism, attention to detail, a professional standard of timekeeping and an ability to work within a team. All PCA employees are expected to implement PCA policies, including Equal Opportunities.
Our employee benefits:
How to apply:
Please email your CV and covering letter to Ruta Jatkonyte, HR Department: RJatkonyte@pre-construct.com Please describe your suitability by referring to the requirements listed above. If successful you will be asked to attend an interview at our Cambridge office.
PCA is committed to a comprehensive equal opportunities policy in which individuals are selected and treated on the basis of their relevant merits and abilities without regard to race, religion or belief, colour, sex, age, national origin, disability or sexual orientation. All applicants with the relevant qualifications and experience are welcome to apply for this opportunity. Please be advised that you must hold the right to work and live in the UK in order to apply for this job.
PCA follow all current guidelines regarding SOP and take the safety of our staff as paramount – advice is up to date with government guidance and site-specific RAMS are available.
Please be advised we are expecting a high volume of applications, and therefore cannot commit to responding to all emails. In accordance with our GDPR policy, we will not keep unsuccessful applicants’ details or CVs on our system, unless you expressly request that we do.
Closing date: 24/11/2025
Alistair Douglas will be presenting PCA’s work at Bermondsey Square in a lecture hosted by LAMAS next month.
Date: 11 November 2025
Time: 18:30–19:30
Venue: Lecture Theatre G6, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY
The lecture will be available via zoom as well as in person, click here to book
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Alistair’s lecture will explore the full story of Bermondsey Square, from its earliest occupation to its later urban development, revealed through 20 years of excavation from 1998-2018.
The earliest evidence shows Bermondsey as a prehistoric eyot, with scattered pits and pottery fragments attesting to Iron Age settlement. Roman-period activity appears largely agricultural, though later Roman robber trenches and substantial ceramic building material, including opus signinum, suggest sizeable masonry structures to the north of the square in the area of Stevens Street.
Saxon traces include fragmentary wall foundations, small finds, and coinage which may be the first archaeological evidence for a middle Saxon minster at Bermondsey. By the 10th century, a small apsidal church had been built, accompanied by nearby inhumations, marking the site’s emergence as a Christian centre.
The medieval period brought the most dramatic transformations. Excavations revealed extensive foundations of the Cluniac Priory and its development into the Benedictine abbey of St Saviour, which remained a dominant feature of Bermondsey until its dissolution in the 16th century.
After the dissolution, the site entered a new phase under Robert Southwell and later Sir Thomas Pope, who constructed an impressive Tudor mansion with a double courtyard and a separate eastern range added in the 17th century. Later excavations uncovered a Presbyterian cemetery, reflecting Bermondsey’s unique history as a hub of religious dissent. By the 18th century, King John’s Court had been developed for artisan housing, offering fascinating insights into the area’s social history through archaeology, topography, and documents.
We’re pleased to share that Tom Woolhouse and Tom Lucking will be speaking at the Wheeler Conference 2025, organised by the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History, on Saturday 18 October. This year’s theme Re-envisaging Suffolk’s Past: New Discoveries from Development-led Archaeology brings together some of the most recent and significant fieldwork from across the county.
Their paper will draw together results from two recent projects in the Breckland: the A11 excavations and the work at Wangford Warren. Together, these investigations trace thousands of years of activity across what is often thought of as one of Suffolk’s quieter landscapes.
The A11 sites revealed everything from early flint scatters and Bronze Age cremations to Iron Age farmsteads and Roman occupation, showing that this stretch of ground was far more intensively used than previously thought.
At Wangford Warren, excavation of the rabbit warren earthworks and buried soils has brought to light traces of Neolithic and Bronze Age activity, alongside evidence for a Roman farmstead, all preserved beneath the shifting sands of the Brecks.
Date: Saturday 18 October 2025, 9:30am to 4:30pm
Location: The Hold, 31 Fore Street, Ipswich, IP4 1LN
Tickets: Email chairman@suffolkinstitute.org.uk and use the Donate button on the Suffolk Institute website (please mention the conference in your note).
Pre-Construct Archaeology is one of UK’s largest archaeological companies, with seven regional offices across the country. We have been delivering professional heritage services for more than 30 years, working on some of the largest and most complex sites in Britain.
PCA is seeking to recruit a built heritage assistant to join our busy built heritage and landscapes team located in Winchester, as well as working alongside our PCA colleagues on a range of projects countrywide. PCA offers a competitive salary and a range of attractive benefits, including a pay banding structure that allows for career progression. The successful candidate will undergo a probationary 3-month period after which, given satisfactory performance, they will be offered a further contract, work permitting.
About the job:
Location: Winchester
Working week: Monday to Friday 37.5 hours per week, usually 8:30am – 17:00 pm
Salary range: £31,148.57 – £32,432.00 depending on experience, rising in line with PCA’s pay-banding progression structure.
(This is a full-time post, but part-time working may be considered)
This role is based in our Winchester office; however, we would consider working from one of our other offices.
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Job requirements:
This role would be to support PCA’s Built Heritage Project Manager with the delivery of projects and reports commissioned by clients in the planning, building and development sectors.
After a period of training and gaining experience in the role, the successful applicant will be expected to:
Essential:
Desirable:
Our employee benefits:
How to apply:
Please email your CV and covering letter to Ruta Jatkonyte, HR Assistant: RJatkonyte@pre-construct.com
Please state on your application which role you are applying for and describe your suitability by referring to the requirements listed above. If successful you will be asked to attend an interview at our Winchester office.
PCA is committed to a comprehensive equal opportunities policy in which individuals are selected and treated on the basis of their relevant merits and abilities without regard to race, religion or belief, colour, sex, age, national origin, disability or sexual orientation. All applicants with the relevant qualifications and experience are welcome to apply for this opportunity. Please be advised that you must hold the right to work and live in the UK in order to apply for this job.
PCA follow all current guidelines regarding SOP and take the safety of our staff as paramount – advice is up to date with government guidance and site-specific RAMS are available.
Please be advised we are expecting a high volume of applications, and therefore cannot commit to responding to all emails. In accordance with our GDPR policy, we will not keep unsuccessful applicants’ details or CVs on our system, unless you expressly request that we do.
Closing date: 31/10/2025
PCA has worked on burial sites for more than thirty years, uncovering thousands of skeletons across Britain. Most reflect expected health patterns, but every so often individuals with striking and uncommon pathologies emerge.
At the 26th Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) this week (18-20 September), PCA osteologists James Young Langthorne and Dr Ariadne Lucia Schulz will present two such cases. The event will take place at the University of Leicester, and will also be available to attend virtually.
One individual, from St Mary Newington in Southwark (pictured here), was a young adult with bowed, shortened limbs and pronounced changes to the spine. Although the missing skull prevented a firm diagnosis, the skeleton suggests a serious congenital or metabolic disorder that would have caused pain and mobility issues.
The second case, from the Saxon cemetery at Sun Lane, New Arlesford, shows features consistent with Klippel-Feil Syndrome: fused vertebrae, spinal abnormalities and restricted movement.
Despite their visible differences, both individuals were buried in the main areas of their cemeteries, suggesting social acceptance within their communities.
📅 26th Annual BABAO Conference, 18–20 September
📍University of Leicester
🎙 James Young Langthorne & Dr Ariadne Lucia Schulz
We’re delighted to see PCA’s work at the Tower of London featured in National Geographic! It’s always exciting when the stories we help uncover reach such a wide audience.
This #FindsFriday, we’re sharing one of the most tantalising discoveries from the site, a pair of medieval funerary incense pots (c.1150–1250). As Alfred Hawkins, Curator, says in the article, “Grave goods in Medieval England aren’t really a thing,”
Only two such “gravpottes” have been found in the UK, suggesting the individual may have come from Northern France or Denmark, where they were more common. If the charcoal fragments are large enough, it might even be possible to reconstruct the incense.
Read the full article here (subscription required)
For #FindsFriday, a decorated comb from an Early to Middle Anglo-Saxon settlement in Worcestershire, though it may not be local.
The comb’s trapezoidal connecting plates, along with its elaborate decoration (sawn-out openwork X designs and undulating chains of overlapping ring-and-dot) match Mairéad Dunlevy’s class C2 Irish combs, dated to the 7th–early 8th centuries.
Irish combs do turn up on Anglo-Saxon sites, but until now only class D combs, dating from the later 7th–early 9th centuries, have been found. Excitingly, this would be the first class C comb recorded in England.
Photography has been central to the archaeological record since the earliest excavations, from fragile glass plate negatives to today’s vast digital archives. Each image helps preserve context, capture discoveries, and record the evolution of sites over time.
Drones have taken this further, revealing entire landscapes, showing scale at a glance, and offering perspectives once impossible.
This footage comes from a recent excavation in the Cotswolds (Bronze-Age to Anglo-Saxon activity). The client is Centaur Land, and thanks to SUMO GeoSurveys for the film.
And stay tuned, two red kites make a spectacular appearance at the end!
PCA archaeologists from the Newark office have been busy over the last few weeks at Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire, and the work has been turning up some unexpected finds.
Adjacent to the Gatehouse, a substantial section of walling was revealed during monitoring. Early thoughts were that this was a possible outer gatehouse; however, after visits from a Castle expert and consulting various mapping, it is now thought this wall may be part of the fortifications by the bridge that crossed the River Trent during the Civil War.
Elsewhere, during excavations for an attenuation tank, an unexpected retaining wall was exposed. After assessing the stone thickness and style, it is thought that this wall is part of the earliest phase of the stone Castle (the magnificent stone structure that currently stands was probably preceded by an earth and timber castle). This discovery has reshaped our understanding of how the Castle may have looked; the ditch seems to have only partially encircled the Castle.
During investigations to ascertain the route of the wall, the team made a rather exciting discovery. At the bottom of the outflow of the garderobes, a large capped cesspit was revealed. A large, worn millstone was used to cap the cesspit at some point during the medieval period, to make way for a garden.
From Civil War bridges to medieval garderobes, Newark Castle still has stories to tell.
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