We have a successful track record of developing and delivering innovative and engaging community engagement projects, often in partnership with research institutions, educational providers, community groups, visitor attractions and charitable organisations. Our staff can provide upfront advice on your project plans, support for funding applications, and work with you to achieve and evaluate the project outcomes.
As a registered charity and recognised social enterprise we aim to deliver positive and lasting social, economic, and environmental outcomes through our work, for individuals, communities, and society. We want to realise the value of archaeology to increase equality, improve wellbeing, and promote environmental sustainability. We start by identifying the outcomes we want to achieve in collaboration with our partners and then devise targeted activities for the audiences best placed to benefit.
We have a dedicated cross-office community team with experience in audience development, heritage interpretation, project management and outcome evaluation. Our staff are familiar with the application, reporting and evaluation processes of a range of grant funders, including the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Oxford Archaeology is one of the UK’s leading heritage service providers with expertise in a wide variety of specialisms. We have worked in partnership with organisations to investigate local heritage, deliver bespoke training and interpret and present discoveries, and can offer equipment, insurance and health and safety assessment.
Click here for more information about our heritage services.
Our ethos is welcoming and inclusive. We recognise, respect and value the differences in people and can work together with you to get the best outcomes for your heritage and community.
Cambourne Village College, a secondary school, approached Oxford Archaeology to be heritage partners in their National Lottery Heritage Funded project to explore the archaeological heritage of a Cambridgeshire new town. One of the pupils’ ideas for the project was to be the first residents of Cambourne to take part in an excavation, and so Oxford Archaeology supervised a week-long excavation of a Romano-British farmstead on land adjacent to their school.
Following the excavation, the students curated their own temporary ‘pop-up’ museum at their school, which hosted visits from the four local primary schools and opened to the public for two days. An event to reflect on and celebrate the achievements of the school’s archaeology club was held at the end of the project, and showcased a set of outdoor interpretation boards and an online interactive map, 'Unearthing Cambourne', produced by Oxford Archaeology, to pinpoint archaeological finds and features of interest to residents of the town.
The Warboys Archaeology Group was set up as part of Jigsaw, Oxford Archaeology’s award-nominated National Lottery Heritage Funded community archaeology project. Following training in geophysical survey, the group completed the first comprehensive survey of the area formerly occupied by Ramsey Abbey and, with support from Oxford Archaeology, successfully applied for a Heritage Fund grant to excavate some of the potential archaeological anomalies identified.
Oxford Archaeology helped supervise two community excavations, which involved volunteers in all aspects of excavating, recording, surveying and finds processing on site. Two open weekends were held for members of the public to visit the site, see the finds, and meet the team. The volunteers were also involved in the post-excavation process, cataloguing and marking finds.
After the excavations, the group organised the ‘Treasures of Ramsey Abbey’ exhibition which toured local museums, and produced an accompanying heritage trail, listing places and buildings in where remnants of Ramsey Abbey could be seen.
In partnership with the Friends of the Lake District and Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership, Oxford Archaeology supervised two seasons of community excavations on Little Asby Common, Cumbria. Together with a team of passionate volunteers, we spent the first season digging trial trenches across a number of potential archaeological features identified by survey. For the second season, we focused on one of these – an enclosure wall and potential longhouse - in more detail.
As well as the excavations, we ran skills workshops for volunteers, training them in photogrammetry, site drawing and palaeobotany. We also ran a careers session and site visit for the local high school and an open day for the wider public.
For more information check out our Little Asby Blog Collection.
Oxford Archaeology and The Little Story Telling Company teamed up with the Wellcome Genome Campus’ Public Engagement Team to develop and deliver workshops to primary school pupils. The workshops blended elements of Key Stage 2 history and curriculum in a series of hands-on and discursive activities to analyse the archaeological discoveries made at the Genome Campus and link these to the DNA sequencing technologies in current use by the Wellcome Trust’s researchers.
Following the school-based activity workshops, the primary schools worked on classroom projects inspired by the archaeological and scientific content using resources to support their own research. These were presented in a mini schools’ conference held at the Wellcome Genome Campus’ conference centre.
Coinciding with the schools’ conference, there was a temporary exhibition in the Wellcome Genome Campus Cultural Zone. This showcased some of Oxford Archaeology’s previous discoveries from the region, including human skeletal remains, to show how combined genomic and archaeological research can reveal both individual stories from the past and shed light on our shared history.
