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John Weaver FSA, inspector of castles and ecclesiastical buildings, died in October.
 
Roger Mercer FSA, archaeologist, died in December.
 
Appreciations appear in Fellows Remembered below. The section also contains a further notice on the late Brian Smith FSA.

Walter Cockle FSA died on 6 December. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in March 1987. He was author of Euripides. Hypsipyle: Text and Annotation Based on a Re-Examination of the Papyri (1987), based on his doctoral thesis presented at the University of London in 1974, and in the 1990s he co-authored reports on Latin and Greek ostraca (texts written on pottery sherds) from excavations at Mons Claudianus, a Roman quarry in the eastern desert of Egypt.
 
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Making the first People’s Seat Address at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland on 3 December, Sir David Attenborough FSA spoke of ‘a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon… Time is running out. [The world’s people] want you, the decision makers, to act now. They’re behind you… supporting you in making tough decisions, but also willing to make sacrifices in their daily lives… The people have spoken. Leaders of the world, you must lead.’ Attenborough launched Act Now, a Facebook Messenger bot designed to help people adjust their contributions to global warming. Within 24 hours more than 16 million people around the world had watched the speech. Some amusement was caused when HuffPost UK tweeted an apology for broadcasting a video ‘that incorrectly described Sir David Attenborough as a “naturist”. We of course meant to describe him as a naturalist.’

Just over a week before the UN address, Songlines magazine launched a two-CD set of field recordings of indigenous musicians made by Attenborough between 1954 and 1963, when he was filming for the BBC TV series Zoo Quest. Tapes from the BBC Sound Archive have been edited for publication by producer Julian May. David Attenborough: My Field Recordings from Across the Planet includes recordings from Sierra Leone, Paraguay, Madagascar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Pacific Islands and northern Australia, and comes with a 52-page booklet.
 
Ronika Power FSA, an Associate Professor of Bioarchaeology at Macquarie University and an Honorary Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, featured in the Sydney Morning Herald (5 December) in a piece headlined ‘Superstar of STEM … makes a living by looking into death.’ ‘Obsessed’ with mummies from before she went to primary school, she ‘did not believe that being a “mummy detective” could be a real job until after she went to university. Determined to turn her passion into a profession, she combined her love of science, medicine and the arts to create the job of her dreams.’ She has been chosen as an inaugural Superstar of STEM for Science and Technology Australia. STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are important, says Power, ‘because they acknowledge the critical links between disciplines that will lead to the jobs and discoveries of the future.’

Peter Boughton FSA, Keeper of Art at Cheshire West and Chester Council, has curated Memento Mori: Tombs and Memorials in Cheshire, an exhibition of watercolours, drawings, prints and photos at Chester’s Grosvenor Museum showing how the county has commemorated its dead from the Romans to the present day. With tombstones, tomb-chests and mural slabs, public sculptures, cenotaphs and a shrine, the imagery of commemoration ranges across the centuries with knights and their ladies, parents and their children, skeletons and skulls, heraldry, saints and angels. Howard Williams FSA has written about the exhibition, for which he delivered the opening speech, on his blog, where he describes it as ‘a valuable and rich display of art on a mortuary theme: an exhibition exploring memorialisation across time through 19th- and 20th-century art’s engagement with past and contemporary monuments to the dead.’ Open until 24 February 2019.

Diana Murray FSA, Jane Ryder FSA and Caroline Wickham-Jones FSA have been elected as Honorary Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The Society elects a maximum of 25 Honorary Fellows at any one time.

Sir Charles Saumarez Smith FSA was treated to a farewell party at the Royal Academy of Arts on 6 December, to celebrate his 11 years as the RA’s Secretary and Chief Executive. He did not disappoint his audience in conversation with Sir John Tusa, reports Louisa Buck in the Art Newspaper, taking ‘the opportunity to make a few confessions and also to air a number of grievances, most notably concerning the National Gallery where he was director between 2002-7.’ ‘The resounding message of the evening,’ says Buck, ‘was that the Royal Academy has been an infinitely better place to work and to lead’ (‘At the RA,’ said Saumarez Smith, ‘you know when you are being stabbed in the back’). In 2019 he takes up the post of Senior Director at the Blain Southern Gallery. Photo Art Newspaper/RA.

Pete Wilson FSA, Tony Wilmott FSA, Rob Young, John Cruse FSA, Sue Stallibrass, Richard Tipping and Fraser Hunter gave papers at a Yorkshire Dales Landscape Research Trust day-school in Grassington in October 2016, which explored how the late Iron Age residents in the Pennines had to adapt to incoming Roman military forces. Their papers have recently been published by the trust as Romans and Natives in Central Britain, edited by R D Martlew. The book shows the archaeological changes which can be seen on either side of Hadrian’s Wall, and investigates regional differences in beehive querns, changes to farming practices and their environmental impact on the countryside, and the evolving role of Celtic art in the Roman province.   

In a long and interesting piece for artnet (29 November), Javier Pes considers the issue of repatriations from museum collections with reference to human remains. ‘Typically donated by collectors, missionaries, and colonial officials in the 19th century,’ he writes, ‘these objects are a dark legacy of European’s voracious appetite for “curios” of so-called primitive people. Others were collected as evidence of long-discredited, pseudo-scientific theories of white racial supremacy.’ Some were collected less than a century ago. ‘When the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl sailed the Pacific in 1955, he brought back bones belonging to the Rapa Nui, the Aboriginal Easter Islanders. They are now in Oslo’s Kon-Tiki Museum.’ Nick Merriman FSA, Director of Museums and Collections at Manchester Museum ‘when it agreed to return human remains to New Zealand last May, says there was no evidence that the museum had ever used the objects for research “the entire time they had been in the collection”.’ At the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer FSA ‘declined to comment on the issue to artnet News; instead, a museum spokeswoman referred to its published policy on human remains.’

Writing for the Times’ Red Box, Tim Loughton MP FSA (29 November) defended foreign aid as ‘a worthy expression of a global Britain.’ ‘I have campaigned for an amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill,’ he says, ’that would ensure that a version of the Dublin system remains in UK law after we leave the EU. The Dublin system currently allows children who have reached Europe to reunite with a relative in the UK safely, but this small mercy will not be preserved in the current Bill… British aid has helped to create a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of people in Jordan and is providing a lifeline to those who remain in Syria. It is a worthy expression of our intentions as a global Britain beyond Brexit.’

In his Guardian column for 3 December, Simon Jenkins FSA wrote that ‘Whatever nonsense was talked during 2016, hard Brexit was going to be wretched to negotiate – which is why those who tried have all resigned.’ The prime minister’s ‘deal is the best the UK can expect for now. [She] must do everything in her power to get it through.’

Blick Mead, Wiltshire, site of excavations directed by David Jacques FSA, was in the news in early December. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer debris has been found in the dig close to a spring on the south-western edge of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Jacques said Highways England had drilled a hole through the site, destroying aurochs footprints dating back 12,000 years in an act akin to ‘punching a hole through the Bayeux tapestry.’ Engineers were said to have gained access, as part of works linked to proposed alterations to the A303 road, without permission of the landowner or knowledge of the excavation team. In a statement, Highways England said, ‘No damage has been caused to archaeological layers. We notified Professor David Jacques of the locations of our water table monitoring, and have adhered to guidelines in carrying out the work' (which is being conducted at Jacques’ request). Amesbury Museum (@AmesburyMuseum) tweeted a photo of a Highways England borehole (above, the blue pipe). The pit behind Andy Rhind Tutt, former mayor and a colleague of Jacques, is, I was told, an excavation by Tony Brown, from the Department of Physical Geography, University of Southampton, who is ‘leading an analysis of aDNA, seDNA and pollen’ from Blick Mead.

Arthur MacGregor FSA has written Company Curiosities: Nature, Culture and the East India Company, 1600–1874. The East India Company dominated British trade and relations with Asia for nearly three centuries, making handsome profits but also providing European collectors with natural and man-made specimens prized for their scientific, aesthetic or cultural value. Administrators, soldiers and surveyors spent much of their lives attempting to inventory and comprehend India’s vast country: nearly 40 species of mammals and over 120 species of birds were discovered in the Katmandu valley alone; astonishing fifth-century wall paintings were unearthed in caves at Ajanta; and spectacular fossil fauna arrived from the Siwalik Hills. MacGregor offers the first overview of the remarkable role of the Company and its servants in collecting and showcasing India’s nature and culture.

Richard Osgood FSA, Senior Archaeologist at the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, is among three candidates for Current Archaeology magazine's Archaeologist of the Year. The others are Sophie Jackson, Director of Research and Engagement at MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) and Christophe Snoeck, a post-doctoral researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Voting takes place online.
 
The Wiltshire Museum, home of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and the William Cunnington collection deriving from excavations around Stonehenge in the early 19th century, is to move house. It has long struggled to fit into a converted residential terrace in Devizes, and will now occupy a more commodious court, behind the equally famous Wadsworth Brewery. The project will also save the long vacant Devizes Assize Court, built by T H Wyatt in 1836. David Dawson FSA, Director of the Wiltshire Museum and Advisor to the Devizes Assize Court Trust, said earlier that ‘The added perks of having [the] Assize Court would be the extra space, and it would also be part of the restorative project by Wiltshire Council. It is a landmark building and I think with it we could promote ourselves, in turn making us a landmark.’

The Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George celebrated its 200th anniversary this year. Founded to recognise Mediterranean service, principally in Malta and the Ionian Islands, the Order’s scope has since been extended so that it is now the main UK honour for service overseas to British interests. Its first full-length history, The Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George by Peter Galloway FSA (2000), has now been revised and updated. Fifteen chapters cover the Order's historical development from its use in Britain’s Mediterranean empire, its extension to the wider British Empire, its uses by the Diplomatic Service and the armed forces, and now for overseas service generally.

John Weaver FSA died on 20 October aged 89, after a short illness. He was a Lifetime Fellow of the Society, having been elected in May 1966. Stephen Briggs FSA has kindly sent Salon this obituary, of a man whose interests are listed in the Society’s files as ‘Conscientious objectors’:
 
‘From 1954 to 1990 John Weaver had been English Heritage Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Northern England. A Yorkshireman proud of his Welsh roots – his first Christian name, Owain, came from his father – he was schooled at Penistone Grammar School (founded 1392, the 43rd oldest school in Britain) before taking up a scholarship at Jesus College, Oxford.
 
‘After brief encounters with accountancy and librarianship, John took up a career with the Ministry of Works, as a polymathic Inspector whose main interests of necessity lay in castles and ecclesiastical buildings. In that role he wrote several Ministry handbooks – Beeston Castle, Boscobel House, Middleham Castle, Richmond Castle and Easby Abbey, and White Ladies’ Priory.
 
‘Additionally, he was involved in investigations of the Crown and Anchor in St Albans, with D H Poole (1961); Spofforth Castle, Yorks, with Roy Gilyard-Beer (1965); a medieval aisled barn at St Julian's Farm, St Albans (1970); the Chester Roman Amphitheatre, with Nigel Sunter and the late Hugh Thompson FSA (1976); and Heath Old Hall, Yorks (1977). He also wrote the HMSO Exploring England’s Heritage guide to Cumbria and Northumberland (1992). Both before and during retirement, he sat on and eventually chaired the Magistrate’s bench at St Albans until 2000.
 
‘Then came real retirement when he returned to the area he had so loved as Inspector – Cumbria. There he set about authentically restoring a minor gentry Listed Building – Newby Hall, near Penrith. Though the house’s Listing brought protection, he was concerned that this offered little to its environs, and difficulties were encountered even in persuading officialdom to recognise its rare undeveloped garden curtilage. The problem was eventually solved by appropriately enlisting historic garden expertise to campaign for the necessary recognition, and buying back two adjacent building plots that had been granted planning permission prior to the Weavers taking up ownership of the place. Thus he restored the integrity of the original garden curtilage.
  
‘That achieved, John long nurtured an interest in researching the conscientious objectors of the First War, so five years ago set about writing a book titled Sentenced to be Shot. Completed before he died, the work remains with his publisher and arrangements are being made to ensure its publication.’
 
An obituary appears in the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald (3 December).

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Roger Mercer FSA died on 3 December aged 74. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in November 1977. His funeral will be private, and a memorial service is anticipated early in 2019.
 
Roger Mercer was a distinguished archaeologist and prehistorian, appointed an OBE in January 2004 for services to archaeology. During a career working for the Department of the Environment, the University of Edinburgh and finally, as Secretary (Chief Executive), the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), he became known particularly for his excavations at Neolithic and Bronze Age sites. These included major projects at Carn Brea (the site of his honeymoon in Cornwall), Grimes Graves flint mines (Norfolk), Balfarg henge (Fife), and most notably in excavations that ran for over a decade, Hambledon Hill causewayed enclosure (Dorset).
 
As Inspector of Ancient Monuments in London (1969–74) he was responsible for scheduling and casework in south-west England, and prehistoric Guardianship Monuments including Stonehenge and Avebury. It was during this time that he excavated at Carn Brea and Grimes Graves, as well as surveying and excavating at early military defensive sites in southern England, and at Fountains Abbey (North Yorkshire).
 
At Edinburgh University (1974–90) he rose from Lecturer to Reader to Acting Head of Archaeology. His excavations on Hambledon Hill (below), conducted at one of the UK’s largest complex of Neolithic earthworks that, it was realised, were rapidly disappearing under the plough, drew in a large number of researchers. The project had a profound impact on understanding of the earlier centuries of Britain’s first farmers, and study of the site’s remains continues to this day. In the meantime he directed excavations at several sites in Scotland, as well as significant field surveys, as student training exercises, in Caithness, Dartmoor and elsewhere.
 
As Secretary of the RCAHMS (1990–2004) he was responsible for over 100 staff, overseeing a move to online access to Commission records with the creation of Canmore, and to a large expansion of curated collections. In his retirement year the Scottish Government announced a grant of £12 million for a new Archive Store.
 
Having survived a V2 bomb explosion as an infant in London and discovered the rewards of ‘organisations and other people’ in the school Combined Cadet Force, Roger Mercer studied archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, where he was taught by Mary-Jane Mountain and the late Charles Thomas FSA, Stuart Piggott FSA and Ruth Tringham. Looking back on his career in 2006, his reflections on why he decided to move to the RCAHMS speak both of how things used to be done, and of changing times (Antiquity 80).

In the field, wet clothes and boots, 16-hour days and ‘hard knocks physically, dietetically and personally’ were becoming less attractive to him. Landowners were increasingly wary, and ‘health and safety requirements were becoming harder to meet within limited resources.’ So too university regulations ‘were increasingly onerous, and the expense (both of time and finance) in writing up field survey exercises, in particular, was becoming prohibitive.’ Meanwhile undergraduates, 'trained to answer examination questions well, rather than to experience their subject and to think,’ were expecting more of their university.
 
His books include Excavations at Carn Brea, Illogan, Cornwall, 1970–73 (1981), Hambledon Hill: A Neolithic Landscape (1980), Farming Practice in British Prehistory (1981), Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and Survey of a Neolithic Monument Complex and its Surrounding Landscape (2008, with Frances Healy FSA), and Native and Roman on the Northern Frontier: Excavations and Survey in a Later Prehistoric Landscape in Upper Eskdale, Dumfriesshire (2018). He was granted Honorary Chairs at Durham and Edinburgh universities, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (right), Director of the Discovery Programme (Ireland), Vice-President of the Prehistoric Society and a member of the Ancients Monument Board for Scotland. He was a founder member (in 1976) of the Bronze Age Studies Group. 
 
Diana Murray FSA, former Chief Executive of the RCAHMS and joint Chief Executive of Historic Scotland, has kindly written this piece for Salon. She says she knew Roger Mercer for over 40 years, as they both worked in Edinburgh:
 
‘Roger and I set up the Scottish branch of the IFA [now CIfA, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists], the first of the regional spread of IFA to make sure that Scottish matters were given due weight in the IFA. We had great fun as well as serious purpose. He, of course became Secretary of RCAHMS, taking over from John Dunbar. He was given a remit by the Commissioners to make the organisation much more entrepreneurial and outward facing, a direction that I was able to capitalise on when I took on the role in 2004.
 
‘There are many memorable moments, but one that stands out was his involvement with providing advice and assistance abroad. He visited Croatia after the war there and was devastated by the damage to the cultural heritage. We also went to Syria in 2000 to talk about building a national record using modern technology. I remember that we struggled out with a PowerPoint projector, although Roger decided to use 35mm slides. When we arrived we found that they had much more up to date technology but had to hunt the whole of Damascus for a normal slide projector. The highlight of the trip for him was a trip to Krak des Chevaliers, which he had dreamed of visiting since childhood.
 
‘Like others, I am shocked by his sudden death. He was a great friend, colleague and mentor to me, and we got up to a lot of great things. He was a true gent, full of endless stories, most of which we had heard many times, and had a great capacity for retaining information and sharing that with anyone who needed or wanted to know. He will be greatly missed.’

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In the last Salon Christopher Kitching FSA added to my obituary of Brian Smith FSA, who died in November. He writes again, with a correction and more interesting details:
 
‘Brian Smith's post-retirement mission was not to the Falkland Islands, but to the even more remote location of St Helena. It was in the days before the Island had an airport, and in order to get there he had to take a military flight to Ascension, and from there the infrequent supply ship to St Helena. With the letter instructing him to report to RAF Brize Norton came the stern instruction that, as he would be On Her Majesty's Service, he should dress respectably for the flight. (Nobody who knew Brian would ever have imagined him doing anything less!) When he boarded the plane he was surrounded by off-duty servicemen in jeans! He had to synchronise his mission to coincide with the next available supply ship to take him off the island some months later.’