In September Derek Hall attended this year’s European Archaeological Association conference in Cork, Ireland, sponsored as last year by Historic Scotland and the Russell Trust. This year’s round table was attended by delegates from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Hungary.

Derek Hall and Clive Orton jointly gave a PowerPoint presentation of the projects’ aims and ideals and potential avenues of European funding were discussed. England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Germany, France, Spain, Poland and Hungary have now expressed definite expressions of interest and the working party has decided to submit a bid for funds to the E-content plus programme in November 2005. It was agreed that a full session on the project would be proposed to the EAA scientific committee for the next EAA conference in Krakow, Poland in September 2006.

Finally one of the presentations at this round table, by Marta Carroscio from Italy, won the student award for the best paper presented at the conference. Derek is the Secretary of this Pan European project and operates the group e-mail from his home Broadband internet connection.

This year’s ARP conference was held at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and Derek Hall gave a paper called ‘A loop in the Forth is worth an earldom in the North: Scottish Monastic Landscapes’. The 2006 ARP conference will be held in Perth.

This year’s annual conference by Scottish Church Heritage Research Ltd was organised as a joint one with the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and was called ‘Scottish Church Buildings and artifacts: Past, Present and Future’. Derek Hall gave a paper called ‘Get me to the church on time (the archaeology of Scotland’s churches)’ which featured many pieces of work that have been carried out by SUAT Ltd.

Following a desperate communication from Norman Atkinson, the current chairman of the Pictish Arts Society, Derek Hall agreed to give a paper on the Ballumbie excavations to replace a speaker who had been forced to drop out at the last minute.

This year’s TAFAC conference was held at Dundee University and although not as widely attended as usual, proved to be a great success. Derek Hall gave a paper on the Ballumbie excavations and sterling efforts by Catherine Smith and David Perry ensured busy sales of TAFAC journals and monographs. For the first time ever this year’s journal (Volume 11) did not arrive in time for the conference; Derek and Lis Thoms are in the process of discussing the situation with the printers (NEO formerly Burns and Harris).

 The Roxburgh Project

This project has now reached the stage where a joint partnership of Stirling and Bradford Universties are on the point of submitting a bid to the Arts and Heritage Research Council for funding a multi-disciplinary project on Roxburgh and its hinterlands. The aims and objectives of this project were discussed at a conference in Stirling University on 12th November. Derek Hall gave a paper entitled ‘Under the influence - the importance of Roxburgh in the study of Scottish medieval ceramics’.

Members of SUAT were again asked to lecture to several local societies. Derek Hall and David Bowler took turns to give presentations to the Perth Burns Club, the Rotary Club, Dunkeld and Birnam Society and the Auchterarder Society on the subjects of medieval Perth and Greyfriars Cemetery, while Catherine Smith talked on different occasions to the Friends of Dundee Archives and the Abertay Historical Society on medieval attitudes to animals.