Annual Meetings In March 2024, the Annual Meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium hosted by Urban.Brussels and organized within the framework of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union during the first semester of 2024. The theme was 'Urban Archaeology and the Cities of Tomorrow’. It was a popular topic, with a wide range of contributors and papers from the public and private sectors.
The EAC was delighted to celebrate its 25th anniversary during the General Assembly at the Royal Library of Belgium, and at a special evening event at Brussels Town Hall. The EAC is using this 25th anniversary year to consider the future priorities of its members: we invited all members to suggest ideas in Brussels, and you can also contribute via the EAC website.
The next Annual Meeting will be held 27-29 March 2025 in Gdansk, Poland. The theme will be announced soon.
Officers and administration The EAC welcomed Vera Ameels (Belgium), Agnieszka Makowska (Poland), Nadezhda Kecheva (Bulgaria) and Agnes Stefansdottir (Iceland) to join the Board. Gabor Viragos (Hungary) was voted as Vice-President, and Agnes Stefansdottir as Secretary.
Thor Hjatalin (Iceland), Agnieszka Oniszczuk (Poland) and Michael MacDonagh (Ireland) stepped down from the Board, and we extend thanks for their commitment to the EAC.
Publications EAC Occasional Paper 19 – the extended abstracts of the 2023 Heritage Symposium on the topic ‘New Challenges: Archaeological Heritage Management and the Archaeology of the 18th to 20th centuries' – was published by Archaeolingua. The full proceedings were published by Internet Archaeology. You can find digital versions of both on the EAC website.
European Affairs Update, the EAC/ EAA newsletter – which rounds up matters of European heritage policy and funding – was published in July and October 2023 and January and May 2024. You can sign up here if you wish to join the mailing list.
Policies and other activities Agnieszka Oniszczuk continues to represent EAC at the Council of Europe Steering Committee for Culture, Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP), and at its new working group, which is looking at digital developments in the fields of culture, creativity and cultural heritage.
Working Groups The EAC Working Groups launched a series of new guidance documents in Brussels, on the subjects of:
- Benefit of Developer-led Archaeology;
- Value of Developing a Research Framework
- Revisiting the Valletta Convention for the Digital Age: Position Statement on the Archiving of Primary Archaeological Data.
The Guidelines are created by the EAC's working groups – composed of EAC members and invited specialists – who come together to create resources to address issues which have been raised by members as areas of concern. The EAC guidelines provide advice that is applicable within a Europe-wide context. We encourage members to use the guidelines, share them with their decision-makers, and let us know if they are useful!
Further EAC guidance documents on the subjects of Assessing Archaeological Significance and Use of Lidar in Heritage Management are expected soon, as well as a toolkit for developing a research framework.