
Martyn Allen
Project Manager
Martyn has been a Senior Project Manager at OA since 2018. He manages the post-excavation of archaeological projects, bringing to conclusion the results of our fieldwork for clients, often to publication. Martyn specialises in the study of late Iron Age and Roman Britain, especially in the fields of rural settlement and agriculture, and he is an experienced zooarchaeologist (animal bone specialist). Martyn currently sits on the Britannia Editorial Committee for The Roman Society.
After gaining a BA (Hons) in Archaeology from the University of Winchester in 2004, Martyn went on to complete an MA in Osteoarchaeology at the University of Southampton in 2006, and then a PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2010. Before joining OA in 2017, Martyn worked for Historic England as a Research Assistant in Zooarchaeology and, between 2012 and 2016, was employed as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Reading.

Leigh Allen
Finds Manager
Leigh has a BA (Hons) in ancient history and archaeology from Nottingham University, a post-graduate diploma in practical archaeology from Oxford University, department of Extramural Studies, and over 25 years of experience in professional archaeology.
Head of the finds department at OA South since 1989, Leigh manages the processing, cataloguing, short-term curation, and deposition of all finds assemblages from all sites excavated by OA South. She liaises with project managers, specialists both internal and external, conservators and landowners to ensure the efficient, cost effective and secure progress of the finds from excavation through to deposition.
Leigh also produces assessment and publication reports on late medieval/post-medieval metalwork, worked bone (of all periods) and Roman ceramic building material.

Edward Biddulph
Project Manager
Edward Biddulph graduated with a BA (Hons) in Archaeology from UCL Institute of Archaeology in 1995, staying on to complete an MA in Archaeology in 1996. His professional career began as a field archaeologist in Bedfordshire, and he subsequently worked in Essex on the Roman pottery from Elms Farm, Heybridge. Edward joined Oxford Archaeology in 2001.
As a Senior Project Manager, Edward is responsible for setting up and managing post-excavation projects, and editing and delivering reports for clients and publication. Edward continues to work as a Roman pottery specialist, and has worked on many assemblages, most recently pottery from the Thameslink project and the Aylesbury Berryfields development. His research interests include samian ware, Roman cemeteries, and cultural evolution. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA), a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA), and a trustee of the Study Group for Roman Pottery.

Kate Brady
Project Officer
Kate graduated from University College London, institute of Archaeology, in 2000 with a BA (Hons) in Archaeology, and immediately began work on large projects in central London as a field Archaeologist. Kate started at OA in the field in 2002 and joined the post-excavation department in 2005, first working on the Channel Tunnel Rail link project (HS1).
As a Project Officer, Kate has written and published many reports and articles and co-authored several monographs. She has also continued to work in the field on projects including the recovery and identification of World War I soldiers at Fromelles, Northern France, and the excavation of the medieval Greyfriars Friary during the development of the Westgate Centre in Oxford.
Kate is also a Roman pottery specialist and OA’s fieldwork photographer.

John Cotter
Project Officer
John graduated from Lancaster University in 1981 with a BA (Hons) in Archaeology. He is also a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA). An early interest in medieval archaeology, artefacts, and pottery in particular has been followed by nearly 35 years employment as a medieval and post-medieval pottery specialist, and sometimes illustrator. His specialist area is the pottery of south-east England although he also writes reports on clay tobacco pipes and ceramic building material. He is an active member of the Medieval Pottery Research Group. Other interests include Egyptology.
John was lucky enough to work in Italy in the early 1980s for the British School at Rome. On returning to England he continued working as a pottery specialist, first for Colchester Archaeological Trust and then, for 15 years, at Canterbury Archaeological Trust before joining OA in 2005 in the same capacity. This earlier employment resulted in the authorship of a number of research publications including a corpus of medieval and later pottery from Colchester excavations, and monographs on pottery from Canterbury and Dover, as well as numerous smaller published reports on a range of ceramic topics. John continues in this role for OA South, assessing and reporting on pottery and other ceramic material from OA’s excavations across southern England and sometimes further afield.

Natasha Dodwell
Finds and Environmental Manager
Natasha graduated with a BA (Hons) in Archaeology and Prehistory from the University of Sheffield, followed by an MSc in Osteology, Palaeopathology and Funerary Archaeology (University of Bradford). Natasha started her archaeological career at the Museum of London and now has almost 30 years of experience working in commercial archaeology. She has worked for various archaeological organisations in England, Italy and Norway as a digger, supervisor, project manager and osteologist, and has also been involved in research projects in Egypt and Abu Dhabi.
Natasha was the senior osteoarchaeologist at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit for 20 years before starting work with Oxford Archaeology in 2016 as Finds and Environmental Manager. She has an extensive knowledge of the archaeology of Eastern England, particularly of burial archaeology, and has studied and contributed to numerous publications on assemblages both small and large from all periods.
Natasha is responsible for co-ordinating the work programmes in both the finds and environmental departments at OA East and liaising with specialists within the organisation and externally. With her specialism in osteology she also contributes to the grey literature and publications programmes at OA and has a particular interest in Bronze Age and Iron age funerary practices. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a member of the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO).

Mike Donnelly
Project Officer
Mike has been working in the field of flint analysis since 1994. He has conducted the excavation, analysis and publication of lithics assemblages from Britain, France and Cyprus. He has excavated over 300 in situ lithic scatters/knapping floors and has conducted detailed analysis on several important assemblages of flint, including the Arran Water Ring Main scheme, Scotland, the Dagenham Beam Washlands Scheme, London, and the Guildford late Upper Palaeolithic site.
His current major project is the full analysis of 450,000 flints from around 250 flint scatters at Bexhill in Sussex, one of Europe’s most important preserved early Holocene landscapes. He has presented papers/posters at several conferences, including at the XVII World UISPP congress, Burgos, Spain (2014), at the Mesolithic In Europe, Belgrade, Serbia (2015), and in 2016 at the Paleo 20/20 in London and at Lithics society, Oxford. He will be teaching flint handling and analysis at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education in 2017.

Denise Druce
Project Officer
Denise has worked for Oxford Archaeology since 2003 as an environmental Project Officer specialising in charred plant remains, wood and charcoal. She graduated from the University of Wales, Lampeter with a first class degree in environment and archaeology in 1996, and then went on to gain a PhD from the University of Bristol geography department. Denise then returned to Lampeter to work for CADW (Welsh Government Historic Environment Service) and the Palaeoenvironmental Research Centre where she carried out the analyses of pollen and waterlogged plant remains for both developer-funded and research-led projects.
Denise has worked on a diverse range of projects covering a wide range of periods and has a particular interest in British prehistoric subsistence and resource use. She is also keen on exploring regional variations in later prehistoric and Roman plant assemblages. Denise has considerable experience in the assessment of a wide range of palaeoenvironmental material, and produces publication-standard analysis reports. She is also an ordinary member of the Association of Environmental Archaeology and European Association of Archaeologists, and enjoys attending conferences and participating in outreach activities.

Rachel Fosberry
Project Manager
Rachel has worked for Oxford Archaeology since 2000 following a career change from pharmaceutical research. As an archaeobotanist, Rachel specialises in the identification and interpretation of charred, mineralised and waterlogged plant remains and she has worked on assemblages of all periods from numerous sites in the East of England, resulting in extensive regional knowledge. Rachel has a particular interest in cereal cultivation, processing and brewing and related experimental archaeology.
Rachel is a member of the Association of Environmental Archaeologists and an Associate of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (ACIfA).
Hayley (Hayley) Foster
Zooarchaeologist
Hayley joined OA East in 2017 as our Zooarchaeologist. Hayley graduated with a BA in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (USA), an MA in Osteoarchaeology from University of Southampton and a PhD from the University of Exeter. Her PhD research involved studying butchery practices and dining habits from medieval castle faunal assemblages. Hayley has worked as a Zooarchaeologist since 2007 in Ireland, Turkey and the UK.

Louise Loe
Head of Heritage Burial Services
Holding a BA in Archaeology and a PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Bristol, Louise has over 20 years' experience in the excavation and analysis of human remains from archaeological sites. As Head of Burials, Louise leads and manages a team dedicated to all aspects of burial archaeology, providing expert guidance, advice, consultancy and quality assurance on burial-related projects.
Louise directed the excavation and analysis of WWI mass graves in Fromelles, France, and subsequently served on the Joint Australian and British Government identification board. She has contributed numerous osteology reports on assemblages both large and small and dating from prehistory to early modern, to publications, and has published on peri-mortem trauma.
Louise is a member of the Institute for Archaeologists (MIfA) and the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO). She is also a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA), a Research Associate at the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, and Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading.

Lauren McIntyre
Project Officer
Lauren graduated with a BA in Archaeology and Prehistory from the University of Sheffield in 2004. She since gained an MSc in Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology, and completed a doctoral thesis exploring palaeodemography, diet and health in the population of Roman York. Her specialisms within the field of osteoarchaeology include palaeodemographic analysis and Romano-British urban populations.
A member of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaelogy (BABAO), Lauren has substantial experience working as an osteoarchaeologist for a variety of institutions, both on site and in the laboratory. In 2008 she conducted analysis of over 550 skeletons multi-period cemetery of All Saints Fishergate in York, including analysis of 113 individuals interred in ten mass graves and thought to be Parliamentary soldiers pertaining to the 1644 Siege of York. This excavation was shortlisted for "Rescue Dig of the Year" by Current Archaeology.
Lauren joined the team at Heritage Burial Services, at the Oxford Archaeology South office in August 2015. She has also recently become an eMentor to archaeology students at the University of Sheffield.

Julia Meen
Project Officer
Julia has worked within the Environmental Department at OA since 2007, after completing a BSc in Archaeology at the University of Reading and an MA in Landscape Archaeology at Bristol University.
During her 10 years at OA she has supervised the recovery of environmental material from a diverse range of sites. In particular, she oversaw the environmental aspects of the major infrastructure projects at St Brieuc, Brittany and at the Bexhill to Hastings Road Scheme in East Sussex. As an archaeobotanist, Julia now spends much of her time in the environmental laboratory at OA’s Oxford office, analysing charred and waterlogged plant macrofossils and charcoal.

Rebecca Nicholson
Environmental manager
Rebecca Nicholson graduated with a BA (Hons) in Archaeology and History from the University of York, followed by an MA in Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoeconomy (University of Sheffield) and a D.Phil (University of York). Her professional career started in the 1980s as a technician in the Environmental Archaeology Unit at the University of York, followed by employment as environmental archaeologist for a commercial archaeological unit in Newcastle and academic research posts at the Universities of York and Bradford. She joined Oxford Archaeology as Environmental Manager in 2005.
Rebecca is responsible for designing and co-ordinating the sampling programmes for OAS excavations and liaises with other specialists within and outside OA to ensure high academic standards and to provide an effective outcome for our clients. Her specialism is archaeozoology, particularly the study of fish remains and fishing through the ages, and she has worked on many assemblages mostly from England and Scotland. Rebecca also has an editorial role in other post-excavation projects.
She is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA), a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (FSA Scot), and member of the Association for Environmental Archaeology.

Ruth Shaffrey
Project Officer
Ruth has worked for Oxford Archaeology since 2001 as a post-excavation Project Officer. As well as undertaking general post-excavation tasks, Ruth is Oxford Archaeology’s worked stone specialist, mainly working for the Oxford and Cambridge offices. She records, interprets and writes about worked stone objects of all periods and about Roman architectural stone. Ruth identifies the lithology of worked stone through thin section and hand specimen analysis. Ruth has applied these skills to the recording of standing buildings, including at the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace. Since 2008 Ruth has also worked as a Roman CBM specialist and is now training to record metal objects.
Ruth has a degree in Archaeology (1995) and a PhD in Archaeology and Geology (1998) from the University of Reading’s Archaeology Department and Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology (PRIS). She is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA). Ruth’s speciality is the study of querns and millstones (the subject of her thesis) and she carries out research in her own time, publishing her results in local and national journals. Ruth is also the editor of a book on Prehistoric Worked Stone (‘Written in Stone’ 2017).