IMPLEMENT PETROLOGY GROUP - Key Persons
Dr Alison Sheridan, Emeritus Curator of Early Prehistory in the Department of Scottish History & Archaeology, National Museum of Scotland (NMS). Dr Sheidan is pictured looking at some axeheads on display in an exhibition at the NMS in 2016: Stone Age Jade from the Alps (Photo by and Phil Wilkinson ©2016 NMS & courtesy of the NMS).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Committee
Our good friend and colleague Fiona Roe died peacefully in her sleep at home surrounded by her family on 1st March 2015. Fiona had suffered with dignity from a brain tumour and cancer of her nervous system for more than a year, during which time she strove with characteristic determination to complete as much of her archaeological tasks as she was able. The Thanksgiving Service, held in her memory at Hillesley Parish Church, Gloucestershire was a truly memorable occasion when a large group of her friends and colleagues drawn from widely different backgrounds, gathered together to share in her rite of passage and to enjoy exchanging fond memories of Fiona.
Job Titles:
- Lithoscapes Archaeological Research
- Web Officer
It is with great sadness that I received the news of Vin Davis, who has died of cancer at age 73. Vin was a man of disarming intellect, warmth, compassion and concern for education. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK, he had the friendliness of a true Yorkshire man and an interest in everything around him.
Vin Davis FSA, teacher, school inspector, Professor of Education (at the University of St Joseph in Macau, China) and a leading force in British ancient stone implement petrology, died on 19 November, aged 73, after a short illness.
For almost 30 years Vin Davis had a varied teaching career - in schools, at Bristol City Museum, at Kendal Teacher Centre (including a three-year secondment to the Australian Commonwealth Schools' Commission), and at North Riding College of Education, Scarborough. His innovative teaching style was marked by enthusiasm, passion, infectious humour and pragmatism. He was especially interested in practical learning and fieldwork, usually achieved with much goodwill, and supported by funds won from a variety of unlikely sources.
In 1990 he was appointed to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools, working nationally and internationally. He had wide-ranging responsibilities in teacher training, school improvement, research and international affairs. After his official retirement, he was a visiting lecturer in Macau, where he subsequently held a Personal Chair in Education.
Archaeologists, often barely aware of his proper jobs, knew Davis best for his work on stone tools. Implement petrology, what might to some seem an eccentric backwater beyond the lands of archaeology and geology, was a subject pioneered in mid-20th century Britain in a vision of science triumphant over antiquarian collecting. Stone axe blades of simple shape, finely flaked and ground or pecked to a smooth finish, were long ago recognised as a leitmotif of the European Neolithic age - the polished tools that felled the trees that created the fields in which the first crops were grown. They had been found in their thousands on the surfaces of fields and in disturbances to the ground, and were common in any self-respecting archaeological collection. They looked nice. But what could they teach us about the past?
Vin Davis obtained his B.Ed. in 1975 and his M.Sc. in 1981 at the University of Lancaster; he studied for his M. Phil. at the University of Liverpool (1984) and a Ph.D. at Murdoch University, Western Australia (1989). As well as a Fellow of this Society (1993), he had been a Fellow of the Geological Society of London since 1969. He was appointed a Research Associate in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York last year.