The Sussex Archaeological Society Conference: Martin Bell
Publishing Bishopstone Anglo-Saxon cemetery after 58 years
As a 14-year-old schoolboy, Martin played a minor part in the excavation of the Saxon cemetery discovered in 1967 during house building on the Harbour View Estate, Bishopstone. Later, he went on to excavate and publish, in SAC 115, the associated adjoining Saxon and earlier settlements. The cemetery remained totally unpublished. Having retired, Martin made it a mission to bring the cemetery to publication and is working as part of a dedicated multi-disciplinary team analysing the records, grave goods and bones. Though the delay in publication is regrettable, it means techniques unknown at the time of the excavation can be applied, including artefact metal composition, ancient DNA isotopes and the latest geophysics. This provides remarkable new insights to the early medieval community and the transition from Romano-British to early medieval worlds.
About Martin Bell
Emeritus Professor of Archaeological Science at Reading University where he taught Environmental Archaeology and Geoarchaeology. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the British Academy, a Past President of the Sussex Archaeological Society and a Trustee of Bexhill Museum. In 2025 he was awarded the Europa Prize of the Prehistoric Society. His most recent book is Making One’s way in the World: the footprints and trackways of prehistoric people (Oxbow 2020). In 2024 he published book chapters on the Long Man of Wilmington (with Chris Butler) and the Archaeology of the Western Rother.