William Jones

I am currently working in the field for Administering Archaeology Company Ltd, on a Wessex Archaeology excavation in the north of England. The excavation covers both pre-Roman Iron Age and Romano-British sites, and my duties have included machine directing and supervising trainees in the fundamentals of archaeological context recording, as well as excavating and recording multi-phased archaeology myself.

I worked on a brief aboriginal excavation in Palm Beach, NSW in April 2025. This job included the excavation of aboriginal skeletal remains in the presence of elders and police.

Working for Urbis in both an office and field capacity took me to many different projects across NSW and Victoria. In addition to working as a member of a team on multiple different colonial-dated excavations in Sydney, I was also the sole archaeologist on a number of high-profile construction projects, monitoring ground crews. As well as this experience in colonial projects, I was a member of a team of archaeologists working with First Nations-representatives on Aboriginal excavations both in New South Wales and Victoria. This required me to learn and apply the different legislation in the two states, and effectively engage with different Registered Aboriginal Parties. Aside from field work, I also gained experience in report writing, performing site-wide Harris Matrices, artefact recording and analysis & heritage compliance and legislation.

I worked on the excavation for the Sydney Metro project's Waterloo site as part of a team of archaeologists excavating and interpreting 19th century housing. In addition to excavation, I was tasked with preparing site-wide Harris Matrices and artefact recording & analysis.

I worked on the Sydney Metro project excavation in Parramatta, NSW for GML, excavating as well as artefact processing as part of a large team of archaeologists. Some of the earliest contexts of colonial occupation in Australia were excavated by the team that I was a member of during this project.

I worked the full length of a First Nations test pitting excavation searching for evidence of Aboriginal occupation prior to the expansion of a golf course in Newcastle, NSW. This excavation included liaising with relevant Registered Aboriginal Parties in the area.

Upon returning to the UK in November 2020 I worked as a self-employed archaeologist on various sites in London, Buckinghamshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Cumbria. These excavations covered periods from the pre-Roman Iron Age, to Romano-British sites and medieval to early modern settlements. As well as improving my fieldwork and recording skills in this period, being self-employed taught me the skills required to dialogue with different companies around issues such as job pricing, working conditions and being prepared to use different recording systems based on different archaeology companies.

Archaeological work on Parramatta Light Rail project in western Sydney. Duties included both archaeological excavation as well as monitoring of ground crews.

As an archaeologist on the Sydney Central Station metro works, my duties included wet and mechanical sieving for human and material remains, both historical and aboriginal, deadline-driven excavations of test trenches including plan, section and context sheet recording, excavation and recording of human skeletal remains. After the completion of the Central Station project I worked for Artefact on a First Nations test pit excavation at the site of the future Sydney airport.

Working on an open area excavation on the island of Anglesey covering the prehistoric to medieval periods, my duties included Identifying, excavating, recording and interpreting archaeological material, mentoring graduate trainees in all aspects of fieldwork practice and recording and environmental sampling and processing.

Working on trenching excavations at Stonehenge, my duties included excavations and recording of evidence of human occupation as well as human skeletal remains. This also gave me my first experience of working on a highly sensitive and controversial project.

With Network Archaeology I completed my traineeship as an archaeologist immediately after completing my master's degree, being instructed in the archaeological excavation and recording process whilst excavating a Roman villa in Lincolnshire, England.