The 30th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) will take place in the city of Rome, one of the most impressive locales for world archaeology and history, from the 28th to the 31st August 2024: Wednesday to Saturday, as usual.

The event is organised by the Department of Ancient World Studies of Sapienza University of Rome, in partnership with the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Rome and the Lazio Region, and with the support of the public Universities of Rome end Latium, National Research Council, Foreign Academies and Professional Organisations. The practical organising tasks are performed by Symposia srl.

Key dates and information

• Mid November 2023: Registration opens; Call for Grant Applications opens.
• 18 December 2023: Call for Papers and Call for Posters open.
• 8 February 2024 extended to 12 February 2024: deadline for paper proposal (oral presentations) submissions.
• 31 March 2023: Early bird membership fee deadline.
• 1 April 2024: Call for Grant Applications ends.
• 8 April 2024: Deadline for poster proposal submissions.
• 11 April 2024: Early bird Annual Meeting registration fee deadline.
• 25 April 2024: Deadline for membership and Annual Meeting registration fee payment for presenters (first authors) of papers.
• 31 May 2024: Deadline for membership and Annual Meeting registration fee payment for presenters (first authors) of posters.
• 28 – 31 August 2024: EAA 2023 Annual Meeting in Rome.

For the full list of deadlines, please see the conference website: deadlines.

Conference themes

The Annual Meeting themes, as defined by the Scientific Committee, incorporate the diversity of EAA and the multidimensionality of archaeological practice, including archaeological interpretation, heritage management and politics of the past and present.

1. The Material Record: Current Trends and Future Directions.
2. Archaeological Sciences, Humanities and the Digital era: Bridging the Gaps.
3. The Life of Archaeological Heritage in Society.
4. Persisting with Change: Theory and Archaeological Scrutiny.
5. All Roads Lead to Rome: Multiscalar Interactions.
6. The Mediterranean from Within.
7. Archaeology of Sustainability through World Crises, Climate Change, Conflicts and War.

For more information about the Scientific Programme, please continue here.

Session #880: PARIS or Paradigm

EAA session #880 centres on climate change, in situ preservation dilemmas, and paradigm shift.

Preservation of Archaeological Remains In Situ (PARIS) was established as an interdisciplinary conference series in response to the Malta Convention/Valetta Treaty and the paradigm of trying to preserve as much archaeology as possible in situ. The basis for the Convention was to highlight preservation of archaeological heritage as a goal in urban and regional planning policies and set guidelines for funding of excavation and research work and publication of research findings. The Convention also deals with public access to archaeological sites, actions to develop public awareness of the value of archaeological heritage, and it constitutes an institutional framework for pan-European co-operation on the archaeological heritage.

These are all very important factors in modern European heritage management policies. However, when the Convention was written, no-one counted in the factor of Climate Change.

Climate change contributes to more rapid degradation and even complete loss of archaeological sites and/or material types. Decades of archaeological deposit monitoring have demonstrated that in many cases, in situ site preservation is no longer a real option but rather an illusion. Thus we suggest that it may be time for a paradigm shift – not disregarding all the constructive aspects of the Malta Convention, but adhering to the new European Standard on cultural heritage monitoring (EN 17652, 2022) to evaluate if in situ preservation is a real possibility, or if threats to site preservation exceed possibilities of adaptation or mitigation and thus leaves preservation ex situ (excavation and documentation) as the only option to preserve the contextual site knowledge.

Session #880 invites papers on heritage research and climate change adaptation to think further and work towards solutions for sustainable work on preserving contextual heritage information either in situ or ex situ, enabling the experience of archaeology also for coming generations.

For more information on this session, please see the Session #880 on the EAA conference website or download the session description.

For a list of all sessions, please see the Scientific Programme.