Awarded the Rivers Memorial Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute

Gavin Lucas, professor of archaeology at the University of Iceland, has been awarded the Rivers Memorial Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. The Medal was presented at a formal ceremony in London last month. Gavin was awarded the Rivers Memorial Medal for his contributions to archaeological method and theory. 

The Rivers Memorial Medal has been awarded since 1923 in honour of William Halse Rivers, who was President of the Royal Anthropological Society. To be awarded this Medal is a great honour, with previous recipients including many of the most eminent scholars in the fields of anthropology and archaeology, such as A.C. Haddon, Edward Westermarck, Raymond Firth, Meyer Fortes, Edward Evans-Pritchard and Bronislaw Malinowski. Among the younger recipients are Max Gluckman, Mary Douglas, Rodney Needham and J.R. Goody.

Gavin Lucas has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has worked at the University of Iceland since 2006. His research has focused on the archaeology of the modern world as well as archaeological theory. He has led a large number of archaeological research projects here in Iceland, for example at Skálholt, Viðey and Seltjarnarnes, as well as further afield, such as in Italy and South Africa. Gavin has published many articles about archaeological theory and is the author of several books, including Understanding the Archaeological Record (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Writing the Past (Routledge, 2019), Making Time (Routledge, 2021) and Archaeological Situations (Routledge, 2022).

More information about the Rivers Memorial Medal.