An East Yorkshire archaeologist has been nominated for top national award – find out how to vote for him here

East Riding archaeologist Peter Halkon has been nominated for the prestigious ‘Archaeologist of the Year 2022’ award run by Current Archaeology magazine – the country’s leading archaeology publication.
By Phil Hutchinson
Published 14th Dec 2021, 13:37 BST
Updated 14th Dec 2021, 13:54 BST
Archaeologist Peter Halkon is in the running to scoop a prestigious award.Archaeologist Peter Halkon is in the running to scoop a prestigious award.
Archaeologist Peter Halkon is in the running to scoop a prestigious award.

Mr Halkon, from Nunburnholme, is one of three nominations in the category, and he said he was both stunned and honoured to have been chosen.

He said: “It came as a complete and unsolicited surprise”.

The winner of the award is decided by a public poll and people can now vote for Mr Halkon.

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Voting for the award is online and remains open until 7 February 2022. Votes can be cast via the www.archaeology.co.uk/vote link.

A Holme-on-Spalding Moor farmer’s son, Mr Halkon has been uncovering and writing about East Yorkshire’s archaeological heritage for more than half a century.

Although he retired from his full-time post as Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at Hull University a couple of months ago, he continues to be involved with the university as an Emeritus Fellow and is active in a number of local projects, including becoming a bell ringer at Nunburnholme church and being a trustee of Pocklington District Heritage Trust.

He is keen to progress the heritage trust’s aim to create a museum in Pocklington to showcase local artefacts; not least because he has gathered a substantial collection through the years from fieldwalking and excavations at Pocklington and surrounding villages that he wishes to display.

Mr Halkon’s award nomination in the magazine states:

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○ Inspired by childhood discoveries of Roman pottery on his father’s East Yorkshire farm, Peter dug as a teenager with the East Riding Archaeological Society (ERAS) on Roman pottery kilns.

○ He read History and Archaeology at Liverpool University, returning to teach in East Yorkshire. He instigated a 30-year project in the Foulness Valley with Martin Millett, discoveries including the Iron Age Hasholme logboat, one of Britain’s largest prehistoric Iron industries, and Roman settlements at Shiptonthorpe and Hayton.

○ Peter’s recent projects include the Arras Iron Age cemetery, the Nunburnholme Community Heritage project, excavations (2018-2021) on a ringfort and Iron Age sanctuary on the Yorkshire Wolds, and ‘Petuaria ReVisited’, a community-based project which is transforming knowledge of Roman Brough.

○ His most recent books are The Parisi: Britons and Romans in Eastern Yorkshire (2013) and The Arras Culture of Eastern Yorkshire (2020).

Click here to vote for Mr Halkon

Related topics:East YorkshirePocklington