&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/86316?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Richard+Hall+obituary%3AArticle%3A1647432&amp;ch=Science&amp;c3=Guardian&amp;c4=Archaeology%2CScience&amp;c5=Not+commercially+useful&amp;c6=Brian+Ayers&amp;c7=11-Oct-13&amp;c8=1647432&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Obituary&amp;c11=Science&amp;c13=&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FScience%2FArchaeology&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;Leading archaeologist of the Viking age with&amp;nbsp;a key role in the excavation at York&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Richard Hall, who has died of cancer aged 62, was one of the foremost archaeologists of the Viking age. In a career spent almost entirely in&amp;nbsp;the city of York, he&amp;nbsp;not only transformed understanding of pre-Norman urban development, but did so in a manner that combined scholarship and meticulous archaeological technique with a flair for enhancing public awareness and understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only an archaeologist with Hall&#039;s dedication, dry wit and ability to lead a&amp;nbsp;team by example could have delivered on the greatest challenge of&amp;nbsp;his career, excavation of the major site at 16-22 Coppergate in York, between 1975 and 1981. His work there, utilising open-area excavation methodologies within archaeologically unprecedented cofferdam shoring, ensured detailed recording of deep and waterlogged deposits from the Roman period onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Viking age results were spectacular, notably the remains of timber buildings lying within tenements running away from the street towards the river Foss, together with a remarkable range of finds within them. In all, some 230,000 pieces of pottery were recovered from the excavation, together with five tonnes of animal bones and more than 15,000 &quot;small finds&quot;, many being exotic imports such as amber from the Baltic or a silk purse from the Middle East.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Excavating and recording such a complexity of material was only the first step. Marshalling the data, overseeing its analysis, producing a synthesis and, most importantly, publishing the information was also critical. Hall managed all these aspects with determination, drive and a&amp;nbsp;comprehensive attention to detail. The&amp;nbsp;excavation itself was conducted with as much access for the public as&amp;nbsp;possible, with on-site viewing platforms, exhibitions, guided tours and lectures all forming part of the project. Hall summarised the results of&amp;nbsp;the excavation in a bestselling book, The Viking Dig (1984), and also provided the academic oversight for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Jorvik Viking Centre&lt;/a&gt;, which opened within the&amp;nbsp;Coppergate development in 1984 and immediately became one of the UK&#039;s top 10 visitor attractions. Academic&amp;nbsp;publication followed in a&amp;nbsp;series of reports.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hall&#039;s work at Coppergate was seminal in a number of ways. It revealed the rich contribution of Scandinavian settlers to the development of&amp;nbsp;urban life in England; it enhanced understanding of the extensive (and largely undocumented) trade contacts of early medieval Europe; it utilised a range of innovatory techniques, notably paleoenvironmental research, then in its infancy; it fostered awareness of&amp;nbsp;archaeology, exciting the general public; and it entered partnerships that enabled that excitement to be transformed into landmark presentations through the Jorvik Centre. For Hall personally, Coppergate helped him to build on his personal interest in the Viking age, not only in Britain but further afield, in Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and the US.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hall was born in Ilford, Essex, but moved as a child to Northern Ireland, where his father worked in the linen industry. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and then Queen&#039;s University, Belfast, where he prepared an undergraduate study of Irish Viking age finds. He followed this with a doctorate at Southampton University on the Anglo-Scandinavian towns of the Danelaw, under the supervision of Peter Addyman, who shortly thereafter left the university to&amp;nbsp;become director of the newly formed &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;York Archaeological Trust&lt;/a&gt;. Hall, after excavations in Dublin, Derby and at Mount Grace priory in North Yorkshire, followed Addyman to York in 1974 as&amp;nbsp;excavations supervisor. He worked for the trust for the rest of his life, becoming deputy director and then director of archaeology.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His role with the trust meant that he could not confine his attention to the Anglo-Scandinavian period. Indeed, he probably oversaw more than 1,000 different archaeological projects and was directly responsible for several significant excavations, such as the Roman sites at Blake Street and Coney Street. He also worked outside York, notably at Ripon, where he recorded the 7th-century Saxon crypt in 1974 and eventually became chairman of the fabric advisory committee and then consultant cathedral archaeologist. Here, he directed excavations that allowed him to reconstruct the topography of the Anglo-Saxon monastery. Hall&#039;s growing expertise led to work on the Cathedrals Fabric Commission and as consultant archaeologist to York Minster.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His stature within the profession meant he was increasingly in demand for other roles. Elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1981, Hall served on its council in the 1980s and 1990s. He was chairman of the Institute of Field Archaeologists (now the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archaeologists.net/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Institute for Archaeologists&lt;/a&gt;) from 1987 until 1989, during its formative years. He was also president of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medievalarchaeology.org/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Society for Medieval Archaeology&lt;/a&gt;, president of&amp;nbsp;the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yas.org.uk/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Yorkshire Archaeological Society&lt;/a&gt; and a trustee and secretary of&amp;nbsp;the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.britarch.ac.uk/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Council for British Archaeology&lt;/a&gt;. His&amp;nbsp;committee work was not confined to Britain. In&amp;nbsp;recent years he served on the Kaupang Excavation Project council in Norway and as consultant to the Swedish state archaeological service&#039;s excavations at the Viking age town of&amp;nbsp;Birka. He was also in demand as a guest lecturer on cruises, from the Canadian Arctic to the Middle East.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hall continued to publish widely, be it papers for academic journals, contributions to conferences (he attended the biennial series of&amp;nbsp;conferences on urban archaeology at L&uuml;beck in Germany from their inception in 1995) or synthetic works such as the recently published Exploring the World of the Vikings (2007). Discharged from hospital one week before his death, he&amp;nbsp;expressed himself pleased because &quot;I&amp;nbsp;have some articles to write.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hall&#039;s first marriage was dissolved. His second, to Ailsa Mainman, the head of artefact research at the York Archaeological Trust in 1991, was an exceptionally happy union. She survives him, as do his sons, Alasdair and Guy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&bull; Richard Andrew Hall, archaeologist, born 17 May 1949; died 13 September 2011&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/archaeology&quot;&gt;Archaeology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our &lt;a href=&quot;http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html&quot;&gt;Terms &amp; Conditions&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds&quot;&gt;More Feeds&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;clear:both&quot; /&gt;
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