# Sara Champion

Sara Champion (nee Hermon) (11 November 1946 – 14 May 2000) was a British archaeologist with an interest in the European Iron Age and the role and visibility of women working in archaeology. She was editor of PAST, the newsletter of The Prehistoric Society from 1997 until her death in 2000. The Prehistoric Society hosts an annual Sara Champion Memorial Lecture.

## Early life and education

Champion was born Sara Hermon, the second of four children. The family lived in Kenya and Tanzania (Tanganyika at the time) for six years of her childhood. Champion later attended Benenden School. After Benenden, Champion attended the University of Edinburgh, where she studied for a master's degree in archaeology under Stuart Piggott. In 1968 Champion moved to St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she studied for a D.Phil. under the supervision of Christopher Hawkes concentrating on the Early European Iron Age.

## Academic and archaeological work

Champion undertook a two-year research fellowship in archaeology at Southampton University. She also lectured at the archaeology department there and taught on the Adult and Continuing Education courses. Champion also worked for English Heritage, overseeing the upkeep and preservation of the scheduled monuments of West Hampshire and Dorset. Champion recognised the potential of the internet for archaeology and she lectured and wrote articles on the application of internet resources in the teaching of archaeology, and electronic archaeology. Another area of research and interest was role the visibility of women in archaeology.
Six years after Champion's death a seminar room in the Crawford Building, the new building for the archaeology department at the University of Southampton, was named in her honour.

## Personal life

Champion met Timothy Champion (future President of the Royal Archaeological Institute and The Prehistoric Society) while studying at Oxford and they were married in 1970 at St Paul's Church in Knightsbridge. In 1972 the Champions moved to Southampton, where their two sons, Edward and William (the drummer of Coldplay), were born, in the mid-1970s, and 1978 respectively.
Champion's interests outside archaeology included music (she regularly djed at departmental and archaeological social gatherings) and she was a long-term member of the Southampton Philharmonic Choir.
Champion died of cancer in May 2000. The band Coldplay, of which her son Will is a member, dedicated their debut album Parachutes to her on its release in July 2000.

## Selected publications

* 1970 "The hillforts of the Cotteswold scarp, with special reference to recent excavations", Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club 36, 18-23
* 1971 "Excavations at Leckhampton Hill; 1969-70 interim report", Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 90, 5-21
* 1973 Andover - the archaeological implications of development Andover and District Excavation Committee
* 1976 "Leckhampton Hill, Gloucestershire - 1925 and 1970", in Hillforts: later prehistoric earthworks in Britain and Ireland, ed. D. W. Harding, 177-191
* 1980 A dictionary of terms and techniques in archaeology
* 1980 "Dendrochronology", Nature 284, 663-664
* 1995 "Archaeology and the internet", Field Archaeologist 24, 18-19
* 1997 "Special review section. Electronic archaeology", Antiquity 71, co-authored with Christopher Chippindale
* 1998 "Women in British archaeology. Visible and invisible," in Excavating women. A history of women in European archaeology, Andreu, M. Diaz and Sørensen, M.-L.S. (eds), London, 175–197.

## Sara Champion Memorial Lectures

The Prehistoric Society's annual Sara Champion Memorial Lectures are held every October at the Society of Antiquaries of London lecture theatre in Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. The 10th annual lecture, due to be held in October 2010, was deferred and instead a debate was held to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Prehistoric Society. The Sara Champion Debate had the topic "This House believes that the study of the Stone Ages has contributed more to our knowledge of the human condition than study of the Metal Ages" and was led by Clive Gamble and Tim Champion
The 2020-2021 lecture numbering system seems to have missed one out: the 20th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture.
| Lecture | Date | Title | Lecturer |
| 1st Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 24 October 2001 | "A new cart/chariot burial from Wetwang, East Yorkshire" | J D Hill |
| 2nd Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 30 October 2002 | "The development of Bronze Age society in north Munster" | Carleton Jones |
| 3rd Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 15 October 2003 | "Social change in later prehistory: evidence from the northern roundhouse" | Rachel Pope |
| 4th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 27 October 2004 | "The Irish Sea connection: exploring the origins of monumentality in western Britain" | Vicki Cummings |
| 5th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 26 October 2005 | "Seeing red: art, artefacts and colour in the Iron Age of Britain and Ireland" | Melanie Giles |
| 6th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | October 2006 | | |
| 7th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 24 October 2007 | "A crystal world from weeping stone: considering the relationships between Neolithic cave art and monument construction on Mendip" | Jodie Lewis |
| 8th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | October 2008 | | |
| 9th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | October 2009 | | |
| 10th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 19 October 2011 | "Creative destruction: middens at the end of the Bronze Age" | Kate Waddington |
| 11th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 17 October 2012 | "Tangled histories: British prehistorians, research practice and disciplinary change, 1975–2010" | Anwen Cooper |
| 12th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 16 October 2013 | "Making pots matter: social practice and early first millennium BC ceramics in East Anglia" | Matt Brudenell |
| 13th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 22 October 2014 | "'The personality of Britain' reconsidered: evaluating the relationship between the social and physical geographies of Bronze Age Britain (c. 2500–800 cal. BC)" | Neil Wilkin |
| 14th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 28 October 2015 | "The evolution of religious branding in later prehistoric Europe: the case of Urnfield and Hallstatt bird imagery" | Sebastian Becker |
| 15th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 26 October 2016 | "Antlerworking practices of the British Mesolithic: materials, identities and technologies within the landscape" | Ben Elliott |
| 16th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 25 October 2017 | "Making and breaking the British Iron Age: a holistic approach to craft and material culture" | Julia Farley |
| 17th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 31 October 2018 | "Though they but little... The Bronze Age funerary cups of Britain" | Claire Copper |
| 18th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 30 October 2019 | "Fragments of the Bronze Age. Destruction, deposition and personhood" | Matthew G. Knight |
| 19th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 21 October 2020 | "Becoming metallic: the emergence of metals in Britain and Ireland" | Rachel Crellin |
| 20th Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | | | |
| 21st Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 20 October 2021 | "Genetic change and relatedness in Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain" | Tom Booth |
| 22nd Sara Champion Memorial Lecture | 19 October 2022 | "'I see the hands of the generations' - perceiving the past through later prehistoric artefacts" | Sophia Adams |