Dr Chris Caple
Our President for 2026-27 is Dr Chris Caple ACR, FIIC, FSA, Emeritus Reader in Archaeological Conservation at the Department of Archaeology, University of Durham.
Chris graduated from the University of Wales, College of Cardiff in 1979 with a BSc in Archaeological Conservation. He was awarded his PhD in 1986 by the University of Bradford for research on the composition and manufacturing technology of medieval copper alloy pins. Between 1984 and 1988 he was the artefacts conservator at the York Castle Museum. In 1988 he was appointed lecturer in Archaeological Conservation and Archaeological Science at the University of Durham, retiring in 2018 as Emeritus Reader in Archaeological Conservation. His books Conservation Skills: Judgement, Method and Decision Making (2000), Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past (2006), Preventive Conservation in Museums (2011), Studies in Archaeological Conservation (2020) (with Vicky Garlick) and Conservation Skills in the 21st Century: Judgement, Method and Decision Making (2023) (with Emily Williams) are widely used as a text books on conservation, museum studies and archaeology courses.
He started digging local excavations around Cardiff with the Cardiff Archaeology Society and Peter Webster in 1972. He has gone on to excavate the castles of Drsyslwyn (directing excavations between 1984 and 1995) and Nevern (directing excavations between 2008 and 2018) both published as Society for Medieval Archaeology Monographs (Nevern currently in press). He has been actively engaged in research on the burial environment since the 1990s, publishing one of the first textbooks on Preservation of Archaeological Remains in Situ in 2016. He has analysed, researched and published on numerous artefacts; the first Viking helmet ever discovered in Britain, the doors of Durham of Cathedral, medieval wall plaster, Saxon brooches, medieval mortar and of course medieval pins. He remains an Accredited Conservator Restorer (ACR), Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation (FIIC) and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA).