Meet the Team

BA Hons, MA, PCIfA - Project Director

Founder and Director, Culver Archaeological Project

Rob Wallace is a field archaeologist, educator, and community heritage specialist with more than two decades of experience investigating the historic landscapes of the Ouse Valley, Sussex.

In 2005, while supervising excavations of the Roman villa at Barcombe for University College London (UCL), Rob founded the Culver Archaeological Project. What began as a research initiative has grown into a long-running landscape archaeology project, bringing together professional archaeologists, students, volunteers, and local communities to explore the rich heritage of the Ouse Valley and surrounding areas.

Rob studied Egyptian Archaeology at UCL before completing a Master's degree in Field Archaeology at the University of Sussex in 2008. Following his postgraduate studies, he became an Associate Tutor at Sussex, helping to train the next generation of archaeologists and providing practical field experience to students.

Since establishing the project, Rob has directed annual excavations and surveys across the Sussex Ouse Valley. Under his leadership, the project has made significant contributions to understanding the area's Roman and later landscapes, including the discovery of a Roman road network at Barcombe and the excavation of the Romano-British settlement at Bridge Farm.

Committed to archaeological training and public engagement, Rob established the Culver training excavation programme in 2015. The programme has provided hands-on archaeological experience for hundreds of students and volunteers and continues to operate annually. He is also a regular speaker at conferences, heritage events, schools, and local societies, sharing the latest discoveries and promoting the value of archaeology within the wider community.

Today, Rob continues to lead the Culver Archaeology Project's research, excavation, training, and outreach activities, working to uncover and protect the archaeological heritage of Sussex while inspiring new generations to engage with the past.

BA Hons, MA, MCIfA - Research Archaeologist

David gained a Masters in Field Archaeology from Sussex in 2011 where he was an Associate Tutor until 2012. He site supervised for CAP on the Roman road at Culver Farm 2007-10 and at the Roman bathhouse at Barcombe 2010-12. He was CAP's Deputy Site Director 2011-20 as the focus moved to the Romano-British settlement at Bridge Farm, and now concentrates on post-excavation reports and formal papers for Journals. He  compiled the project's site manual, 'To CAP it all' and is a frequent speaker to local societies and conferences. Away from CAP he wrote the medieval chapter for 'Archaeology of the Ouse Valley, Sussex'  (2016  Archaeopress) and the retrospective report on Ainsworth's unpublished 1979-83 excavations of the Streat medieval pottery kilns (SAC 162).

BA Hons, MA - Consultant

Lindsay joined the project in 2016 as a volunteer when she was studying archaeology at University College London and has been employed as site supervisor for the following excavation seasons since.  She has also acted as site supervisor and trained undergraduate students on the UCL training excavation for two successive years and worked on numerous other excavations, such as an investigation into the Stonehenge bluestone quarry sites in Wales.  She gained her PhD at the University of Reading where she also completed her Masters qualification.  Her PhD research involved exploring Romano-British identity through material culture, specifically looking at imported lava querns and millstones in Britain originating from the Eifel region of Germany. She is currently employed by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust.

Finds Supervisor & Recorder

Having joined the CAP team in 2013, Nancy became Finds Supervisor to head the Finds Processing team, managing the sorting, processing, recording and storage of all types of artefacts and the training of volunteers. She delivers the finds processing element of the Field School. Her team also undertakes reconstruction and basic conservation of finds.

Nancy has developed an on-line catalogue of the CAP finds archive and oversees the recording of finds data. She and the team create displays of interesting artefacts for events, open days and school visits.

Treasurer and Artefact Photographer

Having helped with Finds Processing for some years, Mike has also taken on the role of CAP treasurer which has proved invaluable in these difficult financial times with yje production of regular income and expenditure spreadsheets and forecasts. He also handles volunteer and student applications that come in to join@culverproject.co.uk.

His work with the Portable Antiquities Scheme has honed his skills in photographing archaeological artefacts. This includes all our recent Special Finds, using procedures that he shares with students on the field school. This in turn has also led to vessel reconstruction as broken, but complete, vessels need assembling prior to photographing.

Site Supervisor and Course Tutor-FRGS

Having been involved with CAP from the Culver Farm days, Andy has been our Site Supervisor since 2021. He has a background in Engineering, he studied Archaeology and Historic Buildings at Sussex University before changing careers. Alongside his work at CAP as a Site Supervisor, he tutors students and volunteers as part of the CAP Field School Training Programme.

Since 2010 he has worked in commercial archaeology, specialising in surveying, illustration and standing building recording, has supervised volunteer excavations for the Woodland Trust, St Helens Church, Ore, and tutored at the Plumpton Villa Excavation.

Outside of CAP he still works in commercial archaeology, is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and works for Queens University of Ontario, Canada at their Badar International Study Centre.

Site Manager

Andy has been a regular member of the CAP team since coming through our training course in 2018. In 2019 he became the Site Manager which involves a lot of the less glamorous hard graft on the project including maintenance and improvement work during the winter and regular visits to site to see just how flooded the trench is when the Ouse bursts its banks. He has also dug with BHAS since 2019 and was invited by the University of Texas, to dig on the Oplontis project in Naples, Italy in 2022. 

Deputy Finds Supervisor

Julia joined the Culver Project in 2019 post retirement, her first day at the dig she found a Roman fibula brooch and has been hooked since then. After a few years of digging she was lucky to join Nancy Wiginton in the Finds Unit and has never looked back. She loves putting pots back together, supervising new attendees in the FU, deputising for Nancy and supporting the Culver Project. She runs the Bone Team in Brighton cataloguing animal bones for the various archaeology societies in the surrounding area. She has also studied human bones (as part of her pre archaeology career and now doing osteo-archaeology courses in the UK). She digs in Italy for 2 weeks every year on a Roman City complex. She was appointed Chair of Trustees of Culver Archaeological Project in 2025.

Supervisor Lead for Volunteers

Paul first got involved with CAP in 2024 as a volunteer having never attended a dig before. He immediately fell in love with the whole experience:  the supervisory team, the students, the volunteers, the location and the remarkable site itself whilst digging for the full six weeks and learning some of the basics of archaeology. He also got involved with the off-season work, including some geophysics, helping to close down Trench 7, opening Trench 8 and then digging for 5 weeks in 2025. In 2026 he took on the role of training and supervising the novice volunteers as well as delivering health and safety briefings to students and volunteers. He is also one of the CAP Charity Trustees. 

Finds Supervisor

Henry first dug at Culver in 2022 and has returned every year since, hooked by this fascinating dig which continues to pose more questions than it answers. She studied archaeology many years ago and is really enjoying rekindling this lifelong interest after a career in publishing. She works in the Finds Unit with Nancy and Julia, helping supervise volunteers and students, and processing the incredible finds from Culver. She is also part of Julia’s Bones Team analysing animal bones, and is studying human osteoarchaeology. She is an affiliate Trustee of the charity.

Site Supervisor

Blake first got involved with CAP in 2021 as a student. He has been supervising every year since 2023! He has worked in commercial since 2023 with the Canterbury Archaeological Trust and now Cotswold Archaeology. He graduated from Canterbury Christ Church University with a 1st class BA and from UCL with a distinction MA with a particular focus on Public Archaeology. Blake also does a lot of the project’s public engagement duties and run our social media! Oh, and he is also a football presenter for his beloved Ipswich Town Football Club! He is an affiliate Trustee of the charity.