Red River Archaeology Ltd are pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Collard as Managing Director of the company in the UK

​Red River Archaeology is a sister company to Rubicon Heritage (based in Ireland), and was established in 2019 as direct response to allow us to continue to deliver our full range of archaeological services across the UK after Brexit. 2020 saw the company’s turnover treble and Mark will lead further development of our team and expansion in the archaeological market into 2021 and beyond. 

​Mark joined Rubicon Heritage 5 years ago in January 2016 and continues to act as a Director there.    He has long experience in the commercial archaeology sector and has particular expertise in the delivery of archaeology for large-scale infrastructure  and urban development projects including cross-country  gas pipelines, new roads and nuclear. For the last 3 years he has acted as Project Director for our Infra JV with Network Archaeology delivering extensive archaeological works for HS2 in southern England.

​Mark has picked a few project highlights from the work of our UK team in the last five years to illustrate his time with the company.

​Ahead of the A4226 Five Mile Lane Road Improvements near Barry in Glamorgan excavations our team of 40 archaeologists excavated a wide range of sites from the Neolithic to Industrial periods including Bronze Age burial mounds and cremations, an Iron Age settlement, a Roman metalworking site and the buildings of a Roman villa. 

​The unexpected discovery of a small stone-built Roman villa near Melksham in Wiltshire was surprise enough but the highlight of the project was a well which was full of Roman artefacts – pottery, leather shoes and boots, metalwork and a very rare intact Roman wicker basket. More here;: https://www.rrarc.co.uk/blog/archives/12-2019.

On one of our HS2 sites the excavation and lifting of a Roman lead coffin in the challenging operational environment of Covid-19 was a major achievement, which topped off the other discoveries at the site including a large Neolithic enclosure, an Iron Age shrine and a medieval smithy. https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/archaeology/wellwick-farm-archaeology/
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