Oxford Archaeology (trading name of The Oxford Archaeological Unit Limited) is one of the largest non-governmental archaeological organisations in Europe.
Founded in 1973, it has grown from its early incarnation to carry out commercial archaeological fieldwork in advance of development across Britain and France as well as a range of other heritage related services. Oxford Archaeology (OA) has also carried out contracts around the world, including Central Asia, China and the Caribbean. A registered charitable trust[1] with educational aims, it has various outreach and community archaeology projects running alongside its commercial work. In 2008 OA started to offer services in the digital arena, using internally developed skills to provide solutions to clients particularly in the GIS and web areas, under the brand name OA Digital. Numbers of employees vary due to the project-based nature of the work, but in 2009 OA employed over 400 people. Turnover for the financial year ending March 2009 was over £11.5m,[2] showing an annual growth of over 10%.[3]
The registered head office is in Osney Mead, Oxford, southern England; this address is also the base for OA South. Other offices are OA North in Lancaster, northern England, OA East in Bar Hill, Cambridgeshire, eastern England and French offices in Mauguio (OA Méditerranée), southern France and Caen (OA Grand Ouest), northern France.[4]
Oxford Archaeology are supporters of the concept of "open archaeology", making it a key theme of the current 5 year strategy. More information about the concepts of open archaeology can be found at the website hosted by OA (linked below). As part their commitment to open archaeology OA are started putting its grey literature online[5] and making available internally developed software on the Launchpad site under the umbrella project Open Archaeology.[6]