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Clearing Study Experience Research Collaborate About us

Dr Helen Wickstead MCIfA FSA

Kingston School of Art
Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education
Department of Creative Industries
Department of Applied and Human Sciences
School of Creative and Cultural Industries
School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry

Senior Lecturer and Course Director

[email protected]

About

Helen is a museum historian and archaeologist who unearths the histories of neglected, discarded, and stigmatised collections. She was educated at University College London where she completed a PhD on Bronze Age ruins. She has excavated sunken boats, prehistoric megaliths, Sudanese pyramids, Bohemian ritual enclosures, and modern rubbish tips. She is the founder and Director of Recycle Archaeology, a company discovering new social uses for deselected archaeological artefacts that works with schools, charities, urban farms and museums.

Helen's latest work is a study of the British Museum's Secretum. Previous publications investigated men-only clubs and museums, concrete megaliths, the Cult of Kata, goat-boy mythology in London suburbia, archaeology’s lost Eolithic era and the cultures of collecting eoliths and figure stones. She wrote the world's first dedicated study of Soho Bibles, uncovering how obscene books were smuggled into the British Museum's Library by renegade curators. Her current research revealing the Secretum’s secret history is soon to be published by Reaktion Books.

Qualifications

MA Archaeology, University College London
PhD Archaeology, University College London
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
Member of the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists

Domains

Publications

Supermarket ruins: exploring heritage through visual storytelling

Copsey, Laura, Perry, Sara, Simandiraki-Grimshaw, Anna and Wickstead, Helen, 2026, Journal of Illustration, Accepted/In press

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Dawn stones

Daniels, Richard and Wickstead, Helen, 2025, Occultaria of Albion: The Paranormal Podcast, Published

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Research begins on the Burton Mausoleum Collection

Wickstead, Helen, 2025, Mausolus: Journal of the Monuments and Mausolea Trust pp 30-34, Published

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The false dawn of art

Wickstead, Helen, 2025, The Antiquary (2024-25), Published

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Ancient Temple discovered in Kingston conceals even older temple buildings

Wickstead, Helen, 2024, Tomorrow's News Today, Published

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Head to head: what use is prehistory to the historian?

Secord, Jim, Wickstead, Helen and Geroulanos, Stefanos, 2024, History Today (74), 6 pp 8-9, Published

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Tom Armstrong Bowes, Herne Bay Museum and the Lower Paleolithic of the Kentish Stour

Knowles, Peter Geoffrey, Wickstead, Helen and White, Mark John, 2024, The Antiquaries Journal, E-pub ahead of print

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Palaeoliths and pareidolia: photography and archaeological stone collecting from the discovery of deep time to the eolith controversies

Wickstead, Helen, 2024, Photography and Culture, E-pub ahead of print

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Men-only clubs and museums: associational culture and the gendering of Herne Bay's museum between the wars

Wickstead, Helen and Knowles, Pete, 2022, Museum History Journal, E-pub ahead of print

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Recycle archaeology's labels for landfill

Wickstead, Helen, 2022, Extinction Rebellion 'Writers Rebel', Published

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Recycle archaeology: social and sustainable alternatives for de-selected materials

Wickstead, Helen, 2022, The Archaeologist (115) pp 23-25, Published

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Learning and discovery: Kingston University students contributing to the Save Burlington House Campaign

Wickstead, Helen, 2021, Society of Antiquaries London, Published

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Letters from Charles Darwin and Arthur Keith discovered through the SMART project

Wickstead, Helen, 2020, Museum Archaeologists News (64) pp 6-9, Published

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Book Review of 'Breaking the surface: an art/archaeology of prehistoric architecture' by Douglass Bailey

Wickstead, Helen, 2020, European Journal of Archaeology (23), 2 pp 321-325, Published

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Soho typescripts: handmade obscene books in post-war London bookshops

Wickstead, Helen, 2020, Porn Studies (7), 2 pp 187-211, Published

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The archive: sex in the secret museum : photographs from the British Museum's Witt Scrapbooks

Wickstead, Helen, 2019, Photography and Culture (11), 3 pp 351-366, Published

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"Wild worship of a lost and buried past": enchanted archaeologies and the cult of Kata, 1908-1924

Wickstead, Helen, 2017, Bulletin of the History of Archaeology (27(1)), 4 pp 1-18, Published

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Concrete prehistories: the making of megalithic modernism

Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2015, Journal of Contemporary Archaeology (2), 1 pp 195-216, Published

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Aerial archaeology and the 'lost gardens' of Seething Wells

Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2015, Medical Archives (14), 3 pp 73-78, Published

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Geochemical survey and metalworking: analysis of chemical residues derived from experimental non-ferrous metallurgical processes in a reconstructed roundhouse

Carey, Chris J., Wickstead, Helen J., Juleff, Gill, Anderson, Jens C. and Barber, Martyn J., 2014, Journal of Archaeological Science (49) pp 383-397, Published

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A Spectacular History of Survey by Flying Machine!

Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2012, Cambridge Archaeological Journal (22), 1 pp 71-88, Published

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'One Immense Black Spot': Aerial views of London 1784-1918

Barber, Martyn and Wickstead, Helen, 2010, London Journal (35), 3 pp 236-254, Published

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A newly recorded hilltop enclosure at Myncen Farm, Minchington

Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2010, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society (131) pp 103-112, Published

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A 'new' enclosure at Minchington, Dorset

Barber, Martyn and Wickstead, Helen, 2009, Research News : newsletter of the English Heritage Research Department, 13 pp 29-30, Published

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The Uber-Archaeologist: Art, GIS and the male gaze revisited

Wickstead, Helen, 2009, Journal of Social Archaeology (9), 2 pp 249-271, Published

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Discoveries to the east of Cranbourne Chase: the Damerham Archaeology Project

Wickstead, Helen, Carey, Chris, Bayer, Olaf and Barber, Martyn, 2009, PAST, 61 pp 9-12, Published

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Remote sensing and geophysical survey near Damerham, Hampshire

Wickstead, Helen, Carey, Chris, Bayer, Olaf and Barber, Martyn, 2009, CBA Wessex News, Spring pp 17-19, Published

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Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor, UK

Fyfe, R. M., Brück, J., Johnston, R., Lewis, H., Roland, T. P. and Wickstead, H., 2008, Journal of Archaeological Science (35), 8 pp 2250-2261, Published

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Drawing time

Wickstead, Helen, 2008, British Archaeology, 101 pp 44-49, Published

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Excavations of Bronze Age field systems on Shovel Down, Dartmoor 2003

Bruck, Joanna, Johnston, Robert and Wickstead, Helen, 2003, PAST, 45, Published

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In reply to MacDonald, Hung and Crawford, 1995, 'Prehistory as propaganda'

Wickstead, Helen, 1996, Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (7) pp 9-12, Published

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The mausoleum collection

Wickstead, Helen, Lubinski, Jenna, Eaves, Melanye, Zhang, Yinou, Swannell Amalfitano, Lorna, Aubry, Grace and Smith, Lauren (2026). In: Brown, Helen, (eds.), Richmond, U.K.: pp 41-47 [Published]

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The museum of yesterday?

Wickstead, Helen (2021). In: Zaba, Jarek, (eds.), Kingston upon Thames, U.K.: pp 8-14 [Published]

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The Bornais Phallus

Wickstead, Helen (2020). In: Sharples, Niall, (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Oxbow Books [Accepted/In press]

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The phallus in the closet: collecting and classifying ancient sculpture

Wickstead, H (2020). In: Joseph-Lester, Jaspar, (eds.)[Accepted/In press]

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Cults of the distribution map: geography, utopia and the making of modern archaeology

Wickstead, Helen (2019). In: Gillings, Mark, Haciguzeller, Piraye, Lock, Gary, (eds.), Abingdon, U.K.: pp 37-72 [Published]

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Another proof of the preceding theory: film, materialities and Stonehenge

Wickstead, Helen (2014). In: Russell, Ian Alden, Cochrane, Andrew, (eds.), London, U.K.: Springer pp 99-114 [Published]

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Between the lines: drawing archaeology

Wickstead, Helen (2013). In: Graves-Brown, Paul, Harrison, Rodney, Piccini, Angela, (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press pp 549-564 [Published]

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Drawing archaeology

Wickstead, Helen (2008). In: Duff, Leo, Sawdon, Phil, (eds.), Bristol, U.K.: pp 13-27 [Published]

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Land, landscape and Englishness in the discovery of prehistoric land division

Wickstead, Helen (2008). In: Chadwick, Adrian M., (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Archaeopress [Published]

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Archaeologist

Wickstead, Helen (2006). In: Adams, Eileen, Baynes, Ken, (eds.), London, U.K.: Campaign for Drawing pp 12-13 [Published]

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