Tim Schadla-Hall

Yesterday, I received the sad news that my teacher, mentor and friend (and DV Advisory Board member), Tim Schadla-Hall had died. This seems impossible. He was tougher than an old boot. Held together by the sheer power of all the things he was behind in doing, had promised to do, wasn’t quite finished with doing. I don’t know exactly how he died, but I assume he was working when it happened.

I’ve woken up this morning full of emotion and thinking about all the many, many people whose lives he also changed who must be feeling the same. Like me, their last messages from Tim were probably coded strings of letters, numbers and ‘sorrys’. Just one of his signature quirks that will be missed.

One of my first lessons from Tim was that learning neither began or ended in the classroom, and most of his teaching happened outside of it. The method was learning by osmosis: knowledge surrounded Tim like the dust cloud around Pigpen from Peanuts, and all you had to do was step into his proximity with your ears open to learn something. If you wanted spoon-feeding, you were in trouble. I joined the class more than a month late due to 9/11 and when I asked him if I could make up the work he said – it’s impossible, don’t bother. What were the readings he’d covered? Who knew. What order? Doesn’t matter. Joining his class was like stepping into a fast river. I’m trying to imagine how that would work in today’s university environment.

Irreverent, untamed, iconoclastic, to my starry student eyes Tim seemed to have achieved the very pinnacle of what success meant … and he just never did what anyone expected of him. He was always in trouble with somebody, usually Peter Ucko or Steve Shennan or the Institute itself, and was very happy to tell you about it. He knew when his colleagues were behaving badly and wasn’t afraid to be straight up with his students about that, and everything else too. All of these behaviours combined into a powerful lesson for me about the choices I could make with my work, as well as my life, and still carve out a place for myself in archaeology. Abandoning yourself to serve others’ expectations is unnecessary – because half the time, they might be full of shit, and you probably know more than they do anyway. Follow your gut. And get the data to back it up!

Not everybody loved Tim’s ways, but those of us who did were signed up for a life-long, undefinable friendship. Your role was to buy his dinner from time to time, include him in useful gossip, and never be boring. His was to continue relentlessly pulling strings in mysterious ways so that good people got great jobs, the right people met the right people, and archaeology as a profession, discipline and practice didn’t end up consigned to the dustbin of irrelevance. I unwittingly attended more high-level networking and advocacy sessions at his salon evenings in the front right table of Olivelli’s than I can count. Honestly, that table is Ground Zero for UK Public Archaeology practice as it currently exists. I’d love to see a heat map of where all of us who sat there are currently working in the archaeology ecosystem worldwide. An incredible legacy.

I’m pretty certain my dissertation from 2002 is still sitting in the ‘to do’ pile in the centre of his office, but that doesn’t matter. When anyone truly needed him, Tim showed up. There would be no DigVentures without him, both in terms of inspiration as well as execution, and I use what he taught me daily in my work. Many of the people he introduced me to are now dear friends, inspiring colleagues, touchstones of interesting work and ideas out there in the world.

With his passing, I somehow feel that we have also lost one of the last links to a time when archaeology had a vibe, a community, a centre that was holding and felt exciting and aspirational. Perhaps that is part of what we can do to remember him – try to build it back, create that space again, continue to pull the strings and make the right connections. Be relentless.

Travel well Tim, we will miss you.

Tim outside Olivelli’s. Picture courtesy of Tiva Montalbano.