IntroductionThe Derbyshire Archaeological Society was founded in 1878 to encourage interest in the County’s archaeology and natural history. The Society was initially called the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society but the natural history side was dropped in 1961. The Society first published its Journal in 1879 and it has been published every year since. Each volume of the journal contains a collection of edited papers on various topics relating to both the history and the archaeology of the area.
The Society funds archaeological and historical research with grants to volunteer groups, schools, museums and academic/professional researchers. It operates a small website. It supports local historical societies in studying the historical environment, holds study days, lectures and visits. It publishes the annual journal; Miscellany (A local history magazine); a newsletter and publishes gazetteers and maps on Derbyshire.
Membership of the society is open to everyone with an interest in the archaeology and history of Derbyshire. The Society has four active special interest groups – The Archaeological Research Group; The Architectural Section; The Local History Group and the Industrial Archaeology Section.
OverviewThe collection contains all of the volumes published from 1879 up to the current day, with the last five years of articles available only in Abstract form.The format of the Journal has slowly evolved over the years. In early years the contents consisted of reports of the activities of the Society, excursions and proceedings, together with papers read at the meetings, but over time the 'business' sections have been published as a newsletter for members and the journals now consist of more specialised papers on historical and archaeological subjects. It is only these more specialised papers that have been scanned and available on-line in searchable pdf format. The file names of the articles are catalogued on volume number, year of publication and page numbers based on the original printed journals.
Individual papers are peer-reviewed and cover all aspects of 'past life' in the county of Derbyshire and the average size of any volume is 225 pages and published in a 'soft-back' version towards the end of each year.
