The Portable Antiquities Scheme

Laura Burnett is the new Finds Liaison Officer for Somerset, replacing Anna Booth who has started a PhD at Leicester University. Laura has been the Finds Liaison Officer in Sussex for the last three years and has also worked for the PAS specialist in medieval and post-medieval coins in Oxford. She has a wide experience of the types of finds reported to the PAS and is looking forward to getting to grips with the local material in Somerset.

Laura was brought up on Exmoor and studied archaeology at Cambridge University then worked in Ireland, excavating sites about to be affected by road building, before returning to England to work at the National Monument Record in Swindon. In 2004 she went to UCL in London to do a Masters degree in Artefact Studies during which she spent some time with the Finds Liaison Officer in Suffolk. She then went on to work in Oxford and spent some time doing non-archaeological research in Devon before moving to Sussex to take up the FLO post there. Laura is interested in artefacts of all periods but has a special interest in coins.

She would be very interested to hear from anyone who has found items they would like identified and recorded. She is based in the Somerset Heritage Centre in Taunton and will being doing regular finds days at Wells museum. For further details about the scheme or to arrange an appointment she can be contacted on 01823 347457, or by email: lburnett@somerset.gov.uk.