The Dark Art of Environmental Processing

Bryn Leadbetter, Project Archaeologist, Environmental Processing

In a far-flung corner of Whisby Lodge is a room visited by few. Room 4 (or 9) was once frequented by many. They came then, these folk, in search of tools, but now such utensils of mass earth removal are found elsewhere and there is no longer any reason to venture to this remote outpost. What takes place now in Room 4 (or 9), once likened to a cave, has been described as something akin to alchemy. I like this idea of my work being a dark art and I hesitate to discourage the thought, but in truth no such claim can be made.

In the simplest of terms environmental archaeology is the study of past people’s interaction with their natural environment – we use plant and animal remains to reconstruct ancient environments and farming practices and examine soils, sediments and other suitable deposits to explore how sites are formed. Pollen and isotopes are also studied, and much more still, but, sadly, nothing so wizard-y takes place in Room 4 (or 9).

Bryn floating

The samples of soil that we collect may contain minute/microscopic plant and animal remains that can tell us about the economy and diet of the people who occupied the site, and the natural environment in which they lived. Fragments of pottery, flint and other artefacts may also be present.

To extract these items from the ‘mud’ a water separation system is employed, in a process commonly referred to as flotation. This consists of a number of tanks and connecting pipes around which water is pumped on a continuous cycle, overflowing from one tank to the next. The sample is placed in the first tank onto a submerged 1mm mesh and agitated to break the sediment up and release any eco/arte-facts contained therein. Light material, such as grain, seed, charcoal and shell, will float to the top and is carried by the overflowing water through a 300 micron mesh (1000 micron = 1mm), where it is collected. This material is called the flot. The heavy fraction of bone, flint and pottery along with stones etc. will sink but is captured by the 1mm mesh. This is called the residue. The finest fraction of clay and silt will escape capture and settle to the bottom of the tank. Of course, the overflowing water is instantly dirty and the purpose of the other tanks is to allow as much silt/clay to settle before the as-clean-as-possible water is pumped from the final tank back into tank 1 and the cycle to continues. After drying and bagging the flot is sent to a specialist for analysis. I sort the residue and retrieve any bone, flint, pot and so-forth. A spreadsheet is kept for the documentation of all this activity – and that’s what I do in Room 4 (or 9).

Flot, residue and bagged flot

A Pietá from Lincoln

We have recently seen the return to our offices of a lovely piece of sculpture that we found in uphill Lincoln. This sculpture is a Pietá, a devotional depiction of the Virgin Mary holding the body of Christ after the crucifixion. The Pietá is one of the three main depictions of the Virgin Mary in art, the other two being Mater Dolorosa (Mother of Sorrows) and Stabat Mater (Standing Mother). This form of artwork originated in 13th Century Germany before spreading to France, Italy and Central Europe. Many early wooden examples emphases the wounds Christ suffered on the Cross, whereas the later stone sculptures carved outside Germany focus more on the purity of the Virgin rather than on their suffering. Probably the most famous Pietá was carved by Michelangelo and now rests in St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. It is the only artwork that he ever signed, allegedly due because he had overhead people attributing it to his competitor Cristoforo Solari.

The Pieta shows signs of having been deliberately damaged during the Reformation

We found this Pietá during the construction of new buildings for Lincoln’s University Technical College (UTC) back in 2014. It is more than half a metre wide and, when complete, would have stood nearly a metre tall. Similarity to other examples from France, suggests that it may have been made in the mid-15th century. It was probably originally placed on the outside of a building, over a portal but had been reused in a retaining wall, the plain parts facing outwards, hiding its true form.

The sculpture is largely intact but the heads and feet of both Christ and Mary are missing (as are their right hands and Christ’s left shoulder and right knee). The missing heads and the reuse of the statue as building material indicate that it was probably defaced during the Reformation of the 16th Century. Icons of Christ and the saints were present in all Catholic churches but the new Protestant faith saw them as worship of false gods. Excavations on the church neighbouring Lincoln Cathedral, St Peter-in-the-Bail, found evidence of iconoclastic destruction from this period. The heads and hands of saints, both in sculpture and in paintings, were the main targets during this religious vandalism. C. Pamela Graves suggests this was done to remove any power from the saints personification and as a test of the idol and its supposed sainthood. For example when a statue of St Katherine was thrown into a fire, it not burn and by it burning it proved the idol was a sham. There is also a tale from the Old Testament about an image of the Assyrian deity Dagon who was struck down by God by having his head and hands cut off. Removing the head and heads of an idol also mirrored the punishment that was inflicted on heretics.

References:

Graves, C P, 2008, ‘From an archaeology of iconoclasm to an anthropology of the body : images, punishment and personhood in England, 1500-1660’, Current Anthropology, 49 (1), 35-57

The Rt Revd Lord Harries, 2015, ‘The Pieta in Art’, [Transcript] https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-pieta-in-art

Best site hut biscuit with Dominika

What is your job role?
Project Archaeologist

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?
1 year, 5 months

How would describe your excavation technique?
I always try to find the deeper meaning of the hole that I am digging.

How long have you been working in archaeology?
1 year, 5 month (I joined AAL as a trainee), however I have volunteered on excavations abroad and in Britain since 2009.

How did you get into archaeology?
My mum let me pick a book from the Readers’ Digest catalogue. I picked one about ancient Egypt and since reading it for the first time when I was seven, I wanted to be an archaeologist.

What is the best thing about your job?
Finds marking and excavating human skeletons. It is a shame but not many people seem to enjoy finds marking. When it comes to skeletons – I hope that one day I get to dig a mummy or a bog body!

Specialist skills?
I can say ‘my name is’ in ancient Egyptian and I am known for being very fast in bagging skeletons.

Best site hut biscuit?
Anything gluten-free. Preferably Jaffa cakes or short bread. I hate anything chocolate flavoured, especially brownies.

Christina Colyer – Lincoln’s Trowel Blazer

Christina Colyer, Lincoln’s first Field Archaeologist

Last year we celebrated the female archaeologists based at AAL and how they found their way into their careers. This year we have decided to highlight the work of Lincolns first City Archaeologist; Christina Colyer.

Christina Colyer was the Director of the Lincoln Archaeology Trust, the first ‘unit’ formed in Lincoln in 1972. It is under her leadership that the most prominent excavations in the city took place. The results of her work can be seen across the city and include the work at pivotal sites including the western defences of the lower town and St Paul-in-the-Bail.

She started working in Lincoln as the speed of post-war development was beginning to overwhelm the Lincoln Archaeological Research Committee’s ability to keep up. She herself described the problem as “of horrific proportions”. It has been difficult to track her down, no obituaries appear in local journals, and in a time before the internet her mark has been left in a series of tantalizing clues. She seems to have worked in Bedfordshire for the Department of the Environment before starting in Lincoln. Various correspondence indicate that she had a B.A. and was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

People remember her as both charismatic and controversial. Perhaps this is why she is barely visible today. Those who worked for her suggest she was an outspoken woman and that this was not always popular.

A recent Appreciation of Margaret Jones, a leader of the Mucking excavations, suggested that women have been considered largely absent during the Rescue period of field archaeology of 1950s to 1970s. However, Christina (like Margaret) was one of a number of women who directed major excavations across the UK.

Scandalous, controversial or charismatic, archaeology in Lincoln would be a different place had Christina not paved the way for the current generation of archaeologists who continue her work.
For a detailed bibliography see here

Lecturing on the Roman remains

A huge thank you to Alastair MacIntosh at City of Lincoln Council for providing the photographs.

Archaeology is rubbish*

Natasha Powers, Senior Manager

We recently finished work on a site to the south of Lincoln. There were no Roman buildings or prehistoric flint scatters but a group (or assemblage) of objects was collected and brought back to the offices. Collections of material like this look familiar to us and they can show the processes we go through to interpret a site no matter its age, and the difficulties we face in doing so.

What was it for? A bottle is probably used for storing liquids, we know that because we have seen objects a similar shape and that’s what they were being used for (their function). Shape (or form) is one of the key ways in which we interpret objects. We have a helping hand here as many of the objects still have writing on them, so we can find out exactly what they were used for. We can use the characteristics of those objects to help us work out what the ones without labels might be. The base of no. 12 tells us that it was made to store Hartley’s jams or preserves. We can therefore work out that no. 11, which is not marked but looks very similar, was used for the same function but presumably by different a company. We work out what the objects are by comparing them with other, sometimes more complete, objects which have the same shape or characteristics.

Modern ‘rubbish’ but what can it tell us?

How old is it? Creating a typology (the classification of objects according to their characteristics) can also be key to establishing their date. Shapes and styles may change over time and if you have an object that you can give a secure date to, you can build up a pattern. Here, we can look at the ketchup bottle (no. 5) and see that it looks like those that were produced between 1914 and 1930. Research can help us work out how old other objects may be: Wiltshaw & Robinson (makers of Carlton Ware) produced over 1000 different shapes of Heraldic Souvenir China 1903–1926, including our yacht (no. 13). Bray & Co. Bus Company, changed their name to Lincolnshire Road Car in May 1930, so the ticket stub (no. 26) must be earlier than this. In fact the objects all seem to have been made before 1930, but not earlier than the start of the 20th century.

Typology of ketchup

When was it deposited? Production date doesn’t tell us when these objects were buried. Some objects stay in circulation longer than others because they have uses beyond their original purpose, because we find them aesthetically pleasing or because they become heirlooms. Stoneware jam pots were superseded by glass jam jars, but we have both here. Empty stoneware jars make excellent pencil pots or vases, so perhaps they were reused before being thrown away (I keep match boxes in one at home)?

What does it mean? Take away our knowledge of these objects from their history and how would we interpret them as a group? Why would someone have a small model house and a boat? Is there a religious significance to these items? Why do they have a coat of arms on them? Did the person who they belonged to own land in, or have family in Southport and Bedford? Perhaps they were just pretty objects picked up at a jumble sale? There is a glass pot marked ‘Spear’s Games’ – does that mean there are children involved in the creation of this rubbish? There is a pocket watch of a type that you would expect to belong to a man, but we need to be careful when we ‘engender’ objects: I own a watch much like that myself. Likewise, there is a pot of solid perfume that we might assume is a ‘female’ object. Did they smoke or need a stick to walk with? There are a lot of ink bottles, one of which even has a pen-nib still in it – is this rubbish from a school or an office? Is it from the home of a writer? All in all, there are storage containers, decorative items and practical ones (like the syrup of figs from a brand known as “the family laxative”!). Perhaps, sometime after 1930 someone had a clear-out and got rid of Aunt Agatha’s now unfashionable nick-nacks?

The truth is that we can’t ever know for certain. We can say that the objects were thrown away because they were no longer considered useful. The key to making our interpretation the best that it can be is to gather as much information together as is possible, compare our site with others and set the discovery in context…and that applies to a Roman farmstead as much as a 20th century rubbish dump.

(*with apologies to Tony Robinson and Mick Aston for borrowing the title of their book)

No.	Description
1	Glass storage jar
2	Robertson’s Scotch Marmalade jar with partial label and motif
3	Medicine or household chemical bottle, very incomplete label reads ‘methylated’. Moulded with horizontal divisions showing tablespoons
4	Glass bottle
5	Heinz ketchup bottle with partial label
6	?Champagne bottle
7	Moulded ‘Daddie’s’ sauce bottle
8	Lyons ?ink bottle with partial label
9	Glass bottle
10	Moulded California Fig Syrup Co. bottle
11	Stoneware preserves jar. No markings
12	Stoneware preserves jar. Base embossed ‘NOT genuine unless bearing Wm PH Hartley’s label’
13	Carlton Ware crested or heraldic china yacht (the Saucy Sue). Marked “Southport”
14	Bovril jar
15	Swan ink pot
16	Miniature vase
17	Lid with running dogs motif
18	Small jar
19	Willow Art crested china model of Paul Bunyan’s House with ‘The arms of ancient Bedford’
20	Bell’ Lyon’s ink tipper bottle with partial label and pen nib inside
21	Stoneware inkwell
22	Glass inkwell
23	Glass pot embossed ‘Spear’s Games’. Possibly a tiddlywinks container?
24	Clay pipe
25	Man’s pocket watched in tooled steel
26	Bray & Co. Bus Company
27	Skull of a small dog
28	Brass solid perfume pot with hinge and mirror in the lid. Perfume still present
29	?Bone/antler and brass walking stick handle in the shape of a duck’s head
30	Pocket watch winder (assoc. with 25)

Best site hut biscuit with Alice

What is your job role?
Senior Project Archaeologist

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?
3 years, 3 months and 13 days (approximately)

How would describe your excavation technique?
I attack things with gusto and hope for the best

How long have you been working in archaeology?
3 years, 3 months and 13 days (approximately)

Alice on a Sheffield University training dig at West Halton

At a Sheffield University training dig at West Halton

How did you get into archaeology?
Aged 10 I was dragged (whilst protesting) onto a field as part of a community project my mum was involved in. 5 minutes later I found a Neolithic leaf shaped arrowhead and after that I was hooked

What is the best thing about your job?
Digging big holes in the mud!

Specialist skills?
I can knit myself a nice brightly coloured site jumper that hides some of the mud. I’m in the early stages of training to be a Roman pottery specialist.

Best site hut biscuit?
I’m a big fan of the bourbon but if we are feeling fancy a Lotus caramelized biscuit hits the spot.

Running a large scale excavation

Dan Connor, Project Supervisor

In this blog I have been asked to try and describe what my experience running a large scale excavation was like. I have been a supervisor at Allen Archaeology since November 2014 and have worked here since October 2013. Prior to working at Market Harborough I ran several evaluation trenching sites, some open area excavations and helped supervise the large-scale North Killingholme site under the direction of Chris Casswell in the summer of 2015; this would be the largest site I have coordinated.

General shot of site on top of the spoil heap looking southeast

So, a quick description of the site, Market Harborough was an agricultural field, about 5.5 hectares in size that underwent a strip map and record, during the summer of 2016. This was done as a condition of planning consent to allow the building of over 100 houses on the site. Prior to us starting work the site a geophysical survey and evaluation trenching had been undertaken. This meant that there were known archaeological remains on the site consisting of field boundaries and enclosures, that were shown clearly on the geophysics. The nature of these results suggested that this site would have a mix of Romano-British field systems and some earlier Iron Age features.

The geophysics results for the site

Machines started opening the site up in early March, and after a few teething issues we were largely ready to go.

Pre-excavation survey of the site, showing the archaeology and other features.

One of the excavated ditches

It was daunting at first, a large tangle of intercutting ditches and discrete features over an area the size of four football fields; but breaking it down made it much easier to grasp. In the end I decided to have the team work through the site in a large group, breaking the site down into distinct parts and moving from one area to the next. It often feels like Roman archaeology leads itself to this approach as Romans loved squares and enclosures and like to keep things surrounded by big ditches. Difficulties arose however with the Romans love of maintaining said big ditches, then leaving them, before digging new ditches in exactly the same place. This results in features having multiple re-cuts and phases, and the key was to try and link these phases together. This is what makes Roman sites fascinating; distinct phases of activity and occupation can be observed, and in this case it emerged that there were five clear phases of activity, despite the complexity in the features.

The earliest period of occupation recorded on the site dated from the early Neolithic, with several pits that contained worked flint including a fragment of a leaf shaped arrowhead, and a piece of a Langdale stone axe in the northwest corner of the site. A prehistoric pit alignment was found oriented north to south and is similar to others found in Leicestershire. Also recorded were the remains of at least two Iron age drip gullies associated with round houses.

The majority of the site was, as expected, Romano-British field systems and enclosures. We had a number of stand out finds from this period including a partial sliver ring, a copper alloy make up tool, a brooch and multiple quern stones including a rotary and saddle quern.

The whole site with complete stratigraphic phasing, red being earlier and blue being later.

The whole site with complete stratigraphic phasing, red being earlier features and blue, more recent

However there was not just the archaeology to consider, a large-scale project like this meant public interest, I had had a little experience with this working at North Killingholme, but this was my first experience of being directly involved. An open day was organised and volunteer groups from local historical societies were invited to work a few days.

On the open day, just over 70 people turned up for a site tour and to look at some of the material we had found. I found that while people enjoyed their time most were expecting more of a traditional/research archaeological site and less of a “construction” image. I imagine not looking like a university professor did not match many people’s expectations, neither did the hard hats and high visibility vests everyone was wearing. Regardless many local people had real enthusiasm about the work we were doing and a genuine interest in the artefacts. Many were eager to add their own interpretations to what we had found and what could have been there.

Volunteers from local historical societies were invited to come onto site and excavate some of the features, specifically some of the pits in the pit alignment. A big difference that the volunteers noted themselves was the amount of work and the speed it was expected to be done at. It is a long time since my university field schools and I have only worked on commercial archaeological sites since, so having volunteers was a bit of an unknown quantity. I enjoyed having them on site though and I believe they learnt a bit about what digging for a company was like and the benefits of doing volunteer work.

Bees played a bigger part of my time then I thought they would, with a hive descending on to the site during July

Bees played a bigger part of my time than I thought they would, with a swarm descending on to the site during July!

Most people were working away from home on this job and that can be stressful. We seemed to avoid this, and I think it was because people got along socially as well as at work. Cooking together in the evening, playing board games and *a couple* of beers in the evening helped pass the time and brought people together. It created a good atmosphere and I felt everyone was enjoying working on the site.

Over 580 holes were excavated, over 3100 context numbers assigned and just under 1200 drawings were completed to investigate this part of a Romano-British settlement. It was a great site to work on; archaeologically it was interesting fitting the development of the site together alongside some nice finds, with evidence of extended occupation from the Neolithic to the 4th century AD. The group of people working on site really pulled it together. It made running what could have been a very stressful and complex site straight forward for me and resulted in a site I have found fascinating to record.

The team working hard

A cold week for archaeologists

It’s been a busy week and we’ve been up to all sorts of exciting things.

Aaron has been monitoring work at The Lawn in Lincoln.

On site at The Lawn

Damian has taken a team down to London

Monitoring works in London

Rob has been hunting the Loch Ness Monster in his magnetometry data

Finding monsters

Jesse has been undertaking and processing his first building survey

Setting up his first building survey

Alice has been working hard in the sleet

Team in the south of Lincolnshire

Reports are getting produced in the very tidy projects room

Working hard in the projects office

Finally we’ve had a team hard at it washing finds

Finds washers are going strong

Hope everyone else has had a busy week!

Find of the month: bricks need love too

I have been asked to write a post about January’s exciting Find of the Month, which is a small collection of bricks taken from one of our recent sites. I’m guessing they have been chosen as find of the month not because they’re nicer than anything else we found in January, but in order to give me a chance to write a follow up to my previous blog post about post-medieval archaeology.

Hand moulded 18th-19th century brick

The bricks in question cover a range of dates from the late 18th to the mid 20th century and so the techniques used for making the bricks change from hand moulding to machine pressing. This alone can be a good indicator of the date of brick structures, as machine moulded brick came to predominate in the second half of the 19th century. Among hand moulded bricks, the size of the brick can sometimes be helpful in suggesting how old the brick might be. For example, a brick tax was imposed in Britain in 1784, but was charged on the number of bricks, rather than by weight. The natural response of the brickmakers was to make larger bricks, charge more for them, and pay as little tax as possible! There is a tendency for hand pressed bricks to increase in size from the introduction of the brick tax until its repeal in 1850.

Dating of machine pressed bricks is of course helped by the fact that they are often stamped with the name of the manufacturer. Historical research into the brickworks itself, and the stamps used at different periods of its existence, can be used to indicate when and where the bricks were produced.

Handmade tapered header brick

Information can also be gleaned from the forms of bricks found on site. This is a handmade tapered header brick, a type of brick used in the construction of vaulted structures. Bricks like this would be an unusual find in a domestic context, and normally indicate the presence of structures such as drainage culverts or flues associated with industrial activity.

So, whilst it’s easy for all the prehistorians here to laugh at those of us who appreciate bricks, on a complex, multi-phase industrial site the bricks used in the construction of the buildings can be an invaluable resource, at least as important as all their pots and stones!