Category Archives: Heritage Research team

From pipe-smoking to PPE!

By Isobel Curwen, Heritage Research Supervisor

Archaeologists excavating the Oseberg Ship in 1904 or 1905

As you can see from this photograph of an excavation in 1904 or 1905, some things have changed quite a lot in terms of what we wear during archaeological excavation today. Note the smartly dressed men in the centre of the photo (and also the slightly grubbier men to the left!). Suits, ties and bowler hats are a stark contrast to what we wear on archaeological excavations today.

However, as the fashions have changed, so has what we wear during our excavations. Today we have strict health and safety procedures in place to ensure that we are safe whilst on site. For this, we have Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) that includes an array of kit from hard hats, steel toe-capped and midsole boots, gloves, safety glasses, and hi-visibility clothing.

As we as field archaeologists are at the mercy of the Great British weather (see previous blog posts for some prime examples of this!) it is essential that we have good quality, warm and waterproof clothing. This not only means that we are kept warm and (hopefully) dry but that team morale during a particularly cold or wet day is kept high!

However, importantly, the main role of PPE is to keep us safe. The nature of our work means that we are often on construction sites with set rules and regulations that we need to abide by. This includes wearing hard hats where there is a risk of falling objects, safety glasses to protect eyes from flying sparks and dust, gloves to protect hands from sharp objects or hazardous chemicals, and safety footwear to protect our feet from falling objects. Hi-visibility clothing also keeps us seen (even through the layers of mud!). Obviously the type of PPE varies from site to site and is dependent on the nature of the site.

At Allen Archaeology, everyone is issued with PPE which we have in various sizes. Each site undergoes a risk assessment and toolbox talks are given as and when required which act as reminders as to the correct usage of our PPE.

So how times have changed! I wonder how our field staff would feel about swapping their PPE for a suit and tie?!

Some of our fieldwork team working on a site in rural Lincolnshire, complete with PPE!

‘The ploughman feeds us all’ – January is over

By Harvey Tesseyman, Heritage Research Supervisor

January is finally over, a month with five Mondays to kick the year off. Since we’ve spent January out in the field excavating, geophys-ing, and undertaking earthwork surveys, we’ve been thinking about what people in the medieval period would have been doing out in their fields this month.

The Julius Work Calendar was a twelve page book measuring just 200mm by 130mm and produced in c.1020 in Canterbury Cathedral. It was divided into the calendar year we recognise today, each page showing a zodiac sign, the holy days of that month, and an illustration of a particular task http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Julius_A_VI. This ‘Work Calendar’ was a religious text, likely produced to help young monks with their learning (Robert and Danziger 2003). It was rescued from destruction following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by a 17th century Member of Parliament, antiquarian, and book collector, Robert Cotton, from whose shelves the calendar gets its name: each of Cotton’s bookcases in Westminster library was topped with the bust of a notable figure of the classical world; Augustus, Caligula, Claudius, Cleopatra, Domotian, Faustina, Galba, Nero, Otho, Tiberius, Vespasian, Vitellius and, of course, Julius.

The calendar suggests that January’s task was ploughing. The ploughing season began in earnest on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night. Plough Monday may have had associations with rites surrounding fertility, whereby local young men would wear special badges and engage in ploughing competitions (Gilchrist 2012). We decline to pass comment on this aspect.

Ridge and furrow earthworks visible during an earthwork survey in Lincolnshire

The open field systems that dominated much of the medieval landscape comprised areas of arable land up to c.50ha big, divided into furlongs which in turn comprised a number of narrow, enclosed strips. Generally between two and four of these giant fields served a single settlement, with somewhere between one third and one half of the rural population living in places given over to this system (White 2002). Medieval ploughing was difficult work. Teams of people goaded and sung to their slow-moving oxen to drive them through the fields, whilst the plough was steered to deliver the perfect furrow within which to sow seeds; not too shallow nor too deep. It was a system that worked for hundreds of years before oxen were put out to pasture in favour of smaller teams of horses. A plough team could cover an acre a day, which would have involved walking something like 17.5km (Ochota 2016). Quite a distance even on level ground (our geophysicists walk up to 25km a day and that’s with just a magnetometry rig, not a team of oxen)! Unlike modern ploughs, medieval examples had a single blade, not unlike a spearhead in shape, or an archaeological trowel held at an angle. They were designed to cut a small trench into the earth and push the dislodged soil to one side and this created a characteristic set of linear earthworks, known as ridge and furrow (or furrow and ridge, respectively). Due to the wide turning circle on a team of oxen when compared to a modern tractor, ridge and furrow ploughing has a gentle ‘S’ or reverse ‘S’ curve to it to give the animals enough time to turn around and start another furrow, in an area referred to as headland.

With time, many examples of ridge and furrow ploughing were in turn ploughed out. Where evidence for these medieval field systems survives, often soilmarks showing where the old furrows used to be are the only trace but happily for archaeologists, these soilmarks and remaining earthworks can be quite easy to spot both by eye, and using LiDAR. They’re interesting to dig, and useful to identify during a desk-based assessment or heritage statement as they often indicate further activity nearby.

January was busy, and February is already off to a good start. Luckily for us according to the Julius Work Calendar we’ll be out in February clearing vines…

Ridge and furrow visible on LiDAR near a site in Leicestershire

References:

Gilchrist, R, 2012, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course, Suffolk: Boydell Press

Ochota, M., 2016, Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd

Robert, L., and Danziger, D., 2003 (3rd ed), The Year 1000: What Life Was Like At The Turn of the First Millenium, London: Abacus

White, G.J., 2002, The Medieval English Landscape 1000–1540, London: Bloomsbury

Best site hut biscuit with Isobel

What is your job role?

Heritage Research Supervisor

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?

Just over three months – it’s gone very quickly!

How would you describe your excavation technique?

By now – probably a bit rusty! I used to take such pleasure in making a straight section…

How long have you been working in archaeology?

2 years and three months.

How did you get into archaeology?

I was studying geography at the University of Reading in 2011 and had the option to take some modules in Archaeology (up until then I wasn’t wholly sure what archaeology actually was). So I thought I’d give it a go (clearly I wasn’t finding my geography degree very stimulating…). The first archaeology module I took was entitled ‘Bones, bodies and burials’ and from then I was hooked. I found it fascinating! Once I finished my undergraduate I wanted to study archaeology in more detail, and in particular I wanted to specialise in human remains so I enrolled on an MSc in Bioarchaeology at the University of York. I absolutely loved it – lots of bones, mud and labs. When I finished this I got a job working in commercial archaeology and here I am!

The Heritage Research office in all its Christmas glory!

What is the best thing about your job?

I enjoy heritage research because it’s great fun to build up a historical picture of an area and combine all the elements of our research (i.e. HER searches, local histories, historic mapping etc) to make one (hopefully) cohesive timeline. I am a self-confessed map geek and I love going to the archives and looking at historic maps – as Harvey will tell you I get pretty excited about this…

Maps aside, I have recently learned how to use GIS programming to create illustrations and for map regression and am enjoying being able to create a nice set of figures!

Specialist skills?

Well I was going to say being able to read old handwriting but I’m still not great at this…

Best site hut biscuit?

Without doubt the chocolate digestive. It was also voted as the favourite site biscuit in our recent Christmas poll in 2017 so this gives me confidence that most of my colleagues agree with me on this matter!

Best site hut biscuit with Harvey

What is your job role?

Project Archaeologist working in the Heritage Department. I do desk-based assessments, occasional building surveys, and general GIS work for illustration.

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?

About five months at the time of writing.

How would you describe your excavation technique?

Messy unfortunately. I’m better at keeping my desk neat than I am at cleaning up section edges…and my desk isn’t exactly tidy…

How long have you been working in archaeology?

On and off since 2015, starting from the end of my second year of university.

How did you get into archaeology?

I stumbled into it really, and found it a good fit. I was working in a bookshop on the high street looking for something better to do, so on a whim I looked into Hull University and chose archaeology. While I was there I found my way into research projects and volunteering on digs and in museums, then after that I ended up working in geophysics with little bits of excavation here and there on evaluation jobs. It was a really fast trajectory, especially given I didn’t do history or anything similar at GCSE or A-level. Everyone I’ve met in archaeology has been very encouraging, which helps. It’s a very friendly profession.

Archaeology in its natural environment

What is the best thing about your job?

It can push you towards being a bit of a generalist I think, at least it has done in my experience, so it’s a really good excuse to keep buying more and more books (‘I need them for work!’). Being able to keep reading up and applying that knowledge immediately is one of the most rewarding things about archaeology. I like going out on site visits too, there’s nothing like seeing archaeology in its natural environment!

Specialist skills?

Asking questions that lead to more questions rather than answers…so maybe research skills?

Best site hut biscuit?

Fruit shortcake! The little round flowery shaped ones with sugar on top, lovely with a cup of tea. Plus because they’re small you can eat quite a few at once.

More than just stuff and things: desk-based assessment

Harvey Tesseyman, Project Archaeologist (Heritage Research)

My job in the Heritage Research team mostly involves writing desk-based assessments (DBAs) to establish and record what might be damaged if construction or demolition was to go ahead on a particular site: I take thousands of years of archaeology and history and condense it into a report. There’s a real joy in the neatness of it (if you’re into that kind of thing). If you’ve ever stood back and looked at your newly tidied living room or desk, with everything in its place, it feels a bit like that. It’s about teasing a coherent and useful narrative out of a seemingly endless set of information to a strict deadline. Generally DBAs are made up map regression, place name analysis, and analysing HER (Historic Environment Record) data, accompanied by a visit to the site to see what is ‘on the ground’.

Harvey at work

Map regression refers to comparing a series of maps made over a period of time so you can see the changes and consistencies within a landscape. Some rural areas change very little, but as time goes on you often see huge spikes in the density of buildings. Medieval maps are often as artistic as they are utilitarian, drawn with an unusual perspective and often with hand painted illustrations. As the common land utilised by everyday folk was privatised and enclosed from the early 1600s, enclosure maps refer to prominent landowners and the winding medieval field boundaries give way to the authoritative grid-like structure that we still see today. Tithe maps keep track of what areas of land belonged to whom, and how much wealth that land was expected to render. Historic mapping is intrinsically linked to social and political history, what seem like simple changes to the borders of a field system or the establishment of a new settlement often represent huge societal changes.

Looking at place names also offers insight into the history of an area. Place names ending in “..chester”, or “..caster” often refer to Roman period occupation. Most people live near somewhere with the suffix “..ham”, which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name for a farm or settlement. The “..thorpe” or “..by” suffix in a place name derives from the Old Norse “þorp” and “bȳ”, both meaning a small village or farmstead. A derivation alone isn’t enough to confirm settlement for a particular period, but it’s a good start. You’ll find lots of names like Kiln Street, Butchers Row, Mill Row, or Gallows Lane, which suggest how a particular street may have once been used. The history of Britain is quite literally written in its place names, although in typical fashion it isn’t usually written in modern English and requires some degree of translation.

HER data is a log of every important aspect of the historic environment. Artefacts, the location of settlement cores, listed buildings and anything else historic or archaeological are included and the data arrives spread across any number of PDF files and GIS shapefiles. First it needs sorting, then it gets categorised by period in a spreadsheet and imported into a GIS to get an idea of how it looks spatially. A strong concentration of Roman finds taking on a roughly straight distribution might indicate a ladder settlement belonging to a lost road, whilst medieval and post-medieval settlement cores often remain unchanged even into the modern period. The same goes for little villages centred around medieval churches. For the prehistoric period you can often see clusters of activity in particularly fertile areas, or along waterways.

I have more than a passing interest in landscape archaeology partly due to the ephemeral nature of early finds and the lack of maps for certain periods. The prevalence of barrows, trackways, and enclosures paints a reasonable picture of how the landscape was used. You can level a building, but it’s far harder to completely obliterate its place in landscape. My favourite thing by far about working in the team is the closeness to the historic environment; I can take a privileged look into the minutiae of someone else’s life, and the work goes a long way to arguing the point that the historic environment is something that needs protecting and preserving. Archaeology is more than just “stuff” and history is more than just “things”.

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.

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!

11 Piper’s Piping

Why we may not have musical pipes, or the esteemed piper’s giving a rendition of whichever Christmas carol might be your favourite…the Archive team have managed to find a type which appears frequently on archaeological sites, the clay pipe.

A clay pipe from our archives

Tobacco arrived in Britain following the 16th century European expeditions to the Americas that witnessed the ritualistic use amongst the native tribes of the continent, and soon became a mainstay within the British lifestyle. Despite being initially disapproved and persecuted against by religious leaders, and even King James I, discontent amongst the people saw that it would be imported with a levy applied.

Although initially only affordable for the rich, the habit of tobacco smoking spread quickly across the country and by the late 17th century almost every town and city had a clay pipe makers. The size of the bowl and length of stem were all altered over time in keeping with the fashion, to allow for more tobacco or a cooler smoke. This often saw long-stemmed pipes thrown away on the spot after use as they broke so easily!

At the beginning of the 18th century the clay pipe industry declined dramatically due to the conflict between Europe and America, but became popular again in the 19th century, with intricate and artistic pipe designs commonplace.

In the modern (cigarette-loving) setting, pipe smoking is considered a novelty for those nostalgic fellows amongst us.

Feature image recreated from Xavier Romero-Frias https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:XRF_12days.jpg under CC license

Four Calling Birds

Four Calling Birds is a slightly complicated find to track down. While Calling Birds could be a type of Songbird in the case of the song it is also thought to be a variation on the original of Colly bird; a blackbird. Unfortunately we have neither of these in the archive, and there are a lot of birds in this song….

Instead we have decided to stick with the idea of calling bird and have selected this little bell.

A small bell

Feature image recreated from Xavier Romero-Frias https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:XRF_12days.jpg under CC license