Category Archives: Project Archaeologists

But what does it mean!?

Nicky Grayson, Project Archaeologist

We’ve just finished work on a site in Cambridgeshire and excavating a ring ditch here was probably one of the highlights of my time on the job.

It is really satisfying to work on something concrete; a feature about which you can say “yes, someone was here and dug this and now I’m here at the other end repeating the process” simple pleasures eh? Even if there are no finds just the idea that I am standing in the same spot working on the same thing that someone else was a few thousand years ago is enough to make the daily grind exciting and meaningful…most of the time.

While digging I bandied around a few ideas for the feature’s interpretation.

Could it be a round house? It does have four stake-holes in the middle which could potentially form part of a circle for an internal structure, the others might simply have disappeared on the bottom of peoples shoes as we did have a particularly wet week. No hearth or other domestic features were found within the ring ditch and the ditch was 1.2 meters across in places which is a little excessive for a drip gully – so are we dealing with the foundations of a wall? If so, why no postholes in the bottom of the ditch, and why weren’t any finds such as daub (used in the construction of wattle and daub walls) found in the fills?

It could be an enclosure ditch for animals? A fairly small enclosure ditch dug for purpose? It is 15m in diameter, the land in Cambridgeshire is flat, and I think it would be fair to assume that the site shouldn’t be truncated too badly from ploughing, meaning the ditch won’t be too different in size now as it was then. The stake-holes could be a small wind break or shelter for the inhabitants.

The fill of the ditch was very dark and organic which could be the product of rotted wooden remains and settlement waste accumulated following the disuse of the feature. However, the ditch was also recut at one point indicating at least two phases of activity. I did also find what looks like a buckle or clothing attachment, this was in the uppermost fill of the ditch and with the wet weather was revealed, as it happens with my shoe.

Another thing I both love and hate about archaeology in almost equal measure is that we will never have the full story. Ever. From the way we have excavated it to how I was feeling on the day (looking back I was feeling a little soggy) to our social projections of the present on the past. Although there’s so much we can now tell from scientific analysis we have to accept that something will always remain an enigma.

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”.

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

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.

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.

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: December

December’s Find of the month has been written by Alice and was selected from some finds which have just returned from the pottery specialist (Ian Rowlandson).

Newport is a suburb of Lincoln known for a 3rd century gateway to the colonia but lesser known is a 2nd century pottery production site our team excavated in 2013 and 2015. Whilst the kilns were not within the excavation area we found large quantities of pottery and Fragments of kiln furniture. This specific production site was unknown before the excavation so it is quite a significant find.

I’ve decided to focus on a specific type of pottery produced at Newport known as mortaria. It was initially imported from the continent and copied in Britain from around the time of the Roman conquest. It’s a type of cookware that had multiple functions, they acted as a large mixing bowl and a mortar and pestle, sometimes they were used so frequently the abrasive grits were worn away and a hole appeared in the base of the pot.

Potters stamps on ceramics from Newport

It is a complicated task to identify the source of this pottery but it can be made slightly easier when the potter stamped his name into the rim. The picture below shows four examples from this site all produced in Lincolnshire

1. IILIVS – this is possibly a product of Dragonby, North Lincolnshire. Products from these kilns are quite unusual as the clay fires orange/red instead of the usual cream.
2. ATO or OTA retrograde (backwards) – there is a possibility this was made at our site as other examples of this stamp have been found in Newport. They are dated 140-165AD
3. CRICO – A more widespread potter whose wares have been found in Brough-upon-Humber and across Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. They are also dated 140-165AD
4. SENICO – This potter was based at the kilns in Newport but also produced wares in South Carlton. Some examples have a worn die which leaves slightly blurred impressions and some have the C and O missing possibly because the stamp was trimmed after it wore down too far.

It must have taken a huge amount of skill to produce these pots and stamps. They show that the potters were capable of carving in reverse and relief. I have attempted to do this using modelling clay and had to write my name in marker on paper and turn it over to ensure the letters were correct when the stamp was used. Maybe future development within Newport will allow us to find the kiln structures and we can always hope that a whole stamped mortaria will be preserved within.

Hearlty K, 2016, Roman pottery in appendix 1.In Archaeological scheme of works: Land off Newport, Lincoln. (Report Number AAL 2015098). P23-56

From Volunteer to Project Archaeologist

My passion for history started with palaeontology. The very idea of uncovering the history of life before us, of being the one to help piece together the story of life in the UK, was always something that appealed to me greatly.

This then evolved into a healthy interest in general history, and I enjoyed history in school immensely because it allowed me to further understand just how we have gotten to where we are, how technology and culture has changed our lives and the way that our understanding of history has progressed from how it was before. Things are always changing—and Archaeology hopes to piece that together to form a comprehensive understanding; from how things were before, as opposed to now.

On site during my traineeship

My first venture into archaeology, however, was a week of Work Experience during my first year of 6th Form. I was lost, I had no idea what I wanted to do, I wasn’t allowed to go back to where I’d done my GCSE level Work Experience, and I raised my concerns with the School’s careers advisor. Allen Archaeology was, at that time, based in Branston and close to me, so it made sense for me to apply. So, for my work experience I was at Lindum Hill getting in people’s way and marvelling at how these people were, as a career, uncovering the history of the local area and piecing together the story of Lincoln—and I think after that week, there was no questioning what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be an Archaeologist.

I started with volunteering, in 6th Form I had Fridays with no lessons, and during that time I was in the office—cleaning the finds and getting to know the people there. It was an isolated job, while everyone else was finding fantastic things on site for me to later clean, it gave me an understanding of Archaeology and increased my knowledge of what was what— I started with almost no experience so I was unable to identify anything unless it was obvious. However, I caught on fairly quickly. CBM generally looks like this, Pottery looks like this, That’s not Archaeology… that’s a fossil.

I volunteered until I finished school, and I applied for a Traineeship which was swiftly answered with a ‘Yes’. Thinking back, I wonder if there was a reason I was thrown into work at the Transport Hub for my first official site; I thought I knew what I would be doing because I had been on sites beforehand and had done research on what to expect when asked to dig, record and draw what we were excavating… but everything was thrown out of the window with Single Context recording. It wasn’t like anything I’d done before, and I was once again getting in the way of those who actually did know what they were doing… it felt very familiar.

But the staff of Allen Archaeology are nothing if not patient, and have given me a comprehensive understanding of what Commercial Archaeology is like and I think I can safely say that I’m not just getting in peoples’ way anymore, i’m actively working on site.

Now, months later and beginning a new year with a job that I love as a Project Archaeologist, I know that I’ll have a bright future focusing on the past. Hopefully, I can continue my development and use the skills I have garnered over my traineeship and time volunteering to combine my passion for the past and personal interest in art.

Surveying with Fee (i’m in the undergrowth off to the right!)

12 drummers drumming

I have been given the song line twelve Drummers, drumming or as I prefer to call them, twelve Membranophonists membranophoning. I was given the task of finding something from our finds department that related to drums and drumming; not an easy task I add. I had to ask the wonderful Yvonne for help, to no avail (when I hadn’t given her any guidance other than drum please!).

I however managed to rouse myself from the torpor of defeat, I rallied and armed with a mug of tea I embarked upon something that I have often considered to be my last resort; I turned to research.

It turns out, according to the History of Drums and Drum making, (No good research should go uncredited, and this research was an epic four minutes) That drums in prehistory were made of fish or lizard skin stretched over logs or pits in the ground, later domesticated animal skins were used with the first Frame Drum appearing in the Middle East some five thousand years ago,
The use of the drum in Britain was introduced by the Romans and largely fell out of use again when they left.

Drums were once again re introduced into the country when the Crusaders brought them back from the Middle East and they have been here ever since.

So armed with this information, I would dearly like to show you a picture of some lizard bone, but I refuse to ask for help twice in a day, so here is a picture of a piece of long dead fish.

A slightly unrelated fish….

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