Category Archives: Project Archaeologists

Calke Abbey Live Archaeology 2016

Over the last weekend a few members of the Allen Archaeology Team (including the eponymous Mr. Allen himself) volunteered their services to excavate at the nearby National Trust Property of Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, as part of Calke Abbey Live Archaeology weekend 2016. The dig was organised by the National Trust and headed up by their archaeologist, Rachael Hall (check her out on Twitter she’s great!), along with a host of eager volunteers from the property and from the Calke Abbey Family Archaeologist group.

Saturday began with “the professionals” setting out and de-turfing the areas for investigation, Trench 1 which was located to the front of the house in the lawn, and Trench 2 which was located to the northeast of the house and was targeted on some fragments of masonry that had been revealed during earlier groundworks in the area. It became obvious fairly quickly that it was not going to be easy digging in Trench 1; but Trench 2 looked promising, with more fragments of brick already popping up and a small gaggle of Young Archaeologists (and Big archaeologists!) excited to see what was going to happen.

The sun was shining and there was archaeology to uncover!

A slow start in Trench 1; There was no escaping the sunshine and the ground was so concreted that even the most enthusiastic and energetic volunteers were struggling to break ground!

It became clear almost immediately that Trench 2 contained some interesting archaeological remains, and very quickly the fragments of bricks that had prompted our investigations turned into a wall with a very awkward angle.

Promising beginnings in Trench 2!

By the end of the first day the trench was beginning to take shape, with hints of a possible octagonal building beginning to emerge, although quite what it was that we were revealing was still a bit of a mystery and everyone seemed to have different ideas as to what this structure was. We had suggestions ranging from a folly to a possible gravity fed water tank for the ornamental fountains in the garden below and even suggestions of aliens! But it was safe to say that all of the volunteers left site excited to see what tomorrow would bring.

The volunteers busily exposing the building on day 2.

The second day began in a similar way to the first, the sun was shining, Trench 1 had been abandoned due to unforgiving digging conditions (apparently there was still another meter to dig through before they reached the archaeology!) and all our efforts were concentrated on the exciting remains which were appearing in Trench 2.

By the end of the day the foundations of most of a large octagonal building had emerged (the full extent of it was of course hidden underneath our spoil heap!) and the Young archaeologists had revealed not only an outer wall, which appeared to be the remains of a garden wall with fancy stone plinths, but also the remains of a slightly more substantial inner wall which looked suspiciously like the foundations for a building.

Armed with this new information and looking specifically for an octagonal structure in the area to the northeast of the house, a quick scan of early Ordnance Survey (OS) maps of the area (check out www.old-maps.co.uk) revealed an indication of this building, as well as the extent of pathways leading up to and around the structure. One of the volunteers, Colin, also managed to locate a sketch from the 1840’s showing a summer house!

The top of the wall and a possible plinth.

After two days hard work, and a lot of exciting revelations the site has been put to bed again. But never fear, and Calke Abbey Live will be returning and planning has already begun for next year’s investigations.

Left-handedness in the archaeological world

Being left-handed in everyday life can sometimes seem a bit of a chore. While in archaeology, where trowel wear and tear is almost as important as whether there’s enough milk at break for everyone’s tea; it can be infuriating. At this company I know of at least 4 left-handed individuals or southpaws as we are known in the USA. We are the rebels not conforming to the right-handed world view (or so I like to think).

The red-handled trowel is a righty and the wooden-handled trowel is ambidextrous

While being left-handed can be a lovely way to show your individuality (we account for only 10% of the population don’t you know) it can also be a sure fire way to make you feel like an utter failure as a human being. Case and point: tin openers and scissors. Specifically in archaeology being left-handed only affects you when you want to write anything in a notebook as all the best ones are ring-binders (a conspiracy I’m sure). The only way that I can describe this to non-lefties is like trying to write when the tip of your pen is a positive magnet and the paper is also positive. No matter how hard you push that pen it will walk on air for some time before it writes on the paper. Forcing your hand into a strange contortion that makes your already stereotypically bad hand-writing even more illegible.

You may be thinking that we do not HAVE to be buying ring-binder notebooks. This is absolutely correct, however, it solves nothing as all site folders (these contain all the recording paperwork) are ALL ring-binders. As a result I dread that moment when the context list reaches those monstrous metal rings.

As mentioned in the beginning of the blog trowel wear can prove your prowess as an archaeologist on site. Wearing down that first trowel to a pinpoint of useless metal in some circles is a rite of passage. As the trowel wears usually on the side opposite to the handedness of the individual, forgetting your trowel can be a test in patience and tidy trowelling. Thankfully most archaeologists I know are reasonably ambidextrous with their trowels. These are the days that we can masquerade as the 90%.

But don’t despair as left-handers we are considered the more creative of the bunch and have the advantage in any bat/racket-based sports. Being left-handed may have given Neanderthals and humans throughout prehistory an advantage in hand to hand combat. A study looking at tooth marks in Neanderthals conducted by the University of Kansas in 2012 indicate that the majority may have also been right handed, with a small percentage also showing signs of left-handedness (Lozano et al. 2012). We also apparently thrive in violent societies (Faurie et al. 2005). Before the advent of high-powered long range weapons, left-handers had the advantage of the element of surprise in hand to hand combat as most opponents would not be used to facing a left-handed opponent

Another advantage in being left handed is a better ability to multitask and we have a better visual-brain than a language-brain. Making us ideal for drawing (although I wouldn’t check my artefact drawings). It also appears that we are a constant in human history, left-handers will be around for as long as there are right-handers. So please don’t by the right-handed scissors when you know you might have to share, and no more ring binder if you can avoid it. On this final note a Happy International Left Handed Day! I hope this has helped those that do not know us of the 10% understand why being left-handed is rather wonderful (most of the time).

Frayer, D.W, Lozano, M, Bermúdez de Castro, J. M, Carbonell, E. Arsuaga, J. L, Radovčić, J, Fiore, I. & Bondioli, L. 2012. More than 500,000 years of right-handedness in Europeans. Laterality Vol 17 (1) 51-69
Faurie, C. & Raymond, M. 2005. Handedness, homicide and negative frequency-dependant selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society Vol 272 (1558)

Find of the month: July

This post is the first of a new series of blogs detailing an exciting find that the Archives department have uncovered over the course of each month.

A Roman hygiene implement found during excavations in Navenby

The first artefact to feature is a copper alloy Roman nail-cleaner found on a community archaeological excavation in 2013. The archive team chose this artefact as it will be leaving Allen Archaeology to be archived at The Collection Museum in Lincoln. This is the final part of the community excavation undertaken in Navenby (which is 13km south of central Lincoln). The excavation was set up and excavated with the help of Volunteers from The Navenby Archaeological Group to investigate an area of the Roman town of Navenby. The artefact was found during these investigations.

The artefact (which can be seen in the picture below) is a Roman hygiene implement, specifically a nail cleaner. This is a toiletry set, in this case sitting on a metal ring; similar to a modern day key ring, with a square sectioned, well preserved decorated shaft and bifurcated terminal. This is a significant find due to the preservation of the decorations on the rectangular shaft and the bifurcated end. Similar nail-cleaners have been found in Colchester (Crummy 1983) but not including decorations extending down the length of the object, the decorations are usually limited to the upper portion of the object.

This nail cleaner would have been in use in Roman Navenby in the 3rd Century occupation of the town. For another example click here. Finds like these give us a personal insight into the everyday lives of the people of Roman Britain and are wonderful to find in such good condition.

Crummy, N, 1983, Colchester Archaeological Report 2: The Roman small finds from excavations in Colchester 1971-9 Colchester Archaeological Trust Ltd

Excavating cremations

Warning: Images of human remains feature in this post

Several of Allen Archaeology’s recent site excavations have revealed a particularly interesting aspect of ancient mortuary practice: human cremation burial urns.

Some of the pots we have retrieved date from the Bronze Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods, and are known to have been used as early as the Mesolithic in Britain (c.5500 BC), although this method began to fall out of favour following the widespread adoption of Christianity in Western Europe.

Early Anglo-Saxon (5th–6th Century AD) stamped cremation urn found near Fakenham, Norfolk

Unlike modern cremations practices that produce ‘ash’, archaeological cremation burials consist of pieces of bone of varying size, often being quite large and identifiable. The reason for this difference is down to the processing method. Whilst modern crematoriums use industrial furnaces (that burn at temperatures of 870-980 °C) and a machine to pulverize the dry bone fragments into a fine powder, cremations in the past would have been performed much differently. The deceased would have been placed on a wooden pyre and required constant attention to keep the fire burning, particularly when the weather would not cooperate (surely not?!). The result is a lot of small chunks of cracked and discoloured bone which are then placed (in part or altogether) into a pre-made urn, and buried.

Due to the fragility of the urns and their importance as a burial, they are carefully removed on site and sent back to the office to be excavated – this happens exactly the same way as on site, but at a much smaller scale! The contents of the urn are removed in levels or ‘spits’, and records including photographs and drawings are taken before and after the removal of each cross-section and full layer. Due to having to work in a pot with a diameter of roughly 13cm compared to a pit or ditch of 1 to 2m, a completely different set of tools is needed. Lay down the shovel and trowel, and pick up your clay art tools and tweezers! Once the bone is removed it is passed through several sieves (10mm, 5mm & 2mm), with the remains of varying sizes weighed rather than counted. These are then bagged according to their size, with any recognisable elements bagged separately.

Excavating a cremation burial

So now the bones have been excavated, what can we tell from them? More than you think. The colouring of the remains, the amount the bones have warped from their original shape and their completeness can reveal information about the temperature of the fire, if there were any problems during burning (such as weather or incomplete incineration), how the body might have been placed on the pyre and whether the body was clothed or burned as dry bone. Duplicate elements of bone will also alert you as to whether more than one individual is present within the urn, as can the cumulative weight of the fragments.

Also, other remains such as macrobotanical or charcoal fragments can aid in the interpretation of the pyre construction, whilst ‘grave goods’ given to the cremated individual might also survive.

Fragments from a Romano-British cremation urn burial found at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire

Jousting

There’s nothing better than a cool drink in a pub on a sunny day off followed by a spot of jousting. Yes, jousting and not watching it but actually doing it! I recently returned to The Knights of Middle England at Warwick to feed my rapidly growing addiction.

Horse riding in its less violent forms has been a huge part of my life since I was a child. My love of horses is part of the reason why I am interested in history with its Mongolian hordes, the Charge of the Light Brigade and medieval Knights with their chivalry and tournaments.

As most people probably know, jousting was a medieval sport where two knights cantered towards each other, aiming to break their lance on certain parts of the body to score points. It was initially a training for warfare, alongside other war games, but towards the mid to late medieval period, it began to become more of a spectacle, a bit like football nowadays but a lot more aggressive!

During the two hour lesson I attempted to master three skills; the rings, tent pegging and the quintain. The aim of the lessons are to get you up to a standard to be able to compete in the bi-annual amateur competitions which feature these skills; as well as jousting at an experienced knight, and of course to have a lot of fun.

The Rings!

We began with the rings; the lance looked like it would barely fit through! I succeeded with the largest rings they had, but they can get a lot smaller. The rings are placed on props above the tilt line rather than on the gallows; like in A Knight’s Tale. It was fairly easy to get one ring, but then I often ended up trying too hard to aim at the second ring rather than keep it level and straight to secure the first ring before getting to the second.

The hardest event: tent pegging

We then moved on to tent pegging, where we are told that the ‘sport’ began during the crusades with target practice on the heads of buried enemies. It has been used as a training exercise since the 4th Century BC in Asia, it was also very popular in India against elephant-mounted troops. This was the event in which I had the least skill, my timing was awful. I would get in position to spear the peg then wait too long, hitting the ground behind the peg! I did manage to get it a few times, which is some consolation.

Hitting the quintain

Then we moved on the final skill and the one that was the most fun – hitting the quintain, a revolving shield with a ball on a string which follows it round on the opposite side. This packs a hell of a punch. On your first run you are mostly concerned with the ball hitting you in the back, but this changes to worrying about the force that travels down the lance as you hit a solid metal object!

The whole event left me on such an adrenaline high, it was fantastic! Although it also left with a nasty three week long bruise on my chest!

I thoroughly enjoyed my brief time as a woman warrior in training (check out this Guardian article about the inclusion of women in English Heritage events) and it has me completely hooked, I’m planning my next lesson as we speak!

A roundup of the week

It’s been a busy week at AAL so this weeks blog is a little round-up of what we’ve been up to.

Warning: Images of human remains feature in this post

You might have already seen the excitement on our site at University of Lincoln. During monitoring works we uncovered human remains dating from the Roman period close to the River Witham.

Tobin has been visiting a site in Cumbria where we have been undertaking a Watching Brief

Rachel working on Damian's site near Peterborough

Damian has had a team out working on an evaluation near Peterborough.

The geophysics team enjoying a break in coastal Lincolnshire

Rob has been out with a team to start a large geophysics project on the Lincolnshire coast where they’ve been contending with a lot of weather but enjoying the location!

Fee’s been working hard in London

Al is dealing with challenging conditions in Brentford

Work is continuing on our “big” project in Market Harborough where the team are undertaking an open area excavation

Bryn has been working hard processing environmental samples

Yvonne has joined the archives team and is getting up to speed as Cova heads off on maternity leave

Nasha has been busy editing reports and dealing with publicity.

Josh has been analysing lithics for a specialist report

A secondment to the Archives

I joined the company as a project archaeologist in June 2015. For the majority of my time here so far I have been out onsite digging, firstly working on the large Roman site at North Killingholme and since then a variety of other sites across the country. Every now and again, I’m posted in the office where I participate in post excavation tasks such as washing and marking finds, which I quite enjoy.

At the end of February there was an advert on the front desk advertising a temporary secondment as an archives assistant; I jumped at the opportunity to apply. I saw it as a good opportunity to learn valuable skills; develop my interest in post-excavation processes further and increase my knowledge of artefacts.

My application was successful and for the best part of March and April I undertook the secondment; temporarily becoming an archives assistant. During this time I had the opportunity to learn a variety of new skills and experience more of the processes that happen in post-ex, alongside getting to handle all the exciting artefacts that come back from site. I helped to package artefacts to be sent to the specialists, sort and catalogue skeletons, write inventories and help organise finds from incoming projects.

My primary role was to assist and prepare a number of site archives to be deposited to their corresponding museums across the country. In this I prepared both the written site archive, so all the registers, drawings, context sheets etc. and boxed the associated site artefacts. The whole process for each site had to adhere to their associated museum guidelines, each of which was different. I assisted with site collections from Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Winchester. Some of the tasks within this were quite repetitive, such as numbering and labelling digital photographs to correspond to the photograph registers or writing accession numbers on all the documents. Nevertheless these repetitive aspects are quite necessary as without it the allotted archive wouldn’t adhere to the correct format and so would be at risk of being rejected by the museums.

I really enjoyed my time in archive department, it was great working with the Archive team and getting to know the ins and outs of what goes on downstairs. It was an enlightening experience, as I have now seen first-hand the full process to which each site and it’s artefacts and documents, takes before it finally it ends up in a museum. From being excavated in the field, then in post ex getting washed, dried, marked, sorted, catalogued, sent to a specialist, reports written, stored then finally boxed up with the related documents and deposited to a museum.

Best site hut biscuit with Catriona

Cat working in the archives at AAL

What is your job role?
Project Archaeology (Archives)

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?
1 year and 7 months

How would describe your excavation technique?
Pick and Mix

How long have you been working in archaeology?
1 year and 7 months

How did you get into archaeology?
Came for a week’s volunteering at Allen, became a trainee and have never looked back.

What is the best thing about your job?
Seeing all the nice shiny finds come back from the conservator.

Excavating a skeleton in October 2014

Specialist skills?
Organising baking competitions at North Killingholme- we’ve had mince pies, biscuits and tarts!

Best site hut biscuit?
I like to jazz it up with a pink wafer 

A secondment to the Geophysics team

Getting the hang of magenetometry

In February 2016 AAL opened internal applications for a Project Archaeologist to undertake a three month secondment with the Geophysics Project Officer, Rob Evershed. The secondment would give someone experience in basic geophysical survey including; undertaking the surveys, setting up surveys (gridding out and the use of GPS), data analysis and interpretations, the post-fieldwork reporting process and preparations of illustrations and preparing the archive.

I applied as I have always enjoyed taking part in geophysics projects; being able to create my own interpretations of the sites as my understanding of them develops, and the physical nature of the role which allows me to loose myself in the task at hand.

Still going

Prior to working with AAL I had experience of working on archaeological geophysics projects at another company. I hoped this role would allow me to develop my skills and put me in a position to specialise in archaeological geophysics.

GIS training with Rob

Rob has been a great (and patient!) tutor allowing me to get involved with all elements of the work. It has been challenging physically (Rob works at a very fast pace, sometimes completing 20-30 grids a day, almost twice as many as normal people), and mentally, as I have very limited experience with writing and producing reports.

Like everyone I have really enjoyed the sunny days on site, but I have also found I like seeing the project through to completion. Being able to put together background research with any topographic clues and finally seeing the processed results is a really engaging task. Equally the sites which provide us with complete surprises are great, as we are the first people to discover them; one site we uncovered evidence for a medieval settlement which had not been picked up in the background research.

I have come away feeling I know a lot more about what happens after the geophysical survey and a lot more confident in my abilities. I hope that following the completion of my secondment I might be able to start running my own, small, projects and processing my own data for producing reports.