We hope everyone has a wonderful break and keep an eye out for our 12 days of finds from the archive published everyday of the festive period!
Keep your eyes peeled for our 12 Days of Chirstmas
Category Archives: Project Supervisors
As archaeologists, our job is to study the past through the analysis of material culture. But how far into the past does something have to be to warrant the attention of archaeology? Occasionally in the course of our work it is possible to encounter the view that whilst the significance of remains of the distant past is appreciated, the more recent the period being dealt with, the more people become baffled the remains are considered to merit study. This attitude is of course understandable – prehistoric, Roman and medieval sites have little or no documentary evidence relating to them, they do not appear on maps or photographs and very often their very existence is unknown until they are revealed by archaeologists. It is easy to assume that, for more recent sites, the historical record “tells us all we need to know”.
However, it must be remembered that in the future even the present will be really, really old. With our unprecedented appreciation of the value of heritage, I think that we must seize the opportunity to make sure that we have as full a record as possible of significant archaeological remains of more recent times, especially given that in some areas such sites are disappearing at an alarming rate.
In this post, then, I’ll (Al) give a couple of examples where I think that the archaeological study of more recent sites has proven its worth. I know not everyone will be convinced….
Figure 1: Women working in engineering, Manchester, 1916
It seems possible that the new toilets became a necessity at that time due to the replacement of the traditionally male workforce with women, as more and more men were conscripted into the armed forces. The work done by women during the First World War is often presented as a factor in the softening of the attitude of the powers that be to the idea of granting women suffrage, although the long struggle that it took to achieve this should not be dismissed. Although the interpretation is not certain, to me it provides an example of how archaeological and documentary evidence can be combined to add to understanding of the social history of not only the specific site, but the region and nation as a whole.
From another metalworking site on Tyneside, that of Spencer’s Steelworks in Newburn, there is further example of how archaeology can add to our understanding of the development of the site. Documentary records tell us that the works, which was founded in the early 19th century, expanded in the 1870s as new plant for bulk steel production was installed. Records have not survived, however, detailing the construction methods and materials used in this fairly late expansion. Archaeology revealed remains of some of the first commercially viable Siemen’s regenerative steel furnaces in England. Interestingly, it also revealed that the construction of the furnaces had necessitated the import of refractory bricks from Glenboig, near Glasgow.
Figure 2: Example of a Glenboig firebrick, because there had to be a brick…………
At this time the north east coalfield had many firebrick works, producing products which were nationally renowned, along with those from around Stourbridge. Indeed, many firebricks from West Durham brickworks were used at Spencer’s – unsurprisingly, as the freight charges would have been minimal. So, what the archaeology suggested was that, despite their excellent reputation, local refractory bricks were still not suitable for lining Siemens furnaces. The Glenboig brickworks, close to Coatbridge where Siemens plant had been built in the late 1860s, seem to have developed bricks especially for this task, and historical evidence shows that they made it a selling point. So the investigation of a site in Newburn informs us not only about industry there, but also about related industry in Scotland.
Although there’s only space to provide a couple of examples, I hope that I have manage to express why I believe that it is important to treat archaeology of more recent times as a significant and diminishing resource. The work AAL does continues to build our understanding of the post-medieval and modern eras, with recent work on the Crown Brewery and maltings in Lincoln, communal air-raid shelters from the Second World War in Sunderland, and this…
Figure 3: A lovely example of a Royal Observer Corps monitoring post dating from the Cold War period.
Image sources:
Figure 1: American Machinist, vol 44, issue 25, page 1060 via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WW1_Churchills_Pendleton_women_at_work_1916.png
Figure 2: Image reproduced with Creative Commons License from https://www.flickr.com/photos/nottsexminer/6824143320
Figure 3: AAL’s archive
Archives Supervisor Yvonne Rose
What is your job role?
Project Supervisor (Archives)
How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?
Nearly 5 months
How would describe your excavation technique?
A distant memory!
How long have you been working in archaeology?
24 years
How did you get into archaeology?
Quite by accident! I’d been working as a wood machinist for a few years, and when I lost that job my partner (fellow archaeologist)’s boss took pity on me and took me on as a site assistant for a month. I obviously impressed them so much they kept me on for over 20 years!
What is the best thing about your job?
Getting to deal with all the artefacts, the variety of tasks, and working with a great bunch of people.
Specialist skills?
Archiving (of course!), getting lost, knitting.
Best site hut biscuit?
The dear departed McVities Jaspers (R.I.P.)
At the beginning of the week the heritage team (Chris, Catriona and myself) met with the landscape architects at Influence®. We were interested in discussing the similarities and differences between their landscape and visual impact assessments and our own approaches to studying the impact on the setting and significance of heritage assets (discussed in this blog).
Landscape and visual impact assessment is often required as part of a planning application and helps to assess the effects of future development on the landscape. A report will help to inform design, in order to reduce and offset some of the adverse effects of development on the surrounding area. It will consider the existing character of the place, and potential changes to the available views. A study of the landscape can be applied to all urban and peri-urban landscapes, towns, villages and rural areas, coast and islands area; and the views can encompass a wide range of features including National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Nature Reserves, Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments, etc. Of course there is large overlap in the subject matter, although the principle difference between the approaches in that landscape and visual impact assessments attempt to establish and protect the landscape and views as experienced by current individuals. Our research seeks principally to outline the impact of development on understanding the past context of heritage assets and negate factors that might detract from how we comprehend the past, in essence to assess the likelihood for encountering subsurface archaeology and how developments will affect standing heritage assets.
Getting a chance to discuss the similarities and differences between our approaches helped us to appreciate the complexities of each other’s disciplines. We ended up being able to reflect on our own practices and in the future will be incorporating features from their approach to landscape and visual impact assessment into our own study of the impact future development of the setting and significance of heritage assets. It was a great opportunity and are very grateful to the staff at Influence in Newark for hosting us.
In Spring 2016 we were subcontracted by University of York to convert a visual model of the pre-1834 House of Commons, St. Stephen’s Chapel Westminster to an acoustic model. The work was commissioned as part of the Virtual St Stephen’s Project, an AHRC-funded research project and was a collaboration between the departments of History (Dr John Cooper), and Electronics (Dr Damian Murphy).
One of the major elements of the project was the creation of a three dimensional computer model detailing St. Stephen’s chapel at various points in its lifetime. The three dimensional model was then used on a touch screen device to allow visitors to interact with the reconstruction. Creating these models not only provides a great opportunity for public engagement it also allows evidence from a range of sources to be brought together and used to create an interpretation of a lost space.
The Virtual St Stephen’s Interactive model
However, as beautiful and engaging as these models are they do not consider the soundscape of the space. In recent years archaeologists have started to explore the opportunities for applying acoustic technology. Catriona came to AAL following the completion of her PhD looking at this technique.
For the Virtual St Stephen’s project we started with the three dimensional mode produced by Dr. Anthony Masinton and simplified it to use as an acoustic model. Acoustic technology is not as sophisticated as the technology to produce visualisations; the models have to be less complex. They also use the same information in slightly different ways. Both models require the size and shape of a space to be accurate, however; where a visualisation needs information about how surfaces are coloured and textured, an acoustic model needs to understand how sound will reflect, or be absorbed by different materials.
The acoustic model of St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster
The resulting model can provide a series of numerical values which tell us about the space; how sound decays from various positions in the room, how clearly sounds can be heard. We can also create auralizations; acoustic reconstructions. Under the right conditions they allow a listener to experience sound from the modelled space. We hope to use these models to explore the experience of listening to speeches in the pre-1834 House of Commons.
The project featured on The Lost Chapel of Westminster on BBC Parliament on Sunday and is still available on iPlayer.
The initial stages of archaeological work can often be complex and differs greatly between sites depending on the individual peculiarities of the project. Often the first stage of work falls to the Heritage Research Department at AAL, consisting of Josh, Catriona and Jesse, and the writing of Desk-Based Assessments (DBAs).
Aerial photograph showing cropmakrs comprising circular enclosures
The starting point for a report is usually the local Historic Environment Record (HER); previously known as Sites and Monuments Records (SMRs). They are databases of information relating to the historic environment and contain information about archaeological works, buildings, landscapes, finds and a whole range of other things associated with the human past. You can access a lot of the information from Heritage Gateway if you are undertaking personal research.
The results of a HER search will tell us what known archaeological and heritage assets are located within defined area. However, this record is not everything. A report can also include sifting through the local archives for historical documents; indicating land use of the site over time, or investigating cropmarks shown on aerial photographs, and analysing maps of the past for evidence of shrunken villages. Some sites require a closer understanding of the underlying geology to predict whether prehistoric activity is likely, and others need to check whether 20th century buildings are likely to have truncated the archaeological resource.
Ridge and Furrow spotted on a site visit
A DBA is often undertaken at the pre-planning stage in order to highlight the potential for archaeological remains in advance of construction taking place. This allows the developer to prevent damage to the archaeological resource and the associated costs of excavation by changing the specifics of the development. For instance, the developer might choose to leave open spaces for recreation on houses estates over areas of known archaeological interest in order to avoid disturbing underlying remains. You never know, your local park might be on the ground of a Roman villa or a medieval castle! In addition, DBAs allow the local planning authorities to make decisions about whether or not excavation is required for planning permission, in cases where it is not practical to change the nature of the development. That’s when archaeologists get their hands dirty!
Preparing DBAs can be really rewarding projects for people who want to expand their knowledge of British Archaeology. You have to know a little bit about everything, and know where to start looking for more information and when to spend more time exploring something.
With the impending arrival of International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2016, and as one of the few people at AAL with an interest in anything as “modern” as the Golden Age of Piracy (c.1650-1730), I have been asked to write a short post about Pirate Archaeology.
AAL staff get piratical
Of course, everyone knows what pirates, and pirate ships look like-eyepatch, wooden leg, parrot, Jolly Roger, overflowing treasure chests, right? See, for example, the photos of Allen Archaeology pirates, above.
Unfortunately (at the risk of disappointing pirate fans) these stereotypes have entered the collective consciousness largely through fictionalised accounts, ranging from Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean, dating to long after the Golden Age.
Of course, there’s no reason why some of the traits associated with pirates might not have been, to some extent, accurate. For instance, pirates may well have lost eyes, or limbs, in the course of their careers. But the same would be true of sailors serving on naval men-of-war, or on armed merchantmen. Similarly, the slang, songs and manner of dress used by pirates may have marked them as sailors, but not as buccaneers (advertising your criminal behaviour has never been considered a smart move, especially when capital punishment is involved). So, the big question is how, if at all, is it possible to identify the historical practice of piracy, archaeologically, either on land or at sea?
The Whydah bell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whydah_Gally)
In very simple terms, the best way of identifying a type of archaeological site is to compare it with known examples of that type. Unfortunately for the archaeology of piracy, there is only one absolutely, categorically proven example of a ‘pirate site’, the wreck of the Whydah. The confidence in its attribution is possible because it was historically documented as being a pirate ship when it sank in a storm off Cape Cod, and because the ship’s bell, inscribed THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716 was recovered during an archaeological investigation of the wreck in 1985. There are other shipwreck sites for which there is less concrete evidence, for instance the suspected Queen Anne’s Revenge (Shipwreck Site 0003BU), believed to be the former naval frigate used by Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach as his flagship. More tenuously, what may be the wreck of Henry Morgan’s ship Satisfaction, lies at Lajas Reef off Panama.
Captain Kidd. Note lack of eyepatch, tricorn hat, parrot, etc…
The last example is helpful in illustrating the scale of the problem. Not only is the identification of the wreck uncertain, but if it is Morgan’s ship, another question arises: what is the difference between a pirate and a privateer? A privateer was a state sanctioned pirate, with a ‘letter of marque and reprisal’ from their government, giving a licence to attack the commerce of enemy powers, so long as the authorities got their share! Many famous “pirates” began their careers as privateers and, in at least one case, insisted that they always were. Captain William Kidd (incidentally the ONLY “pirate” for whom we there is evidence that they buried treasure) was hanged for piracy in 1701, largely for his capture of the Armenian vessel Quedagh Merchant, which was sailing under French passes, and was thus viewed by Kidd as a legitimate prize. Unfortunately for Kidd, her captain was English and this did little to aid his defence. Kidd had already been accused of turning to piracy on his current voyage. In fact, his crew, who only made money if they captured ships, had been on the verge of doing just that, and deserted Kidd to join the pirate Robert Culliford shortly after the Quedagh Merchant was taken.
All of this shows how fine the line could be between a crew of pirates and a crew of privateers. Added to this, the vessels they sailed would be virtually identical, and one could easily become the other. As Lawrence Babits observes, “an armed merchantman or a privateer would have many of the same attributes of pirate vessels” (Babits 1998), partly because they were designed for exactly the same type of conflict. And armed merchantmen were not uncommon – the English Armada of 1589 (strangely not as celebrated in the UK as the Spanish Armada of the previous year, perhaps because the expedition was an unmitigated disaster) had 10 armed merchantmen for every ship of the line.
The answer to the question of whether and how archaeologists can identify pirates then is that without good luck, backed up by historical documentation, it’s not really possible, but the discipline of the archaeology of piracy is in its infancy, and so many people are working on it. These people include Russell K. Skowronek and Charles Robin Ewen, who have co-edited two books, X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy and Pieces of Eight: More Archaeology of Piracy about the subject. Although the first book admits that ‘any suggested pirate ship or pirate artefact model includes precisely those items that an armed merchantman would have’. These books represent the beginnings of the search for an answer to this problem, and are recommended to anyone who wants to know more about pirate arrrrrrrrrrrchaeology!
Babits, Lawrence E. I Just Know it’s a Pirate: Popular Imagery, Contemporary Details and Actual Fact in Underwater Archaeology 1998 (Lawrence E. Babits, Catherine Fach, Ryan Harris Editors)
It’s been a busy month at AAL with people off working all over the place. However, find of the month comes from a site worked on in 2015 and came to Cat and Yvonne’s attention while they were packing it up for sending to the museum.
I was working on a site in the center of Lincoln; near the river. It was a bright but cold day in February and half of our trench was partially filled with water. To avoid missing anything significant I was metal detecting the base of a partially excavated trench; as we knew we wouldn’t be able to excavate any further under these conditions.
The metal detector went BEEEEEEEEEEEEP; this was a full signal, implying that it was a strong signal; usually associated with a metal alloy. I used a little ruff neck spade to excavate the hole, and because of the water had to scoop out handfuls of sand; running them under the detector. The metal detector went off and I realised I was holding something round and metallic; a lead token.
One side of the token
The other side of the token
I gave it a further rinse, and recognised immediately what it was. I’ve found quite a few of these in the past, but this one was a bit more special; it is very good condition with markings on both sides. Tokens like this were used between the 16th and early 19th century. This one has likely been cast in a mold, rather than clipped. The specialist (Mike) believes it
might be a Powell Type 3 which would be of 18th century date (Powell 2012).
It was probably either a gaming piece, or it was token used instead of currency when money was scarce.
It’s a nice find because it indicates the use of the area during that period, further it was recovered from a medieval context suggesting that it was intrusive. The preservation of the piece and having markings both side makes it particularly special; and one of my favorites!
Powell, D. 2012 ‘The 18th century Sophistication of the Stock Design‘ Lead Token Telegraph Issue 86.
Heritage Open Days is a festival in England over four days in September. During these four days thousands of events across the country allow you to explore the history and culture sitting at your feet. Heritage Lincolnshire has co-ordinated Heritage Open Days in Lincolnshire since 1994 they provide free access to lots of interesting properties, tours, events and activities across the county. This weeks blog is a pick of the ones our staff plan to take advantage of!
Chris (Clay) and Al both plan to visit the Old Tile Works at Barton upon Humber. Chris because he led a community project to survey the site in 2010 before it was restored, and Al because he loves all things industrial!
Jesse is going to see Earth as a Natural Building Material, as it would be intriguing to see how buildings made of materials that rarely survive in the archaeological record are constructed, and to give you a bit of ‘real-life’ experience within that historical setting!
Josh would like to visit the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, as it has numerous objects, artefacts, and trinkets, from people’s everyday life in Lincolnshire from 1750 to the present day. It will be interesting to see how life has changed over the last few centuries and how different things would have been for all of us not that long ago.
Rachel hoping to go on the guided walk along the Ice Age route of the River Trent, between Lincoln and Newark. We would like to experience this lost river route as she’s really interested in how the landscape has changed over time; as an archaeologist she tends to concentrate on how people have affected the landscape, but this walk will help her to understand the natural phenomenon that has shaped the area she now call home.
Cat is keen to get to Gainsborough Old Hall as she loves a medieval interior.
Fee is a glutton for punishment and is going to visit All Saints’ Church in Winterton and St Peter’s Church in Barton Upon Humber following a watching brief at Winterton. (Cat might sneak along as well as she loves a medieval church!)
Nasha also has her eyes on a church; St Peter at Gowts Church in Lincoln, as the stories surrounding the building sound fascinating.
Rob is also following up on a job and is planning on visiting Belton House. He ran a geophysics project their recently and is hoping to return to have a look inside the building!
Jedlee and Duncan are interested in visiting Lincoln’s Oldest Church of St Mary le Wigford to see the Saxon Tower.
Ryan is planning on going to Gibraltar Point as the walk is nice and there is lots to see and do.
Dominika plans to visit the RAF Binbrook Heritage Centre.
Alice is going to try and get to the talk on the Submerged Forest at Cleethorpes’ as she was part of the team tracing the track erosion.
Debbie has an interest in stained glass and has always wanted to have a go so she’s going to check out the Heritage Craft Demonstrations at Strawberry Glass.