Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mental Health Awareness

By Craig Huddart, Senior Project Officer

The taboos surrounding mental health finally seem to be lifting but it is still a sensitive and deeply personal issue that people aren’t always comfortable about airing or even ‘admitting’ to. People can struggle with mental health issues on a daily basis or it can pop up out of nowhere and take you by surprise, manifesting in many different ways. With one in four people in the UK suffering from a mental health disorder, having an understanding employer and a network of sympathetic colleagues and friends can literally be lifesaving. Although big steps have been taken in the last few years, further measures can and should be taken to help people suffering with mental health disorders.

Mental health disorders appear to be particularly prevalent within archaeology and, as a large proportion of archaeologists are on fixed term and short-term contracts, they often slip through the cracks and don’t get the help that they need. There needs to be a major attitude shift within the industry and employers need to start recognising employees (temporary or not) as just that, employees. Having suffered with depression myself, I’m writing as someone who has had rather mixed experiences within archaeology, but on the whole I was lucky enough for my symptoms to be recognised for what they were and I was given help, understanding and time to be in a more ‘comfortable’ frame of mind.

I feel that staff with any type of supervisory responsibility, who manage people in the office, in the field or remotely, should be given some basic form of training to enable them to recognise certain signs, to be able to have a conversation with someone suffering from mental health issues and to know how obtain the relevant help. This kind of help can be genuinely lifesaving, so let’s try and make a change in someone’s life and be seen as a considerate profession. You never know, one day that person needing help could be you.

Here at Allen Archaeology we are trying to ‘buck the trend’ and make a tangible and positive difference in the lives of our staff. We have started the process of sending supervisors on Mental Health Awareness First Aid courses and arranging bespoke in-house training of all staff, hopefully within the next twelve months. Additionally, all staff (and in particular supervisors) are made aware of existing mental health guidance and are actively encouraged to be on the alert for any tell-tale signs amongst friends and colleagues. We understand that a happy and healthy team is the key to successfully moving forwards.

Our digital era

By Isobel Curwen (Heritage Research Team)

For centuries we have been leaving a written record of our daily lives and when we find evidence of this it is very exciting. Recent excavations in London uncovered a significant collection of Roman waxed writing tablets, some of the earliest hand-written documents found in Britain (for more information visit the MOLA website), and we have even earlier records such as prehistoric cave art and runic writing systems.

Our Finds team are currently analysing some stamped Roman pottery found in Lincolnshire. Mortaria and Samian ware are the most common pottery types to be stamped, although other types of Roman pottery were occasionally stamped too. The stamp could be a name or a word, or sometimes a symbol, possibly suggesting that the potter was illiterate (Read our blog post by Alice for some examples of stamped pottery found in Lincoln). In order to create the impression on the pot, the stamp had to be created in relief and in reverse which requires considerable skill (see how quickly you can spell your own name backwards!).

Stamped mortaria found from Lincoln - see the range of potters marks from symbols to words

Stamped Mortaria found from Lincoln – see the range of potters markings including both symbols and words

Roman grey ware pot base with a pot firing ‘X’ graffito that has been trimmed to form a disc or counter (Photo Credit Hugh Fiske/Ian Rowlandson)

These lovely sherds of stamped pottery have survived for thousands of years and this got us thinking. In today’s digital world what record will we leave of our own lives? Handwritten letters have been replaced by emails and text messages. Digital mapping and GPS render paper maps obsolete, used only when technology fails us or when there is a lack of signal. In our on-site recording of archaeological sites we use a combination of physical and digital recording techniques. With recent advances in archaeological practice suggesting and implementing systems for entirely paperless recording systems (Roosevelt et al. 2015) we are heading in the direction of an almost entirely digital historic record.

It looks like the record we leave about our lives will be less tangible and physical than that of our predecessors. Read the following article for more information on our digital footprints.

Christopher H. Roosevelt, Peter Cobb, Emanuel Moss, Brandon R. Olson &
Sinan Ünlüsoy (2015) Excavation is Destruction Digitization: Advances in Archaeological Practice,
Journal of Field Archaeology, 40:3, 325-346

Find of the Month, March – Soda Water Torpedo Bottle

By Cova Escandon (Project Supervisor Archives)

The find of the month for March is a Lee and Green Ltd. torpedo bottle. It is made of plain glass and you can read on its body ‘Sleaford’ and ‘Spalding’.

Lee and Green Ltd. Torpedo Bottle

Arthur Green and Ranyard Lee opened an aerated water bottling factory in Spalding in 1885. The factory was located on Albion St. and built by John Richard Carter in 1824. It was sold in 1846 to Henry Bugg the Younger and William Henry Bugg. A few years later, the premises were used temporarily as a guano store, before being sold to Lee and Green. They also had factories in Sleaford, Bourne, Boston and Skegness.

The first ‘torpedo bottles’ appeared at the end of the 18^th Century as a solution to the problem of containing gas in glass bottles. At this time, glass bottles were not strong enough to contain the gas so they would often explode. Glass capable to contain the gas was very expensive, so it was reserved for luxurious liquids such as champagne. Cheaper drinks like ginger beer were contained in stoneware bottles. The torpedo shape would stop any air leaking as it prevented the bottle from being stood up, keeping the cork moist as a result of being in contact with the soda, so it wouldn’t shrink (something still done today with other drinks such as wine). Pouring the drink would also be easier and it would be better adapted for packing carriage. It did present advantages for the merchant and the consumer too as the consumer would have to finish the drink before putting down the bottle! The bottles were also easy to transport via boat on flat shelves with holes on them so they wouldn’t fall over when the ship moved.

1914 marks the end of the torpedo bottle era. They are no longer necessary as they are replaced by Malenstrone’s 1901 patent that allows normal shaped bottles to contain gas.

‘The Story of Lee and Green’ Exhibition is currently on display at Sleaford Museum.

The Story of Lee & Green

The Woolly Spires of Lincolnshire

By Isobel Curwen (Heritage Research Supervisor)

A few weekends ago, whilst wandering round the small market town of Louth, I stumbled across these rather unusual knitted churches which are currently on display at St James’ Church. Originally commissioned by The Collection, Lincoln, these knitted masterpieces form part of a countrywide project entitled the ‘Woolly Spires’ project, managed by artsNK.

During the medieval period, Lincolnshire prospered as a wool producing county using wool from the iconic breed of sheep, the Lincoln Longwool (see our previous blog post for more details about the Lincolnshire wool trade!). The profits from this trade went mainly to a few wool merchants and wealthy landowners who in turn founded many of Lincolnshire’s churches (Vince 2003).

In order to reflect both the founding of many of Lincolnshire’s churches as a result of the wool trade, and their rural nature, residents and community groups were gathered from the six rural districts of Lincolnshire to created knitted versions of their churches using wool exclusively from the Lincoln Longwool breed. The churches created include St Deny’s Church, Sleaford, St Mary and St Nicholas’ Church, Spalding, St Botolph’s Church, Boston, St James’ Church, Louth, St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham, and St Mary’s Church (Stow Minster), Stow.

The knitted churches on display at St James’ Church, Louth

St Mary and St Nicolas, Spalding

Many of Lincolnshire’s churches can be found in rural settings which can be divided into distinct geographical areas (Jenkins 1999). The churches to south of the county, in the area around the Fens and The Wash, have their origins in the monastic houses of Norman England. St Botolph’s Church, Boston is a particularly nice example with its famous ‘Boston Stump’. To the west lie the coastal marshes and the Wolds, with St James’ Church steeple providing a focal point to the open landscape. Inland Lincolnshire is represented by both the Humber and Trent valleys with St Deny’s church, Sleaford providing a fine example of stained glass windows and the tower of St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham providing a visual masterpiece of early Gothic architecture.

The churches of Lincolnshire, and their associated land and settlements, are a fundamental component of the county’s history and as result play a key part in the work undertaken here at AAL whether this be as part of research for a desk-based assessment or as part of a building recording survey.

We think these woolly churches are great and they are currently doing a tour throughout Lincolnshire so do keep a lookout for them coming to a church near you!

Jenkins. S., 1999, ‘Lincolnshire’, In: England’s Thousand Best Churches (pp 363-400), Penguin Group, London

Vince. A., 2003, ‘The new town: Lincoln in the High Medieval Era (c.850-c.1350), in: Stocker. D. (ed) The City by the Pool (pp 159-249), Oxbow Books, Oxford

International Women’s Day 2018

This year for International Women’s Day we’ve been thinking about how women are represented in the archaeological record. The archaeology of gender has become a large part of our interpretation, where previously women’s lives were overlooked by antiquarians in favour of kings and emperors, work has been done to readdress this imbalance. We’ve picked three of our most interesting examples for discussion.

Recently excavated head pot, ‘Marion’

Neither face pots nor head pots are especially common, but have been found distributed widely across Britain including around 50 examples from York, a famous example of which depicts the Empress Julia Domna (York Museums Trust n.d). Head pots appear to be almost exclusively found in Roman Britain and North Africa, and are generally made of finer fabric than face pots (Braithwaite 2011). While researching this piece it seemed like a majority appear to be depictions of women. Our example, Marion, was found in Bourne, Lincolnshire. We chose the nickname Marion as we thought the frills around her face looked like a medieval headdress.

Saxon chatelaine

Chatelaines (sometimes referred to as chatelaine chains) were a popular item of women’s dress from around the 7^th century in Anglo-Saxon England, and are sometimes found in the burials of female individuals (Owen-Crocker 2004). The chatelaine itself was attached to a belt worn at the waist, with smaller objects hung from it and thought to be worn by the female head of the household, indicating a level of status. Common items carried during the period included functional items like keys and personal hygiene (metal picks, small spoons intended for the cleaning out of one’s ears, etc) (ibid). Later, Viking women’s fashion dictated one’s personal items were often hung from brooches which are themselves commonly (but not exclusively) associated with the burial of women (ibid).

The misidentifying of an individual’s gender in archaeology based on materials remains isn’t uncommon, prominent examples include the ‘Red Lady of Paviland’, identified as Roman female in 1823 due to the presence of ivory and rings (assumed to be female items) but later revealed to actually be a man from the Upper Palaeolithic period, and the Skaill boat burial in Orkney, which was assumed to be male based on the presence of finds believed to be associated with warriors (a sword, an axe, a spear etc.), but was later identified as female (Hedenstirna-Jonson et al 2017). The example in Orkney was still presumed to be a man even after osteological analysis in the 1970s identified the individual as a woman (Laskow 2017)!

19th century ribbon from the grave of a female adult

During excavations in a 19^th century burial ground a fashionable silk gauze ribbon with self-woven stripes was found in the burial of an adult female. Several other examples of fashion ribbons were also found, personal touches allowing those interred to retain elements of their identity after burial.

You can also find our previous blog posts for International Women’s Day here:

2017: https://www.allenarchaeology.co.uk/christina-colyer-lincolns-trowel-blazer/

2016: https://www.allenarchaeology.co.uk/international-womens-day/

References:

Braithwaite, G., 1984, Romano-British Face Pots and Head Pots, Britannia, 15, 99–131, accessed online 08.03.2018: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/britannia/article/romanobritish-face-pots-and-head-pots/0D323526CEF3BF9A4A7A500BABB1AC9D

Hedenstierna-Jonson C, Kjellström A, Zachrisson T, et al. A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2017;164:853–860, accessed online 08.03.2018: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23308

Laskow, S., 2017, Found: Evidence That a Lavish Burial Honored a Viking Warrior Woman, accessed online 08.03.2018: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/viking-warrior-woman-burial-birka

Owen-Crocker, G.R., 2004, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, 2^nd ed, Woodbridge: Boydell Press

York Museums Trust, n.d., accessed online 08.03.2018: http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/roman/roman-head-pot

Find of the month March – a selection of finds chosen by our work experience student, Matt.

By Matt and Yvonne Rose (Archive Project Supervisor)

For February, just for a change, there’s a slight twist to “Find of the Month”. For the past three Thursdays the finds and archiving team has been joined by work experience student Matt. He’s been busy washing the usual assortment of pottery, tile and animal bone, so to make the days more interesting we’ve shown him an array of the more exciting finds from past excavations. We asked him to choose two of his favourite finds, along with a few other questions, so that we could find out a bit more about Matt and his interests. Here are the results:

How long have you been interested in archaeology?

Since I was around 7 years of age (10 years ago).

How did you become interested in archaeology?

I became interested in history by watching Time Team on the TV in my own time. It encouraged me to go outside and try it for myself. Ever since I started finding actual finds of importance I enjoyed it more and more, up to this day. Now I wish to continue further with a regular job in either archaeology or palaeontology.

What is your favourite period in history?

Probably Roman.

Which finds have you liked the most, and why?

The Roman face pot (nicknamed Marion) because it is a very nice pot from my favourite period in history. I would also like to do some research on it at some point in the future.

I like the Palaeolithic flint blade due to the fact that it is very old (around 10 000 years). I also like to think about the many different ways it could have been used. I love the history behind it.

Palaeolithic flint blade

The Roman face pot (Marion)

What would you like to find in the future?

A hoard of Roman coins or something gold!

We wish Matt well in his remaining weeks with us and hope he finds that gold one day!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year (or the Lunar New Year), this year the Year of Dog, an animal which symbolises luck! However, doing any of the following is deemed unlucky: cleaning clothes, using scissors, sweeping floors and encountering crying children. Some omens are easier to avoid than others…

With the use of scissors being forbidden, that got us here thinking. Here in Lincoln, scissors were probably used as part of the wool trade. Lincoln’s attractive location along the banks of the River Witham facilitated a prosperous, expanding wool trade during the early medieval period with finished textiles transported east along the River Witham and then exported abroad (Pawley 2001). The flat, open agricultural land provided a perfect location to rear sheep.

Some rather fierce looking sheep from Lincolnshire…

In particular, two shades of these textiles were highly prized: the coveted Lincoln green and Lincoln scarlet. Lincoln was renowned for not just the high quality of dye used but also the consistency of the colour (apparently Kendal green which was notoriously inconsistent)! The green colour, created by dying the wool with woad and then with ‘dyers broom’, was less expensive than Lincoln scarlet, a cloth that was aimed at more affluent members of society (Santos 2013). Lincolnshire green (or greene as it was known) was, of course, made famous by being worn by Robin Hood and his merry men, or so legend has it.

Sadly, the textile industry collapsed between 1275 and 1300 AD. The loss of wool staple, which designated that Lincoln was a key place for its trade, was a result of increasing competition from both nearby towns such as Boston and from abroad (Stocker et al 2003).

So, getting back to the Chinese New Year, it appears we’re all exempt from doing laundry, using scissors and cleaning floors today – great news for a Friday! Although managing to avoid crying babies may provide more of a challenge, particularly for those here at AAL with young children…

References

Pawley. S., 2001, Maritime Trade and Fishing, 1500 – 1700, In: An Historical Atlas of Lincolnshire, Bennett. S, and Bennett. N (eds), Phillimore, West Sussex

Santos. C., 2013, Lincoln: Where Robin bought his ‘Hood’, The lincolnite http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2013/05/lincoln-where-robin-bought-his-hood/ (16^th February 2018)

Vince. A., 2003, The new town: Lincoln in the High Medieval Era (c.850-c.1350) pp. 159-249, In: Stocker. D (eds), The City by the Pool, Oxbow Books, Oxford

Find of the Month January – medieval human bone from The Lawn, Lincoln

[Warning: contains photos of human remains]

By Natasha Powers, Senior Manager (and osteoarchaeologist)

Last year we were commissioned by Banks, Long and Co. to undertake a programme of archaeological monitoring and recording during groundworks for work on Stokes new barista training college at The Lawn, Lincoln. Previous work in the area has revealed medieval and Roman remains, but much of the area was remodelled when the gardens for the Lawn Asylum and Hospital were laid out in the 19th century. The monitoring found relatively modern features associated with the buildings, but about 12m to the north of the former location of the Joseph Banks Conservatory, was a shallow pit containing fragments of medieval and post-medieval roof tiles and a quantity of disarticulated human bone.

Spread of disarticulated, redeposited human bone

The bones originated from more than one person and were jumbled in a way that showed that they had been moved from their original position. A minimum of three adults and a child were represented. Radiocarbon dating showed that these people had died in the early 14th century. There was evidence that some had suffered from infectious disease and lots of damage consistent with the bone having been moved around in the past. Most significantly, there were peri-mortem (around the time of death) cuts and chop marks on eight separate bones, including this adult humerus (upper arm).

Adult upper arm (humerus) that has been chopped through

In 1987, excavations at The Lawn uncovered a number of burials thought to be related to the graveyard of the parish church of St. Bartholomew. St. Bartholomew’s was established in the 11th century and in the 14th century was used as the chapel of a hospital. The Cathedral canons were buried there from 1297. The graves that were uncovered during the excavation were suggested to be 14th century in date (Camidge 1987). In the part of the site closest to the location of our monitoring were multiple burials with large spaces between them. Our work has been able to confirm the date of the burials, whilst the 1980s excavation helps us determine that our finds are most likely from closely associated burials and were disturbed en masse by 19th century gardening.

Looking at the 1980s excavation and the current work together, what explanation can be provided for the injuries? The injuries include the (at least partial) removal of a right arm just above the elbow, a foot at the ankle, and a lower leg (probably above the ankle), all with a sharp, heavy blade. These injuries have characteristics that suggest an attack on a living person by another, for example during battle. Some of the other bones have injuries that indicate numerous repetitive parallel chops, as if made in quick succession. The location in the body means that they would be difficult to achieve in a living person. These injuries might be more likely to show the dismemberment of a dead person. The early 14th century was a time of unrest between the Scots and English (notably Bannockburn in 1314) and conflict spilled south. This was also a period of poor harvests culminating in the Great Famine of 1316–1322. Famine had a serious impact on social cohesion and crime rose in both urban and rural areas; or perhaps those buried on the margins of the cemetery of St Bartholomew’s died in an, as yet unidentified, battle. Something to ponder over coffee perhaps?

Camidge, K, 1987, The Lawn, in Archaeology in Lincolnshire 1986–1987, Third Annual Report of the Trust for Lincolnshire Archaeology, October 1987, 25–26

Pineapples and Pteridomania!

By Dominika Czop, Project Archaeologist

Last week I was sent on an archaeological adventure in beautiful Shropshire. I accompanied our new Senior Project Officer, Craig. Our task was to investigate what is hidden under the ground next to the walled garden in Weston Park. We discovered foundations of a pinery-vinery!

I hope everyone likes pineapples because pinery-vinery was a greenhouse for pineapples. Pineapples were first grown in the Netherlands, and British gardeners learnt the art of growing this exotic fruit from the Dutch. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the first British grown pineapples were cultivated by a Dutch gardener, Henry Telende, who worked in Sir Matthew Decker’s Pembroke Villa in Richmond. As a fruit that is very expensive and difficult to grow in northern climates, pineapple, like other exotic plants, became a symbol of wealth and status. Unlike today when we can buy one at any time, only two hundred years ago people rented pineapples to show off to their guest or even send them to the king or queen as a royal gift!

The majestic pineapple, once available for hire

Unlike citrus fruit, which could be grown in orangeries, pineapples require constant heat as they grow all year round. Since the 17^th century heated greenhouses were used in Britain. Hot air flues inside cavity walls allowed heating of entire length of the garden wall. Furnaces that provided the heat for the walls can be seen along the southern wall of the Walled Garden in Weston Park. Unfortunately furnaces required constant attention – they had to be supplied with fuel, produced soot, which could block the hot air flues and created danger of fire. Fumes from the furnaces also damaged or killed the plants in greenhouses. Different techniques of growing pineapples and providing heat inside of the greenhouses developed during the 18^th and 19^th century. First pineapples were grown in tan pits and then moved to heated hothouses to mature. James Justice described his success in growing pineapples in 1728 at his estate in Crichton, Scotland. He combined tanners’ pits and greenhouse into one stage of growing and maturing pineapples. The pineapple pots were placed in a pit filled with layers of pebbles, manure and tanners’ bark, which provided a source of stable heat for few months.

Pinery-vinery wall

The use of pinery-vinery was proposed by Thomas Hitt in 1757. It had a dual function of growing pineapples and grapes. Pineapples were grown in a greenhouse on the south side of the heated wall and grapes grew on the north side inside of the walled garden. Unfortunately growing pineapples and grapes together required a lot of effort and was very expensive, therefore it was later abandoned. Presence of arches in the lower part of the pinery wall in Weston Park indicates that the vines were planted there and they could grow inside of the greenhouse as well as the other side of the heated wall. This early 19^th century invention also allowed greater space for the roots of the vine. Nails inserted between the bricks allowed the vines to spread across the whole surface of the wall.

Greenhouses became more popular in Britain after the invention of the Wardian case in 1829 and abolition of the glass tax in 1845.This new development led to the fern craze (Pteridomania!) in Britain. Availability of cheap glass and invention of well sealed greenhouses allowed growing of tropical plants on a larger scale, even in the fumes filled London. Despite the popularity of the heated greenhouses and success of the pineapple growing, this type of horticulture was abandoned with the arrival of imported exotic fruit.

Today anyone interested in past horticulture and pineries can visit the Lost Gardens of Heligan and Tatton Park or the Pineapple Summerhouse at Dunmore. There are also other places which still have standing structures associated with pineapple growing, and perhaps in future they will be restored to bring crops of British grown pineapples!