Tag Archives: commercial archaeology

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!)

Christmas Presents for Archaeologists

It’s that time of year again…

Your Christmas tree is up, Christmas songs playing on a loop, your Christmas cards are all sent and you’ve bought enough food to feed a small army- you’re all set!

But… Oh no! You’ve forgotten to buy some stocking fillers for your beloved archaeologist child/friend/other half/pub acquaintance (delete as appropriate!)

But don’t panic, I’ve prepared a list of gifts perfect for the archaeologist in your life. Some are handy little bits of kit for the field (you’ll be hearing some trade secrets here- I hope you’re grateful!) Others are a bit more luxurious, some archaeology bling if you will, for those of us who are more desk based- and at this time of year that’s most of us!

So just relax and read on, let’s get those all-important stocking fillers sorted!

Funky T-Shirts

Archaeologists love a punny T-shirt

Archaeologists are all about the dig chic. Now you may be wondering,

‘Why? You’ll be covered in mud by the end of the day- what’s the point?’

You make a very astute point but although we archaeologists aren’t necessarily obsessed with Paris fashion week (the styles featured there show a bit too much skin to conform with Health and Safety regulations), we still like to dress to impress (even if we only impress each other!)

And as this T-Shirt shows, the punnier the better! 😉 Any archaeologist loves a good pun so with this dig related example, you can’t go wrong!

Or maybe this example of an inside archaeology joke is more their cup of tea. There’s no truth in this statement of course…

With these classy shirts, your archaeologist will be the envy of everyone come January!

Winter themed

Never enough tea

If you’d rather get them something useful for 2017, then Winter can be a cruel time for those in the field. To avoid your loved one getting frostbite here’s a few stocking sized gifts to keep them toasty.

OK, so the tea bags may not quite fit in your stocking but trust me, aside from beer, tea is the staple beverage for archaeologists. This humongous bags may seem a bit over the top but trust me, those 1200 teabags will last a good few weeks (yeah, I wasn’t joking, a lot of tea is consumed in archaeology!)

I’m more of a coffee drinker myself (dodges the thrown trowels of the tea drinking masses). So I’ve included some lovely flavoured coffee for those who need the extra caffeine to function.

Munsell Travel Mug

And regardless of our preferred hot beverage I think we can all agree that this Munsell chart travel mug is both practical and useful; a handy comparison chart to help with your contexts sheets whilst keeping your hands warm enough to write.

And if a hot drink doesn’t quite cut the mustard then buy a few of these handwarmers for them to tuck into their gloves. They’ll be eternally grateful- as will their supervisors for the improved legibility of their context sheets!

Away Work

If the archaeologist in question does a lot of away work, then there’s a few items you could get make their lives easier.

Playing cards are great on away jobs

A decent away bag is essential- a large weekend bag like this one should be perfect if like me you’ve perfected the rolled packing technique. There’s not always a lot of spare room for personal items when there’s a big team heading to one site. So, a compact bag with lots of pockets is very useful for those weeks away.

And for all those Winter evenings in cosy accommodation what can be better than a good film? But if there’s nothing on the TV and if you’re internet isn’t good enough to stream anything then a carry case is the perfect solution. The archaeologist in question can win a lot of friends by taking a range of films to suit all tastes. They can also pack CD’s for musical entertainment for those journeys to and from site. Their increase in popularity will mean they’ll love you forever!

In a similar vein, you can never go wrong with a pack of cards for evening entertainment. This British Museum pack means we can geek out whilst working out who’s the best poker player!

Treat them, they deserve it!

If you want to make them feel as important as they are, why not order them some business cards with their title on. We often give out our contact details to clients so get them this card case as well so they can look super professional when they ask to be updated on progress.

If your archaeologist is a jewellery lover they might like these stylish archaeology themed pieces. Not only will jewellery always gain you brownie points but trowels are our most treasured bit of kit, so it’s the perfect homage to our favourite tool!

Dry hands, especially those have taken on the texture of sandpaper, is never pleasant. So make sure your archaeologists’ hands are soft and hydrated with these quality hand creams from the Body Shop. And whilst you’re battling the Christmas crowds, feel free to pick up some lip balm- no one needs wind chapped lips!

A weekend treat?

One last idea that is a little more outside the box, is to buy them a voucher for an experience. My suggestion is based on personal experience. Escape rooms are a popular craze across the country and they involve being locked in a room for an hour and trying to escape using a few clues and by working as a team. Allen Archaeology’s local venues are in Nottingham and at one Escapologic, I even found an archaeology themed escape experience. The Crypt-ic room involves a pitch-black room, a couple of lanterns and finding clues in a crypt- just like the day job (except the skeleton is plastic, but it smells a lot sweeter!) I’m sure there are many more enters across the country and though not all may have an archaeology themed room, I still guarantee that anyone who’s chosen archaeology as a career will enjoy this experience- we all love a good puzzle!

So, there you go! A nice range of last minute gifts! Hope it’s given you some inspiration but just as a reminder, if you want to branch out on your own then please no dinosaur themed presents (that’s paleontology, completely different) and just you don’t mention Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, you should be fine!

Lastly bear in mind that there are a lot of practical presents on this list because despite our reputations we are quite a practical bunch, and usually more than a little work-obsessed!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Why post-medieval archaeology matters (to some of us)

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

Many years ago I carried out an evaluation on the site of an engineering works in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, which had originated as part of the Gateshead Iron Works, founded by William Hawks in the 18th century. One of the trenches was targeted on an outbuilding identified on OS mapping as a fairly late addition to the site – a building which turned out to be a toilet block. So far, so very unglamorous. During post excavation, a search of building control documentation revealed that the toilets had been added to the works in 1917. At first this puzzled me. Why, with the most destructive war in human history in full flow in Europe, would an engineering works undoubtedly running at full capacity on Ministry of Defence contracts build a new toilet block, of all things? It occurred to me at that point that there was no evidence in the ground for a urinal, just individual cubicles, and a possible interpretation emerged.

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

Pottery training

Learning to recognise fabrics and forms

I’ve always had a ‘thing’ for pottery, stemming from my first experience of archaeological fieldwalking and finding a pile of greyware (I won’t mention the arrowhead I also found that day). Through volunteering on excavations and at the local museum I discovered there was an awful lot more to pottery than I expected. This year I have been undertaking some intensive training learning how to accurately identify, date, record and quantify pottery.

This process has involved numerous hours using a microscope and identifying minerals within the pottery fabric and comparing them to known local, national and even international fabrics. Each kiln has its own recipe of ingredients that gets mixed into the clay so if the kiln has been excavated a specific production site can be listed. The style/form of the pottery also gives indications of date. By cross referencing this information with previously identified examples a date range and hopefully a production site is revealed. As I don’t have the experience of the fabrics I have to check every sherd against a written description or an example piece and research every form with named examples from other sites. My progress is slow and occasionally frustrating but there are multiple ways to aid this process aside from 10 years of experience.

Archaeological text books can be challenging, they have huge amounts of text with pages of finds illustrated in the back. They are very difficult to read unless you are looking for something specific. To make the information more accessible I find writing the details and similar examples from other sites next to the illustration saves a lot of time flipping back and forth looking for dates and form names. I also have pages and pages of notes with sketches of rim types as a cheat sheet. Eventually I’ll be able to do this without having to look in a book every time.

It isn’t an easy thing to learn all this information and apply it with confidence to an assemblage but it has been enjoyable. The next step is going to be creating my own reference collection and building on my notes to help ease the process of remembering hundreds of fabrics and forms.

The Archaeological Toolbox

An Archaeologists toolbox

We all know that archaeologists own at least one trowel.

But there’s more to it than that, a menagerie of tools and pieces of equipment that are integral additions to the ‘tools of the trade’. But what makes up the elusive archeologist’s kit?

To start with the obvious; trowels, they are the universal (yet unofficial) symbol of Archaeology. A necessary part of the toolkit, and almost every archaeologist will own whether it gets used on a daily or yearly basis. I’ve spoken to people about their first trowel and they can always remember what happened if it is no longer with them. Fee fondly reminiscing about hers, which is likely now buried underneath concrete and tarmac from her first University Dig, and I can say that my first is still with me – gifted by my very proud grandparents.

Cat’s clearly identified, if rarely used, trowel

Gloves of both the waterproof and thermal kind are two things that are underestimated fairly frequently. General waterproof gloves that are necessary for health and safety, but thermal gloves are pieces of equipment that I admit that I have forgotten many times and consequently suffered…

Finds bags are a staple. While they’re provided by the company, they disappear fairly quickly and it’s a good idea to have a stash of them by your side when you carefully excavate that fantastic piece of Roman jewelry no one else noticed, or when the site’s storage is at a distance from where you are working.

Two that tie together (haha) are lines of string and nails. These two are important for creating section lines, creating plans, marking GPS points for small find locations, and bartering. For future reference, a nail is worth 5 biscuits or an extra cup of tea…

A notebook isn’t absolutely essential, but it’s highly recommended… Not just to track how many nails you’ve traded for other supplies, but to mark down important numbers and information that you’ll need while on site. If you’re digging a pit you’ll need to remember two numbers just for the cut and fill, and photo numbers & GPS points are also necessary for future reference. If one of your colleagues asks who dug a certain pit number, if you can’t remember if it was you or not… you’re able to go back and look. Unluckily, if it was excavated wrong, there’s proof that it was you. On the contrary, if it was you who’d dug it and found something amazing, like the Roman jewelry mentioned before, you can prove that it was yourself that first cast eyes upon the artefact.

A well organised pencil case is essential

A pencil case is also recommended. From drawing plans to writing on finds bags, a sharpie and sharpened pencil are important. Aside from the obvious, things like scale rulers and erasers and pencil sharpeners, pencils are somewhat different. They shouldn’t be HB. These pencils will smudge and blur on the permatrace, a bit like waterproof tracing paper, that is used for plans and section drawings, and as a result of this, 6H pencils are recommended to reduce this smudging.

Tape measures are, in essence, similar to the string and nails. They’re used to measure for planning, to map out the location and size of the feature, and for your unsuspecting colleagues to trip over. Surveyor tape, I should add, is also good for measuring as tape measures may not be the right length or maneuverable enough for general archaeological use. Clips of varying types are recommended to attach it to objects, to create a reliable measuring line for your plans and/or sections.

All sorts of strategy’s are employed to clearly identify kit

Line levels are important for when you start to plan the section of your feature. When drawing plans a straight line is needed as a base line for whatever you are drawing, and the line level would be used to make sure your string line is straight for finally drawing it out. Note that these are small and easily lost, and as a result your colleagues will ask to borrow them from you… and maybe give them back.

Finally I’ll be blunt – duplicates of everything. Archeologists enjoy ‘borrowing’ from each other for indeterminate amounts of time, and I think I can safely say that we’re all guilty of this…
In all seriousness, I started my traineeship with an entire tin of nails.

In conclusion, an archaeologist’s kit is varied and an amalgamation of tools that are the core essentials of any excavation and sometimes, they might even be the part of the original set that you bought.

Heritage Research: engaging with landscape architects

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.

Heritage Research: What is the Desk-based Assessment

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

A DBA attempts to assess whether there is likely to be any archaeological remains on or near a planned development, and whether the development will affect the setting or significance of known (and usually designated) heritage assets, such as listed buildings. The DBA is in essence a short research project exploring all the aspects of the history and archaeology of a particular piece of land. These can be buildings due for renovation or demolition, planned housing schemes, solar farms, cable lines and a whole variety of other reasons.

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

Yet, part of the job also involves getting out the office and into the field (as we are still archaeologists!). Our site visits might include visiting ancient monuments, exploring parks and gardens, inspecting and recording old buildings, and visually assessing seemingly innocuous land, searching for potential clues of archaeological remains that might lie beneath. Without visiting the site it can be impossible to know how it relates to the landscape surrounding it.

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.

Why bother with Geophysics?

In May we told you about what geophysics is. Apart from helping to keep me fit with sometimes ridiculous amounts of walking across fields, why else do we use geophysics as part of the archaeological investigations into a site?

Commercial archaeology is often about revealing and recording archaeological remains before new development takes place. Whilst sometimes the nature of the development can be altered or adjusted to allow preservation of the buried features, in many cases we are recording the archaeology before its destruction.

In order to reveal and record archaeological remains we first have to find them. No matter how much we might wish it, not every field has a buried Roman villa, or a medieval settlement just waiting for a keen archaeologist to come and dig it up. In many cases the most exciting hidden treasure within a field is a former field boundary and a few modern field drains.

This is where a geophysical survey can help provide the information necessary to evaluating the archaeological potential of an area and allowing the development of a suitable plan to gain as much information as possible before building work commences. The survey can allow specific pinpointing of trial trenches over the most interesting features. This is much like keyhole surgery, hopefully producing maximum results for minimum effort and cost.

So how effective can this keyhole approach to archaeological remains be? If we take as an example a site in northeast Lincolnshire near Grimsby, we can see how useful this approach can be. The entire site in question was approximately 19 hectares in size, of which 11 hectares was suitable for the geophysical survey. The remaining area was either too overgrown or flooded making it impossible to survey. Fortunately the 11 hectare area covered the entire area proposed for construction.

An assessment of the archaeological and historical background of the area had revealed possible prehistoric to Roman cropmarks to the northwest and west of the site, with medieval activity involving earthworks and find scatters located immediately to the southeast of the site. The geophysical survey revealed a lot lot more.

Results of the geophysical survey

Suddenly the archaeological potential of the site has increased markedly. Not only can we clearly see the modern system of land drains cutting across the site, but we can also see potential settlement and agricultural enclosures, as well as ridge and furrow cultivation practices. A large dipolar spike, the white circle with a black centre to the right of the centre of the site was also tentatively identified as a potential kiln.

So what happens next? Before geophysics was available, a number of trial trenches would likely have been placed within the field to attempt to reveal any archaeological remains. As you can see from the results however, there are large areas of the field where the geophysics has not revealed any archaeological features. Random trial trenches would be just as likely to miss the interesting areas as to hit them, and an incomplete picture of the archaeology would be more than likely obtained.

Now that a geophysical survey has been done, the trial trenches can be located to test the results. This is useful for two reasons, the first is that we can target archaeological features to gain a better understanding of what’s going on, and hopefully retrieve sufficient finds to allow us to comfortably and confidently date the features. The second reason is more for the benefit of the geophysicist. The results from the trial trenching can be used to validate the geophysical results. I was fortunate to be involved with the trial trenching and it was very satisfying to see how well the archaeological features within the trenches matched up with the geophysical results.

Trial trenches overlaying the geophysics

The yellow features within the trenches relate to archaeological features, whilst the black features represent furrows. Finds recovered from the features allowed us to date them from late Iron Age to the Roman period, with the furrows indicative of medieval farming practice. The large dipolar spike was revealed as hearth or kiln, although its precise date or function unfortunately remains unknown.

The results from the trial trenching correlated very well with the geophysical survey, and this allowed us to gain a much greater understanding into the archaeological potential within the site.

So why bother with geophysics? Hopefully I’ve managed to give you a window into just how useful it can be. I certainly think it’s worth all the walking I do, and although I don’t find something exciting every time I go out, I do feel I’m helping us to understand more about our buried past.