Tag Archives: excavation

A Day in the Life of…..Emily Doe (Project Supervisor, Fieldwork)

I’ve been working at Allen Archaeology for the best part of four years. I started as a bright-eyed and enthusiastic PA (Project Archaeologist) then worked my way up to the role of Project Supervisor. As you can imagine having such a role has its pros and cons. With highs of being the one who holds the power to allocate slots to reveal the secrets of the site, and lows including being the bearer of bad news when it’s time to go back to work when the lovely English weather is throwing its worst at us and we have deadlines to meet!

There is never a dull day as a supervisor, as it’s a very varied role and often keeps you on your toes depending on the site and how far along you are with it for. You could be machine stripping a site for days on end not finding anything or be on tender hooks as there is so much archaeology your eyes can’t keep up with it. Though on a more established site where you may be for months on end, days can take a more regular form. With starting each day afresh with your eager team ready to get their hands in mud. I would allocate slots for each of team member to dig, record and interpret. Sometimes help is needed with training new staff in recording/ excavating methods or interpreting what a section is telling us by looking at the wider picture and relating it to other features or slots within the same area. Lunch time and break times give everyone the chance to relax and refuel for the rest of the day ahead. If I’m lucky I may get the opportunity to dig features myself but if not then archive checking is a frequent and important task.

Emily machine watching — Emily watch the machine strip a site

Find of the Month, September

by Cova Escandon (Archive Supervisor)

An unusual set of jewellery was found from the grave of an adolescent individual from a Roman Necropolis in Lincolnshire, dated to the 4^th century AD. The grave good assemblage is made up of a group of copper-alloy, bone and iron bangles, along with a copper-alloy chain, glass beads and one copper-alloy ring.

Bracelets made of all types of materials were most common in Britain during the 4^th Century AD, and had been used by the Romano-British elite since early Roman times, often fabricated with precious metals. However, around the time of the 4^th Century AD, the use of these bangles became more common in the general population with materials such as bone or copper alloy used instead of precious metals. Such bangles were often worn with between six and sixteen bangles on both wrists. This practice would explain the large amount of fragments of metal bangles found in domestic contexts from the late Roman period. In the set found by Allen Archaeology, there were also several fragments of bone bangles which became very popular during the 4^th century.

Eight copper alloy bracelets were discovered within the grave, all in different styles, three of them decorated. Such decoration includes an incised decoration of a repeating pattern of III X III, and on other bangles motifs including a wavy line with associated dots, faint cross-hatching, and a ring and dot design can be seen. Interestingly, this ring and dot pattern is also present on one of the bone fragments, suggesting that this group of metal and bone bangles were designed to be worn together.

III X III decoration on copper alloy bangle

Ring and dot detail on the copper alloy bangle

Three of the bone fragments have holes drilled through one end and one fragment also has an iron rivet still attached. Two other fragments are joined together by a thin copper-alloy plate, suggesting that these bangles could have been made in sections and then attached together.

I always find curating these sort of finds a little bit bittersweet. On one hand they are very pretty and interesting artefacts, highly useful in being able to date the burial. But on the other side, they remind us that what we have in front of us is a human being, carefully buried with personal items.

Allen Archaeology Abroad

By Alice Beasley, Project Archaeologist

For the past 8 years I have been travelling to the island of Rousay, Orkney to participate in an excavation on a multiphase site at the Knowe of Swandro run by the University of Bradford in collaboration with the William Patterson University and the City University of New York as a student training excavation. Thanks to the powers that be here at Allen archaeology my time in Orkney continued out of university and into my professional career. The site consists of a Neolithic burial chamber surrounded by Iron age, Pictish and Viking settlement.

The site is constantly under threat from coastal erosion and, despite covering the excavation with nearly 40 tonnes of stone every year, damage is being done. This summer I had the pleasure of working near the chambered tomb attempting to record and remove the rubble built up against it in the Iron Age. We have a lot of evidence that the tomb has been altered during this period ( https://www.swandro.co.uk/dig-diary/dig-diary-saturday-21st-july-photo-clean-frenzy) when a large round house was built right on the top of the mound probably recycling stone from the tomb itself.

After finding a new wall on day 1 I carefully excavated a collapsed roof above layers of rubble riddled with voids and pottery all built up to support a rather crudely made wall that was probably part of a cell like structure tacked onto the outside of the tomb. Nothing on this site is simple which is one reason why I like it so much, walls appear then disappear into other buildings, and are refaced many years later, some buildings have been dug out and smaller ones built within, and others have been completely backfilled and built on top of. All this information adds up to give a very complete history of the site. I get to spend all day working on a beach with amazing views and the infamous changeable Orkney weather, which this year has been very kind to us.

Part of the wall structure

It would be very remiss of me not to mention the Pictish smithy, a fantastic partially subterranean building, home to a copperworking smith using Viking technology for the alloys and leaving his (or her) sooty handprints on the stone anvil. Almost every day amazing artefacts are found be it a painted pebble, worked antler or an almost complete pot. I would highly recommend visiting the website set up by the Swandro – Orkney coastal archaeology trust website www.swandro.co.uk for more in depth information including a dig diary!

The very exciting Pictish smithy!

Weekly Round-up

Following on from yesterday’s ‘Ask and Archaeologist’ day we thought we’d do a little office round up to give you an insight into what our staff have been working on this week!

Our Finds and Archive Department have been busy this week preparing finds for archive deposition and preparing material to go off to the relevant specialists. We have also had a number of volunteers come to work with us from the University of Lincoln over the past month and this week we welcomed Roksana and Louise who have been washing various finds from some of our recent sites and marking the pottery ready for archive deposition.

Roksana and Louise marking some pottery from a recent site

The head of our geophysics team, Rob, has been doing some digitisation for a large linear infrastructure site in Lincolnshire as well as doing a watching brief in a small village just outside Lincoln. Mia, one of our Project Supervisors, has been busy working on some building recording reports for a range of sites in Lancashire and Cambridgeshire.

Rob of our Geophysics team looking very studious!

The Heritage Research Team (affectionately known as Heritage HQ) have been working on a variety of desk-based assessments for sites in Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, and Lancashire. Heritage team member Harvey has been out visiting sites in Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire and has discovered some interesting cropmarks just outside of the Cambridgeshire Archives at Shire Hall which relate to the site of the old county prison. He thought it might have been a Roman building associated with a known Roman settlement to the north. Better luck with your interpretation next time Harvey, it happens to the best of us! Thanks to the effect of the hot weather on the ground, a lot of cropmarks have now become clearly visible across the UK.

Possible cropmarks visible outside of the Cambridgeshire Archives

And of course, our field teams have been busy across the country! With sites in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire (amongst others!) our field archaeologists have been working hard to excavate and record an array of archaeological features. We’ve also had some great finds from our sites this week, including some complete Roman vessels from a site in Lincolnshire!

Our field team having fun on site in Leicestershire

So it has been a busy week for us all here at Allen Archaeology and with the food festival coming to Lincoln this weekend I’m sure a few of our staff will be visiting!

Best Site Hut Biscuit with Hazel

Introducing Hazel Taylor, Trainee Project Archaeologist

What is your job role?

Trainee Project Archaeologist

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?

6 weeks

How would describe your excavation technique?

I try to find an edge and work from there… although my sections definitely need work!

How long have you been working in archaeology?

6 weeks but I did two training excavations with my university whilst studying for my degree in History and Archaeology

How did you get into archaeology?

By watching a lot of TimeTeam and visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum as part of a Latin trip when I was at school

What is the best thing about your job?

Learning lots of different skills like using GIS

Specialist skills?

Being able to get mud all over my face and arms without even knowing how it got there…

Best site hut biscuit?

It’s hard to choose between a chocolate bourbon or a fruit shortcake!

Find of the Month, June – Roman graffiti and stamped pottery

Written by Cova Escandon (Project Supervisor, Archives)

This month has brought us some very lovely finds including some stamped pottery and roman graffiti from a site in Staffordshire!

Graffiti was common in Roman times and was probably considered a type of self-expression. In Pompeii, more than eleven thousand examples have been unearthed. The graffiti covered all sorts of subjects, from mockery, poems, love declarations, puns, political propaganda, advertising for rent, and prostitutes… even announcements like a reward for returning a copper pot stolen from a shop! There are also numerous examples of what seems to be people practising alphabet letters or sentences in order to learn to write or improve their skills, a sensible idea considering paper was very expensive, and walls were free!

As well as graffiti, pottery was sometimes marked with a stamp. This was sometimes done as the pottery was loaded into the kiln, often as they were of communal use. Since the work was standardized and stylistically homogeneous, a record was kept of the number of ceramics loaded into the kiln. This could also be recorded on a plate baked with the rest of pottery. It is also possible that the ceramicist wanted to sign their work. Here are a few examples of stamped mortaria and stamped samian ware, recently excavated from a site in Staffordshire. The stamp on the mortarium sherd is an example of the work of the potter Brucius or Bruccius who is believed to have been based at Brockley Hill during the period AD 80-100 (Fiske 2018). It can be closely paralleled with an example from Gorse Stacks in Chester (Cuttler et al 2012, Fig. 2.22.61; M2).

The samian ware stamp is believed to read ‘AVSTRIM’.

Stamped mortaria from a site in Staffordshire

Stamped samain ware an excavation in Staffordshire

Stamped samian ware from a site in Staffordshire

In graffiti, the inscription was made by scratching into the wet clay with a pointed tool. It is written in Roman Cursive Script, the everyday form of handwriting. It would be used by merchants keeping business records, children learning to write, and quick informal text. It was most commonly used between the 1^st Century BC and the 3^rd Century AD and was often used to provide a description of the contents of the pot!

We think it possibly reads as ‘ulvia’ – what are you interpretations?

Roman amphora with grafito inscription from a site in Staffordshire

Many thanks to H. G. Fiske for providing a written interpretation of the stamped mortarium sherd (Fiske 2018).

Cuttler, R., Hepburn, S., Hewitson, C. and Krawiec, K., 2012, Gorse Stacks – 2000 Years of Quarrying and Waste Disposal in Chester, BAR British Series 563, Birmingham Archaeology Series No. 13

Why do we examine pottery?

By Alice Beasley, Project Archaeologist

Pottery is one of the most frequently found artefacts and it is used to determine the date, status and use of a site. Today I have chosen to write about 3 ceramic vessels found within graves from a site to the south of Lincoln to illustrate how artefacts both clarify and confuse the process of determining date. The excavated part of the cemetery consisted of 23 individuals buried in a variety of directions and positions but in rough rows expected of a cemetery. Other features uncovered included pits, ditches and pottery kilns dating from the 2^nd century AD and a large quarry pit with 4^th century AD finds. These vessels were the only ceramic grave goods and will be used to date the burials more accurately than the stratigraphy would allow because most of the graves are discrete features – they do not cut into nor are they disturbed by other features on site.

Pottery vessels found in graves from a site to the south of Lincoln

The first vessel has been painted with a cream slip in a double zig zag over a dark brown colour coat. It is a pear-shaped beaker very similar to vessels produced in the Nene Valley in the 4th century. Interestingly this pot has no rim. “Ritual killing” of vessels is when a pot is broken or pierced in such a way that its original function is removed. Beakers are presumed to be drinking vessels so by removing the rim it’s function has been taken away. The break is very jagged and fresh suggesting that it occurred around the time of burial.

The second vessel is also a colour coated beaker, again produced in the 4^th century. It is known as a slit folded beaker, about half of this vessel is missing and there are no signs of the purposeful damage seen on the first vessel as the breaks show signs of wear. Another example of this type of pot was found in Lincoln in a rubbish dump at The Park (Darling 1988, fig 39, 437).

These two vessels would lead us to believe the burials are of a 4^th century date, which stratigraphically makes sense assuming that all the bodies were buried within a short period of time as a small number of them cut into earlier ditches.

The third vessel is a complete carinated bowl in a local greyware fabric. This type of vessel is fairly common in Lincoln during the mid to late 2^nd century. Affectionately named the B334 this vessel is known to have been produced in Roxby, Newton-on-Trent and Market Rasen and presumably other locations that are yet to be identified (Darling et al. 2014, 136). The beakers suggest the graves are much later than the rest of the activity on site but the bowl suggests a contemporary date. Was the pot buried soon after it had been used? Has it been kept for over 100 years to later be buried with someone? Is this an earlier grave associated with the other features on site? The pot has been used, there is some damage to the rim that has been worn smooth over time so it is possible it was an heirloom, especially as the grave cut aligns with the rest in the row which would suggest it was of a similar date to the other two graves.

The production dates of these pots will be used in conjunction with the archaeological and osteological (skeleton) information, so the final interpretation is not reliant on these three vessels alone, but understanding them it goes a long way to help us tell their story.

References:

Darling, M J, 1988, The pottery in Darling, M J and Jones M J (ed), 9-37; 46-50

Darling M J and Precious B, 2014, A corpus of roman pottery from Lincoln, Lincoln archaeological studies 6, Oxford: Oxbow

Jones, M J (ed.), 1999, The defences of the lower city, excavations at the Park and West Parade 1970-2 and a discussion of other sites excavated up to 1994, The Archaeology of Lincoln, 7-2, York: CBA res rep, 114

Find of the Month, May – Early Neolithic arrow head

By Cova Escandon, Archives Project Supervisor

This month we have chosen this beauty! It is an Early Neolithic leaf-shaped arrow head and it comes from a site we are currently working on in Grantham.

Early Neolithic leaf-shaped arrow head from a site in Grantham

Arrow heads were manufactured by using a small antler tine to push tiny pieces off a bigger stone; a technique known as pressure-flaking. They were then used as projectile points mounted on the tip of a wooden shaft. We are not sure if they were propelled by a bow or were part of a spear as wooden artefacts don’t survive very often.

These leaf-shaped arrow heads dominated the Early Neolithic era (4,000-3,200BC), becoming less common in the Mid Neolithic and scarce in Late Neolithic. Later arrow heads followed designs with ‘barbs’, that made them more effective, but these leaf-shaped ones were easier to make.

Some are incredibly thin and delicate, too fragile to be used for hunting or violence, and some scholars believe that they were status symbols, as they required an immense amount of skill to make. But it is not that simple, as some of these very delicate arrow heads show traces of having been used…

But why do these Early Neolithic groups start manufacturing these new arrow heads? The Neolithic Revolution had begun! The clearance of the woodland in order to get it ready for harvesting had drastically changed the environment, and it was more difficult for the hunter to get close to the prey. One theory suggests that this type of arrow head offered a more aerodynamic and effective killing tool with an increased range and penetration.

This alteration of the environment was already happening during the Mesolithic. But the Neolithic saw massive deforestation to make room for farmland, dramatically transforming the landscape.

This Neolithic Revolution not only brought economic and technological change, it also saw deep social transformation. Knapping tools changed from being a survival skill learnt by everyone, to an artisan trade done by specialists in the community. The groups settled in territories, and the foundations of new social hierarchies were established.

The attachment to the land brought an increase in violence as control of the territory was key in order to survive.

Examples of these bloody episodes have been seen at archaeological sites such as Belas Knap Long Barrow in Gloucestershire and Wayland’s Smithy in Oxfordshire, where there is evidence of blows to the head or arrow wounds in dead deposited there, and at Hambledon Hill in Dorset, there is evidence of the defensive palisades being burnt. Leaf-shaped arrow heads are the most commonly found artefact in British Neolithic tombs. As usual, we end up with more questions than answers. Why did society change? Farming requires much more work than hunting-gathering and one so why did they change their way of living?

Whilst Britain was still in the Late Mesolithic, a big part of Southern Europe was already embracing the Neolithic Revolution. Can we attribute the beginning of the Neolithic in the UK to sea-borne colonialists from continental Europe, or to the influence of locals who were in touch with the continent?

This is certainly a beautiful artefact, no doubt about that. But it is also a window to a fascinating and mysterious time of change.

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