Tag Archives | Archaeology

Inspiring the Next Generation, Part 2: Creating an Excavation Exhibit for a Children’s Museum

By on July 13, 2012 in Community Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Education, Excavation, Museum Archaeology

Our project coinciding with the Day of Archaeology 2012 was to build up an “excavation” for children to dig at the Cheshire Children’s Museum in Keene, NH, USA. The excavation activity will be in the Egypt themed area. At first I fretted over how we could possibly replicate an Egyptian excavation within our 2 m x 1 m box (that just wasn’t going to happen!). I decided to focus on simply portraying a few main ideas–the measured square units that archaeologists dig; the idea of layers– so that this excavation activity would look more like archaeology and a little less like a sandbox.

I am very lucky that my husband Randall, an architect, designer, and person who knows how to make anything with fiberglass, agreed to help with this project. First we stacked sheets of foam into an excavation grid with several different “layers.” After a messy first attempt that caused some of our materials to self-destruct, Randall worked with sticky resin and fiberglass fabric to mold the excavation units and places for artifacts, while I made some “ancient” ceramic sherds out of pots from Agway. (As I mentioned in my preliminary post, it proved to be rather difficult to find suitable artifact replicas to purchase for the exhibit.) Later, we applied more sloppy glue and a bucket of sand to the fiberglass surface, and glued the artifacts into their layers (based on rather loose relative dating).

Creating archaeology = messy basement!

What a relief when we delivered this mold to the museum and it fit right into its designated crate! To this will be added some loose sand, so that children can dig and discover the artifacts. Setting the scene further will be excavation tools (or, children’s shovels, etc.) and grid indicators/measurements, and an Egyptian desert mural behind the excavation. In addition to digging, we plan to provide clipboards so that children can choose to draw or record their finds. Based on my 7-year-old’s suggestion, we’ll also provide an “artifact report”/ “fun facts” sheet for each of the artifacts. She and her sister are really excited to learn more about these mysterious items, so I’m hoping that will be true for all the local children who visit the museum!

The mock excavation table, in situ in its museum home.

If time, space, and budgets permit, I’d love to add additional activities or games, perhaps some puzzle activities for the younger children. But this is only one small part of a museum with many different topics and activities. So for now, if a few children share in the fun of discovery, and leave with some idea that real archaeological excavation involves those neat square holes in the ground,* or if a few children are inspired to learn about ancient cultures, we’ll be thrilled!

 

*My subliminal anti-looting message for the youngsters!

In addition to thanking Randall Walter, who did all the dirty work here, I’d also like to thank the Cheshire Children’s Museum for the opportunity to work on this fun project, and Rita Elliott, a fellow archaeologist who, although I have never met her, took time out to discuss with me ideas for “mock excavation” activities. Thank you!


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Digging in the Archives: Re-Discovering the Excavations of John D. Evans

By on July 10, 2012 in DayOfArch2012, Education, Excavation, Prehistory

I saw the poster for the Day of Archaeology (DoA) in our lift and thought I’d join in, looking at the importance of archives to the documentation and re-interpretation of older excavations. I planned to focus on archives related to the first century of excavations by a fairly eccentric cast of characters from the British School at Athens, at Knossos in Crete, where I am currently working. But in the event, I’ve been side-tracked in quite different directions, digging into the archives of John Evans, allowing me to dip into archaeology in five countries in one day, all without leaving an overcast London.

Last July, one of the former Directors of the Institute here in London, Professor John Davies Evans, died at the age of 86. I didn’t know John well, we had only met a few times, but we had a good talk at a workshop held at Sheffield in 2006, organised in honour of John and his excavations at Knossos in 1958-60 and 1969-70, which provide the entire framework for, and our most comprehensive evidence supporting, our understanding of the four millennia of the Neolithic period on Crete (see V. Isaakidou and P. Tomkins (eds) 2008. Escaping the Labyrinth. The Cretan Neolithic in Context. Oxford: Oxbow Books). As we talked, it was clear John was extremely pleased that his work at the site was still considered so fundamental, and he was also immensely relieved to be able to hand over the completion of its publication to others.

Fig. 1. Saliagos. Left: the islet of Saliagos; right: the main trench

I was working at Knossos on a current project when I learned of John’s death. I knew that while he had handed over much of his Knossos excavation archive, a large amount of the original documentation had not yet been collected from him. This was needed for the full publication of his excavations, and would eventually be archived in the British School at Athens.

Fig. 2. John Evans sorting Saliagos pottery on Antiparos

Via e-mail, I contacted his family, and we agreed that on my return from Crete in September, I would collect his academic papers, sort them, and determine how and where it would be most appropriate to archive them. With my Institute colleague Andrew Reynolds, and with help from John Lewis of the Society of Antiquaries, we collected all of John’s academic papers, and they have been taking up about half of my office ever since. (On the plus side, any meeting involving more than one other person has had to take place elsewhere – fa’coffee.)

Fig. 3. Excavations in the central court of the Minoan palace at Knossos

My original hope of sorting the papers over the Christmas or Easter breaks disappeared behind mountains of marking, and it was only last week, when I finished that and could take over one of our vacant teaching rooms to unpack it all, that I had a chance to find out what’s there. Now having consolidated it into some 40 boxes, in place of the odd assortment of boxes, suitcases, a filing cabinet, card and slide chests and a full chest of drawers, I now don’t have to slam my door whenever our fire safety officer walks by.

One of our recent PhD graduates who specialises in the history of archaeology, Amara Thornton, very kindly gave up her week to help me, and we’ve done a first sort of everything. So we now have an overview of the material, which allows us to approach others who we suspect may be interested in particular elements of the archive, and gives us an idea of the scale of the further detailed cataloguing which will be involved. I have no idea when we will be able to do this, and we will have to find some funding, as there will be a couple of months worth of work involved. But particularly relevant to today, are John’s excavation records, so let’s go digging in the archives, working, as archaeology usually does, from the known to the unknown.

I was familiar with John’s excavations on the tiny Greek Cycladic islet of Saliagos, co-directed with Colin Renfrew in 1964-65 and published in 1968 as Excavations at Saliagos Near Antiparos. [Figs 1-2 above] I talked a local boatman into taking me to the tiny offshore islet about 20 years ago to see the over-grown ruins, so seeing colour slides of the site under excavation was a treat. Colin handed over the bulk of the excavation archive to the British School some years ago, but John kept his correspondence and many slides, so I’ll copy a few for teaching, before I pack them off to Athens.

I was also very familiar with John’s Knossos excavations (Fig. 3 above and Fig. 4 below) from 1958-60 and 1969-70, through my own work at the site (our current project was the subject of a post for last year’s DoA by my colleague Andrew Shapland at the British Museum). The eight boxes of notebooks, finds lists, photos, and numerous rolls of plans and sections will be absolutely essential to complete the full publication of this major excavation. I’ve scanned and sent a couple of documents to Peter Tomkins in Leuven, which I know will help his current work on reconstructing the development of the Neolithic community.

Fig. 4. The deep sounding in the central court at Knossos

John is particularly well known for sorting out the sequence of prehistoric occupation on Malta, documented in his 1959 Malta in the classic Thames and Hudson ‘Peoples and Places’ series, and in more detail in his monumental survey of Maltese prehistory, The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands, published in 1971. [Fig. 5 below] Tucked away in the latter are extremely succinct accounts of small but strategic stratigraphic tests he did in 1953-55 in eight Maltese monuments, which enabled him to establish the cultural sequence used in his publications (and still valid) to organise the results from all previous investigations. I have found about 100 photographic negatives and some section sketches from these excavations, but so far, no detailed excavation notes, nor any plans; it is just possible he archived these in Malta, and any plans may be hiding among the many rolls of drawings which I have yet to sort through individually [Fig. 6 below].

Fig. 5. John Evans on Malta, 1954-56.

An exciting surprise was recognising several original excavation notebooks by other investigators on Malta, from 1911 to 1930, which John must have brought back to the UK to draw on for his synthesis, and over 300 early photos of sites and excavations, which should go to the archive of the National Museum in Malta. Some of these seem to have come to John from the Palestine Exploration Fund, and a note says ominously ‘Harris Colt Malta orig: throw away if not wanted 20s or 30s’ – thankfully he didn’t!

I’ve e-mailed a former student, Anthony Pace, now the superintendent for cultural heritage on Malta, to work out how best to return this material. I hope we can locate John’s excavation notes, and link these with his abundant photographic documentation. As well as photos documenting his own tests, there are some 600 negatives of pottery and other finds, only some of which were used in his 1971 volume. More significant are some 300 negatives representing site visits he made in the early 1950s, only a few of which were eventually published, which document the condition of many monuments half a century ago. Altogether, this might just be the spur for a busman’s holiday to Malta, which I’ve wanted to visit for over 30 years.

Fig. 6. Malta excavations 1954. Left: Hagr Qim trench E; right: Mnajdra trench C

What I wasn’t at all familiar with, were John’s unpublished excavations, and I spent the week dashing off to the library, doing web-searches or sending e-mails to colleagues and former students, each time I stumbled across a new paper trail. With some follow-ups this week, I think I’ve now got the outlines, and since none of them are in my own field of specialisation, they generate some of the excitement of discovery, without having to say au revoir to decent coffee.

The first surprise was an excavation John conducted jointly with Francisco Jordá Cerdá of the Seminario de Historia Primitiva del Hombre, in 1950, at the earlier Bronze Age Argaric site of La Bastida de Totana in south-east Spain. This was the last in a series of campaigns in a settlement with abundant intra-mural burials. [Fig. 7 below] I haven’t yet discovered any correspondence to indicate why John got involved, but he spent much of that year in Spain researching his PhD dissertation on the possible relations between Argaric Spain and Early Bronze Age Anatolia. The specifics of how he got involved in the project may eventually emerge from his papers, though I’ve found no clues so far.

Fig. 7. La Bastida, 1950. Left: the excavation area; right: jar burial.

An e-mail to a Spanish former PhD student, Borja Legarra Herrero, now working in both the Aegean and Spain, pointed me to the web-site of the recently resumed excavations at the site, now one of the largest field projects in Spai. There, and in interim publications, the directors indicate that in 2009 John had sent them the original excavation notebooks of his Spanish collaborator, which had been bequeathed to him in 1960, along with a photocopy of his own 1950 excavation notebook (still among his papers). [Fig. 8 below] Seemingly over-looked by John at that time, are 78 cards mounted with excavation photographs, primarily of burials in situ, identified by burial and context. These relate to the 1944-45 seasons of excavations, before John became involved in the project; there must be an interesting story of personalities and politics behind why these were sent to John, but whether we can piece it together from surviving clues at either end remains to be seen.

By chance, I had taught Roberto Risch, a co-director of the new project, during his MA nearly 20 years ago, and an e-mail out of the blue from me received a reply within a couple of hours (though he cut it short because the Portugal vs Czech Republic Euro 2012 game was starting – I guess we all have priorities).

Fig. 8. La Bastida, 1950, excavation notebook

While the notebooks John sent them have allowed members of the current project to restudy the original material for publication, they had not come across these photographs in any archive in Spain, and they have had difficulty reconstructing the contexts of individual burials. (Purely coincidentally, Borja and Roberto met at a conference in Denmark a few weeks ago, and had arranged to meet for dinner while the former is working with me, and the latter is on holiday, on Crete in August; Borja planned to bring me along, though hadn’t yet mentioned it to me – I think I’d better go via the cashpoint, just to play it safe.)

So the first of today’s tasks has been to finish scanning these photographs. Ultimately, I hope the originals will be returned to Spain for archiving with the other dig records and the finds in the newly built museum at the site. In the meantime, the scans should assist the study of the old material, which has been going on for several years, and Roberto is going to get back to me for higher resolution scans of some of the photos, for incorporation into the new museum displays.

The second surprise was a series of small notebooks, a few photographs, more negatives, a few small bags with potsherds, and a box with 1/3 of a skull, from John’s 1956 excavation of three Bronze Age barrows at Earl’s Farm Down, just east of Amesbury, ca. 6 kilometres south-east of Stonehenge. [Fig. 9 below]

John Evans at Earl’s Farm Down, 1956

Amara had her laptop with her, and a Google led to the Wiltshire sites and monuments record, which, while not seemingly aware of John’s excavation, noted the excavation of four nearby barrows by Paul Ashbee in 1956. A quick run up to the library to consult Ashbee’s 1983 publication in the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine confirms which barrows were excavated by John, so we can put them on the map. A contemporary report (by John – uncredited, but the typescript is among his papers), included in N. Thomas 1958, ‘Excavation and field-work in Wiltshire: 1956′ Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 56:238-40) provides information on each barrow, and indicates that these, as well as Ashbee’s excavations, were undertaken for the Department of the Environment, so this seems to have been fill-in employment just before John took up his appointment as Professor of Prehistoric European Archaeology at the Institute, to succeed Gordon Childe. [Fig. 10 below]

 

Fig. 10. Earl’s Farm Down, 1956, excavation notebook

A much later letter mentions in passing that John thought the finds were all stored in the Institute. On the off chance that there were more than the few sherds he had kept with the notebooks, I fired off an e-mail to my colleague Rachel Sparks, who manages our collections, only to get her out of office message – jury duty! However, that evening I got a message back that a search of the records suggests we have material from Earl’s Farm Down which wasn’t identified as John’s excavation in our records, so has been in that special limbo all collections have for under-documented material.

So the second of today’s tasks has been to see whether this material is from the barrows, and to get an idea of the potential size of a publication project. The writing on the bags is John’s, and the recording system matches that on the few bags he kept with his notes, so that’s confirmed (see Rachel’s DoA entry). There is a fair collection of material, and with it in the box were a few more negatives, as well as a few finds from other sites which had been mis-filed in the same box. So confirmation for me, a few mysteries back to limbo for Rachel to try to sort out – but fewer than she started her DoA with, so I’d say we’re winning.

Writing-up this excavation should be suitable as a student dissertation project, possibly for publication in WAM (I mentioned it in passing to Andrew Reynolds, the editor, and he’s interested), after which the finds and records should probably be archived with other local material in the Salisbury Museum.

A third surprise was that John conducted a single season of trial tests in 1972 in collaboration with local archaeologists at the Iron Age hillfort of Segovia in southern Portugal. John’s principal academic interests were in the Mediterranean Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, so what led him to get involved in a major Iron Age and Roman site? [Fig. 11 below] Hopefully there will be some hint when I can work through the documentation and correspondence systematically.

Again, purely coincidentally, his Portuguese collaborator, José Morais Arnaud, was completing his PhD at Cambridge when I began mine in 1980, and Teresa Judice Gamito expanded the 1972 trenches in connection with her own doctoral research in the early 1980s, publishing her thesis with BAR (Social Complexity in Southwest Iberia 800-300 B.C.), which we have upstairs, though we don’t have the Portuguese journal where she reported her excavations. Her summary indicates the importance of the excavation, providing the principal regional stratified sequence from the Late Bronze Age through the Roman conquest.

Fig 11. Segovia, 1972. Left: site; right, summit trenches

The documentation for this excavation is more extensive, involving several trench notebooks, photos, plans, sections and finds drawings, which I will need more time to sort through. Because the trenches were subsequently extended, I expect John gave his collaborators copies of everything, but I’m chasing this up with José to see if we can supply whatever may be needed for their archives, to facilitate future study.

Following this trial field season, John became Director of the Institute, and administration seems to have taken over his life (a feeling all of us are now experiencing) and he stopped fieldwork; he was only able to return to working on his excavations after his retirement, as several boxes of transcribed notebooks, finds and photo lists for Knossos, along with a large box of computer disks testify (now I have to find a working Amstrad computer, to read the disks, to make sure we have copies of all the relevant files).

Sorting the Segovia records, along with more detailed cataloguing of all of John’s papers, will have to wait until sometime in the winter at earliest, when I may get another chance to unpack the boxes. So I’ve just had to figuratively back-fill my excavation in the archives, until the next season.
But as a final surprise, my query to Rachel about Earl’s Farm Down, has turned-up other materials in our storerooms, brought in by John, and checking these with Rachel is my third task for the DoA, which she has noted in her own DoA account. As well as various small bits of pottery useful for teaching purposes, given to John by excavators during his early travels in Spain, which we may be able to document more fully (presently simply catalogued by site name), two more significant collections exist. We have the human and animal skeletal material from his excavation of six communal rock-cut tombs at Xemxija on Malta. Summary reports on this material were included as appendices in John’s 1971 volume, but more could now be done to study the human remains in terms of community demography, the health and life history of individuals, and the social and ritual contexts of burial; the much smaller collection of animal bones holds much less potential. The former would repay new study, particularly in comparison with more recently excavated material, and could make an excellent dissertation project for a student on our MSc in skeletal and dental bioarchaeology.

The second collection consists of two boxes of carbonised plant remains and soil samples (to which I can add another box John had at home) from Knossos. The site is one of half a dozen representing the earliest Neolithic communities in Europe, established ca. 7000 BC. The plant remains were originally studied as part of the British Academy’s Major Research Project on the Early History of Agriculture, with John taking enthusiastic advantage of the newly developed flotation recovery technique and fine sieving in his 1969-70 excavations. The botanical samples from the two different campaigns were distributed among different specialists in the UK and Denmark.

I had hoped we could track down all of these through the paper trail of John’s administrative correspondence for the project – I wasn’t expecting to find any still in London. Checking them, they are still in bags with their context labels (Rachel and I took the opportunity to replace a few fragile bags) so their study should contribute to our understanding of early agriculture in the Aegean. I’ve notified Valasia Isaakidou of Sheffield University of this material, as she is co-ordinating the study and publication of the environmental and bioarchaeological material recovered by John at Knossos.

Finally, still completely unexplored, are some rolls of plans and a box with the documentation and a few finds from several small excavations conducted by John’s wife, Evelyn Sladdin, before she started her undergraduate degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge and met John. She published one, but the others, small Roman and Medieval digs, apparently not. I may have to pencil-in the ‘excavation’ of that multi-site box for the DoA next year.

So what’s next? My priority for the autumn and winter, to fit in around teaching, will be to catalogue the Knossos documentation, about five times as much as all the rest together, as this major excavation is actively being worked up for publication by a number of colleagues, and the full documentation is eagerly awaited. Peter Tomkins, who is writing-up the stratigraphy and pottery from John’s excavations, and synthesising this with his own extensive work with Sir Arthur Evans’ tests below the Bronze Age palace, is coming to London in September for a meeting at the Society of Antiquaries being organised to commemorate John’s career, so I hope we can start going through this material together then.

It’s frustrating to have started this ‘excavation’, but have to leave it – but then most real excavations are like that too. This has turned into a far larger, but also much more interesting task than I anticipated nearly a year ago when I contacted John’s family. From my conversation with John in 2006, when he was both pleased that his excavations at Knossos were still important, and relieved that their publication would be completed, I’m sure he would approve our excavating his archive, to make the material available to other researchers.

This Day of Archaeology marks the last attention I can give to it for some time, but has clarified what we have, and what we need to do next. Realistically, considering the job ahead (and there is a lot more to his papers than just his excavation documentation), I think it may be some time before I’ll see the floor on that half of my office again. It’s been busy but intriguing – and it isn’t often that one can dig into archaeology in five different countries in one day.

Today has also brought home forcefully three things that confront me every time I work on Knossian material: how productive and cost effective re-examining older material can be, despite the constant push to recover new evidence with up-to-date techniques; that we have a responsibility to squeeze as much information as we can out of what we dig up – it is a non-renewable resource; and how crucial it is to understand our own disciplinary history – who collected what, when and why – to understand that evidence most effectively.

I’d like to thank Judith and Mike Conway, John Lewis, Andrew Reynolds, Kelly Trifilo, Stephen Shennan, Cathy Morgan, Peter Warren, Sandra Bond, Katie Meheux and Gabe Moshenska who helped arrange for and assisted the transfer of the material to the Institute of Archaeology; Lisa Fentress, Reuben Grima, Borja Legarra Herrero, José Morais Arnaud, Anthony Pace, Colin Renfrew, Artur Ribeiro, Roberto Risch and Tim Schadla-Hall for responding to my queries; Stuart Laidlaw for scanning slides and negatives; Amara Thornton for helping me sort John’s papers and providing details about some of the colourful characters who dug on the then colonial ‘circuit’; Rachel Sparks for chasing Institute collections records, digging out John’s material from the Institute storerooms, and helping me look through it; and the DoA folks for coping with this submission.

All images from J. D. Evans archive.

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My Day at Grave Creek Mound

By on July 9, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Education, Museum Archaeology

A Day in Archaeology at Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex, for this volunteer, means doing whatever is necessary to help the staff of the complex.

This location consists of a mound built from 250 BC to 150 BC by Early Woodland Indians to honor three persons who held some position of regard in their culture, a museum which holds exhibits of the Adena culture of these Indians, and provides background of other West Virginia sites and Adena mounds.  Added to this is the history of efforts of modern man to preserve the Mound. A recent addition to the museum is the research complex which houses and archives artifacts found throughout the State of West Virginia and also archives reports and other written material relevant to prehistoric and historical archaeology for the State.

I began volunteering two years ago after having retired from a social service agency here in West Virginia.  I have been interested in archaeology since I was 13, but at that time I thought it was done only in Egypt, so I put my energies into other studies.  It was unfortunate for me that as a teenager I was not aware that two very important archaeological sites (Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania and Grave Creek Mound in West Virginia) were within a 30-mile radius of my home, and if I had been born 10 years later (and had good vocational guidance), I may have had the opportunity to work on one of the sites as part of an undergraduate or graduate program.

In my current volunteer experience I have done many things, the most important to me being work with the exhibits.  I have been doing data-entry of all the text in the core displays of the museum. The original intent of this effort was that by converting this information into digital form it would enable it to be accessible to those with vision impairment (as a social service worker, this was one population with which I became concerned).  To supplement the text, I would enter a description of the accompanying display.  I started this project nearly two years ago and I am still at it.

There are two major secondary benefits to this project.  This information documents the exhibits which will be helpful for future work with exhibits and public programs.  Also, my having to read (and re-read) every single word of each display has familiarized me with the exhibit to such an extent that I am comfortable in providing an introduction to the museum for the visitors.

Today three of us are working and it is a busy day in the summer. In my three hours here today, I am needed at the front desk, to greet visitors and help customers in the gift shop. I provide an orientation to the exhibits to 24 adults and 11 children, some coming individually and others in small groups. Some of these visitors came from Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina,  Arkansas and Louisiana. In addition, 25 people came as part of a cub scout troop for an educational program and activities conducted by Andrea, the educator on staff.  After Andrea took the cub scouts and their adult leaders outside to do a demonstration, and then to try their hand in atlatl-throwing, the museum became quiet. I would have liked to have gone out to watch them — 8-12 year old competitive boys, doing something outside their normal activities. I enjoy watching young people learn about the Indians and archaeology, but a large group is difficult to manage — thank goodness for Andrea.

I would advise anyone who has an interest in archaeology to volunteer at a place like this.  The staff is appreciative of the help and shows it by word and deed. They include me in many of their activities and conferences, so that I get hands-on experiences and hear presentations from experts in various fields of studies.   Having the opportunity to go through the exhibits on a weekly basis provides me with vastly more knowledge of the subject matter than anyone can hope to acquire in just occassional visits to the museum.

 

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Adopt-a-Monument

By on July 6, 2012 in Community Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Education

Hello, my name is Cara Jones and work for Archaeology Scotland, as the Adopt-a-Monument Project Officer. Adopt-a-Monument is a five year scheme which supports and facilitates local archaeology groups who wish to conserve and promote their local heritage. The scheme is community led and we work through-out Scotland – from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway. In addition to our more traditional projects, we are also funded to do outreach projects – taking archaeology to non-traditional heritage audiences.

My Day of Archaeology post is about one of our Adopt-a-Monument outreach projects – The Claypits. In 2011, Adopt-a-Monument was contacted by the Friends of Possil Park to see if we could help with their greenspace improvement initiative for an area of apparent waste land in central Glasgow. Flanked by the Forth Clyde canal, the area has a industrial past, linked to the development of Glasgow in the 18th and 19th century. On first impression, the Claypits does look like an un-inviting, littered and burnt out car dump kind of place – the type of place you avoid and definitely not a space where you would enjoy and appreciate. However, once you start to work there, get to know the local people and start researching the past and present use of the site, Claypits transforms into a valuable greenspace within urbanised landscape. I enjoy many things about this project, but one great aspect is that isn’t just about archaeology – we are working in collaboration with ecologists (it’s a great newt and frog site!), artists, a lovely local councillor, fishermen (Get Hooked on Fishing – a great youth engagement project), canoeists, mountain bikers, the local allotment association, Scottish Canals and the Waterways Trust. I’m sure I’ve missed someone out, but it is a great example of successful partnership working.

Team meeting before the event starts

But I digress! My Day of Archaeology was the ‘Bats, Beasties and Buried Treasure’ event, held at the Claypits on the 30th June 2012. Aimed at local people (and in particular local families) the open day encourages the use and enjoyment of their local greenspace. We ran several activities which included the dig box and ancient crafts, a treasure hunt and storytelling – all linked to the archaeology and local history of the area.

(The Dig box!)

 Situated at ‘Base Camp’, the dig box contained replica finds (cattle bone, shell, beads, burnt pot, bone comb etc) which (after discovery) we encourage each child to think like an archaeologist – ‘what do these finds tell us about this location?’, ‘What would we find if we excavated your front room’ – introducing the concept of material culture within a context they understand. Next to the dig box we also had grinding activities (both a replica saddle quern and rotary quern) where children could grind grain into flour, which they could then take away with them. We also had a ‘make your own Neolithic pot’ areas, where children can make a small pinch pot and try and copy groove ware decorations.

Neolithic pot making!

We also organised a treasure hunt – developed by Kate (our placement from Newcastle University) who buried objects which relate to the past use of the site (some old brick from the iron foundry, an old milk bottle from quarry). While guiding them through the site, Kate encouraged children to find the object and then try and think about why the object was there and how it relates to the past use of the landscape. Our storytelling activity did the same thing – Erin (our crack storyteller) developed stories around the local history of the site and surrounding area. Her stories ranged from the time local football club Partick Thistle beat Celtic 4:1 in 1971, to a story about a young girl who disguised herself as a man to work in the quarry on the site at the time of the building of the canal. Storytelling is for us, a new way of disseminating the archaeological and historical background of the site and something we hope to develop further as Adopt-a-Monument goes on.

Erin and her storytelling hour!

Of the 100 to 130 visitors to the site on the day, 59 children took part in our activities, which, taking into account we didn’t have canoes or newts to attract children is not bad going!

Team Archaeology Scotland!

 

 

 

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Drawing Cave Art in Kentucky

By on July 5, 2012 in Expeditions, Historical Archaeology, Prehistory, Survey

“Awe” would be the word that sums up my experiences on the Day of Archaeology. I spent the weekend working in a cave documenting prehistoric rock art; a project that completely ripped me out of my archaeological comfort zone putting me back into the position of archaeological newbie with a lot to learn.

I spent the project under the care of Brandon Ritchison, an archaeologist who recently graduated with a Bachelor Degree from the University of Kentucky and is on the way to a graduate program in the fall. He was building on research he completed for his Undergrad Thesis and intends to present it at the Southeastern Archaeology Conference this year (so you can get all the details about the research project there, I will not share them in this post for a variety of reasons). I owed Brandon some labor in return for his help on my dissertation field work earlier in the year and I had been in caves numerous times during middle and high school field trips to Mammoth Cave National Park. What I didn’t realize was that this was  a “wild cave”… about as far away from Mammoth Cave’s manicured paths, modern lighting, and massive open spaces as you could get.

Packing for this excursion was much different than other projects. We weren’t excavating, just taking photos, drawing, and marking things on a map. My field pack consisted of lots of food and water (it was 106 degrees outside) and light sources (I think I had 7 lights of various sizes), LOTS of replacement batteries, and a long sleeve shirt. Brandon provided a helmet with lantern.

Me geared up and ready to go. I wore a long sleeve shirt in the cave.

The road the lead to the cave was blocked by fallen trees and we had to hike about an hour and a half through the hundred degree weather to the cave entrance. Arriving at the entrance is where I realized that this weekend would be spent outside of my comfort zone.

Instead of a wide cavernous opening (see the Mammoth Cave Website link above for an image of the opening I was expecting) there was a solid rock wall with an opening about .75 meter high at the base of it. I hadn’t asked Brandon about the dimensions of the cave because, honestly, up until that point I hadn’t thought of it. I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of small spaces because, honestly, up until that point I never had to crawl into something so small.

A few things got me through that initial trepidation:

  1. A map showing that the cave opened up after about 14 feet (5 meters) of crawling
  2. curiosity about my own psychological limitations
  3. there was a really cool breeze coming out of the cave… 60 something degrees is a lot better than 106 degrees
  4. knowing that I had already Tweeted about doing this for Day of Archaeology and wanting to post something more fun than stopping at the entrance of a cool cave and turning around.

So with an advanced apology of possibly freaking out, I followed the rest of the team crawling into the ground and then it was instantly dark. I mean REALLY dark, to the point where I really couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or shut. Flicking on the lights illuminated a ceiling covered with cave crickets, there was a salamander, and a few bats.

Cave Crickets covered the ceiling in most areas

 

The map showed that the cave was about 700 ft (200 meters) deep and had multiple passages. The first section that we were standing in was large enough to put a four lane highway in, the ceiling varied from a few stories high to a few feet.

The cave was wet and about half of the walls had been covered in flow stone which had been destroyed by early Kentuckians who mined it and carved the crystalline rock into knick-knacks. The floor was covered with sharp stones from this mining and there were a few traces left of their activity.

 

There was a variety of cave art. Much of it was historic graffiti consisting of names and dates of different visitors to the cave. These were either etched into the walls and ceiling or “candle marked” with the soot from torches, candles, or lanterns.

In certain areas there were prehistoric petroglyphs (art that is incised into the rock). Surprisingly, the only way that most of this art was really visible is when your headlight is off and the wall is indirectly illuminated at an oblique angle. This made collections of zigzag lines and concentric squares stand out in relief. Sometimes it was so faint, I wondered if most of the cave’s visitors even realized that it was there.

The corner of some concentric squares only visible when the light is at an angle.

Lighting made the art very difficult to photograph and draw, but I opted to spend the day drawing a concentration of art several meters long that covered the ceiling. The other option was to belay across a very deep pit and squeeze through a rock tube that was about the diameter of my shoulder width for about 10 meters before reaching the final cavern.

This was the easy part

Being my first time in a wild cave I decided not to push my luck and I would tackle that challenge when I return on a future expedition. After spending about 8 hours in the cave we crawled back out of the cave.

Water on the cave ceiling where I spent most of the day

While the project was fun, the archaeology was interesting, and I was already making a list of caving gear I wanted to buy, but I had never been so glad to see the hot summer sun.

Light at the cave entrance as we were leaving.


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Research paper, desk, keyboard, Archaeologist mug

On the Trail of the Elusive Fallow Deer…

By on July 4, 2012 in DayOfArch2012, Education, Environmental Archaeology, Finds, Iron Age, Osteology, Roman, Science

Research paper, desk, keyboard, Archaeologist mug

I am a part-time postgraduate student, currently working towards an MSc in Archaeological Research at the University of Nottingham, which will take two years to complete. I’ve come back to archaeology after a long break, during which time I have pursued my career in research and academic computing. However, I am still in love with archaeology so my long-held ambition to do a further degree in the subject is at last being realised and I am really enjoying it, despite all the late nights reading and working on essays after I’ve finished my day job. As a mature student, I was concerned at first that I would find it difficult to fit in. However, the staff and my fellow students have been really encouraging, which is helping to make the whole experience very satisfying.

The taught part of our course has finished for this year, so it’s now time to get down to preparing for the research work which will form the basis of the 15,000 word dissertation we must submit and which accounts for a third of the credits on our course. I’m interested in the application of scientific techniques in archaeology, which has influenced my choices of modules, including archaeobotany and zooarchaeology, and my research will be using a fascinating technique, stable isotope analysis, to try to answer some interesting archaeological questions. Continue Reading →

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Education, Community and Irish Archaeological Research

By on July 4, 2012 in DayOfArch2012

Hi. My name is Christina O’Regan and I am the Fieldwork and Educational Director of Irish Archaeological Research (IAR). Three colleagues and I set up this non-profit social organisation in early 2011 with the aim of getting the public more involved with archaeology through education, workshops, and community events. We are all from commercial archaeological backgrounds and wanted to develop our experience in community archaeology.

A focus has been the delivery of school workshops, typically to second level students in years 8 – 12. These workshops begin with a general introduction to the archaeology of Ireland, followed by a practical session varying from how to make and decorate prehistoric-style pottery, learning about diet through artificial ‘poo’ dissection, hands-on interaction with genuine and replica artefacts and prehistoric hunting techniques. These workshops have been incredibly successful, with benefits for students and teachers alike.

My work in IAR varies from day-to-day as I develop workshops, plan for future events and shoot off a few emails to raise the profile of IAR within the archaeological and educational sectors.

For this year’s Festival of British Archaeology, we have decided to host two family-orientated events; the first at Glenariff Forest Park (July 21st & 22nd) and the second at Gosford Forest Park (July 28th & 29th). Our experience with the school workshops has shown us that the more practical the day, the better. Pottery workshops, archery, demonstrations of flint knapping and a children’s activity area will ensure there is something for everyone to enjoy. There will also be a mini museum, with an interactive artefacts table as well as information on the archaeology of the areas where the events will be held (Antrim and Armagh). The Northern Ireland Environment Agency have very generously granted us a loan of some artefacts from both counties and I joyously spent an afternoon sifting through their stores, picking out choice artefacts with the help of Andrew Gault from the Agency. We are also busy planning similar events for National Heritage Week in the Republic of Ireland, August 18th – 26th.

A trial run of the Open Air Museum at the Carnival of Colours, Londonderry showed us the enormous benefits this type of venture can have in increasing awareness of local heritage within communities.

Social media has been a lifeline for IAR with our Facebook page now ‘liked’ by over 1,000 people. The page allows us to announce all of our upcoming events as well as share archaeological discoveries and support other institutions and companies. Facebook also allows us to easily disseminate our free online magazine, Irish Archaeological Research and we have just put out a call for articles for the fourth (summer) edition. As editor of the e-zine, I envisage many late nights over the coming weeks organising layout and thinking up witty headlines!

For more information on any of our events see www.irisharchaeologicalresearch.com

 

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Rescue Excavation at Rochlitz Castle

By on July 4, 2012 in Archaeological Prospection, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Excavation, Historical Archaeology, Medieval, Post Medieval, Survey

June 29, 2012 – Welcome to my day.

My Name is Marcel Dallinger. I got my Magister degree in classical archaeology at Leipzig University in November 2011.

Currently I am working on an excavation in the castle of Rochlitz executed by the State Office for Archaeology Saxony.

Rochlitz itself is a medium-sized town in Saxony/ Germany.

My day starts at 6 a.m. in Sörnzig. After getting up and doing all the things that have to be done in the morning my way leads me to Rochlitz Castle which is approximately 3km away. Fortunately I own a little motorbike so the ride is rather a little trip through fields than a typical commute.

Work starts at 7am. The excavation team meets in our lunchroom. It is luckily the same room where all our equipment is stored therefore we have short distances to everything we need.

The excavation we are working on is a ‘rescue excavation’. The castle yard is about to be renewed completely. This includes new pipes for waste water, fresh water, rain water, earth-wires and all power supply lines. Finally the whole castle yard will get a new cobbled paving.

Thus our task is to excavate all parts of the castle yard which had not been excavated before- and this is approximately 70%. Most of them dates from the late Middle Ages.

The salvage of findings, their documentation and to save them from the dredger is exactly what we are doing there. But I have to say that all the other workers and especially the operator of the dredgers are very friendly and take care of us and the work we are doing. The normal dig goes on with well-known trowels. For measuring we use a tachymeter connected to AutoCad. Because of our lack of time we also do photogrammetrie. Sometimes it is better to draw archaeological records but this needs time that we don’t have. We have our morning break around 9am. After recharging our batteries we keep on revealing the secrets of history from the ground. Of course not every day we make great findings but thanks to the still opened castle museum there is a lot of public business. One day we were surprised by a visit of a television crew. But they were doing a documentary about the new exhibition in the museum so we could watch them filming and interviewing while continuing our work.

The last period of our day is from lunch break at 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. . At the end of our day we give ourselves a pat on the back for another great and interesting day working in the job with the most public Interest: archaeology.


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Local Government Archaeology 2012

Local Government Archaeology 2012

By on July 4, 2012 in Community Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Digital Archaeology

Over  the last year my team have went through a massive restructure (fairly typical local government practice these days), and I was lucky enough to keep my job after being re interviewed. Last year I was HERO (Historic Environment Records Officer) and now I am an Historic Environment Consultant – which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it! I’m now working in a multi-disciplinary team called Place Services, which comprises archaeologists, historic buildings advisors, ecologists, urban designers, landscape architects and strategic environmental planners. We provide a holistic way of managing and protecting all elements of the natural, historic and build environment. Consequently, there have been lots of changes to the type of work I do, and I’m enjoying working on big, multi-disciplinary projects. In the last month I have complete a Conservation Area Appraisal, conducted a visitor participation survey at a castle and wrote part of a  funding application for an exciting community engagement project. Last week was incredibly busy and chaotic, so this week is about catching up on my ‘real’ work. On Monday morning my first task was to deal with some emails, mainly invoices that needed sent out and a few HER enquiries from students. There are always a few final year students who start their dissertation early and need information. I then moved onto checking the weekly planning list for Epping Forest, as I now do the development control archaeology for the district as part of my new role. I checked the weeks planning applications, highlighting any that may have  below ground impact, involve historic buildings or historic areas. By locating the sites on the GIS mapping and referring to the HER,I can check which planning proposals are likely to have an archaeological impact and make recommendations to mitigate damage and record the archaeology. I signed off some documentation so that an excavation can begin in the coming weeks, and wrote a brief for an archaeological contractor for a historic barn recording. Over the rest of the week I will be giving the HER my full attention, we recently scanned our entire gray literature library and I need to transfer the reports onto the network so they can be linked to our database. Next week I will probably have another project design to contribute to, and possibly get a sneak peak at a certain olympics venue before the games start!

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ADS logo

The Archaeology Data Service, keeping the Grey Literature Library going

By on July 4, 2012 in Commercial Archaeology, Community Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Digital Archaeology, Education, Excavation, Finds, Periods, Survey

Welcome to another post to the Archaeology Data Service (ADS)  Day of Archaeology blog 2012

If you want a quick introduction to the ADS and what we do see last year’s post.

We have contributions from two members of staff from the ADS this year, one from Stuart Jeffrey ADS deputy Director (Access) and this one from Ray Moore one of the ADS Digital Archivists.

ADS logoRay Moore

As a digital archivist at the Archaeology Data Service, my day to day activities involve the accessioning the digital data and other outcomes of archaeological research that individuals and institutions deposit with us, developing a preservation programme for that data, but also curating existing ADS collections.

Today, and indeed for the past week, I have spent much of my time working on the Grey Literature Library (or GLL).  The GLL is an important resource for those amateur and professional archaeologists working in archaeology today providing access to the many thousands of unpublished fieldwork reports, or grey literature, produced during the various assessments, surveys and fieldwork carried out throughout the country. These activities are recorded using OASIS (or Online AccesS to the Index of archaeological investigationS) and after passing through a process of validation and checking the reports produced in these projects arrive at the ADS. On first impressions then the digital archive may seem like an ‘end point’, a place where archaeological grey literature goes to die, but the ADS, through the GLL, makes these reports available to other archaeologists and the wider community allowing the grey literature to inform future research. At the same time as a digital archive we take steps to preserve these reports so that future generations can continue to use the information that they contain; an important job as many of these reports do not exist in a printed form.

Grey Literature Reports

Reports from the Grey Literature Library.

So what does digitally archiving a grey literature report entail? Initially all the grey literature reports must be transferred from OASIS to the ADS archive; the easiest part of the process. More often than not the report comes in a Portable Document Format (or PDF) form, and while this is useful for sharing documents electronically it is pretty useless as preservation format for archiving. One of my jobs is to convert these files into a special archival form of PDF, called PDF/A (the A standing for Archive). Sound’s easy, but often it can take some work to get from PDF to PDF/A (my all time record is 2 hours producing a 900mb PDF/A file). These conversions must also be documented in the ADS’ Collection Management System so that other archivists can see what I did to the file to preserve the file and its content. While OASIS collects metadata associated with project, the ADS uses a series of tools to generate file level metadata specific to the creation of the file, so that we can understand what and how the file was created. Only once these processes are complete can the file be transferred to the archive, with a version also added to the GLL so that people can download and read the report. With a through flow of some 5 to 600 reports per month the difficulties of the task should become apparent; and all this alongside my other duties as a digital archivist. This month’s release includes an interesting report on The Olympic Park Waterways and Associated Built Heritage Structures which stood on the site now occupied by the Olympic Park. Anyway I’d better get back to it!

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