Whitehawk Hill Excavations

I was not planning on joining this new Brighton dig that began last week (only for the month of August) but curiously, I found myself out there two days ago on my day off. And I'm glad I went. The view of Brighton and the sea is absolutely stunning from this site. The day started off with a glorious blue sky only to abruptly change to storm clouds by mid afternoon. The storm hit just as I got home to Lewes around 16:30, so we were quite lucky to get in an entire day of excavations unscathed by inclement weather.

There were plenty of volunteers from the BHAS and professionals from Archaeology South-East as well as a few newcomers. The newcomers including myself were given an induction to the site. From what we were told this site dates back to the Neolithic (different from the Neolithic period anywhere else in Europe since it started later around 4500 B.C.E. - 2500 B.C.E.) when a new wave of European immigrants brought farming technology to this island and settled in communities, most likely greatly impacting the status quo of the indigenous people as hunter-gatherers.

A reconstruction by Ian Dennis of the
Whitehawk causewayed enclosurec. 3,600 cal BC
(reproduced from Whittle, Healy and Bayliss
2011; fig. 1.3)

Whitehawk hill is an ancient habitat designated as a Local Nature Reserve (LNR) and is recognized as being the first Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM) in Sussex (Brighton-Hove.gov.uk). The ancient monument, Whitehawk Camp, is one of Britain’s earliest stone age monuments.  The hill was chosen some 5,500 years ago as the site for a series of circular ditches and banks which marked the hill as an area for feasting, burials and other activities of a ritual nature. This curious and obviously non-defensive arrangement gives these sites their name: causewayed enclosures.  They represent the earliest ritual circles in northern Europe and predate later stone age enclosures like Stonehenge and Avebury by up to 1000 years.  They all appear to have been built around 3500 B.C., predating Stonehenge by about 500 years.

Archaeologists have explored only a small portion of Whitehawk Camp.  Within the fill of the surviving ditches the remains of four complete burials have been found alongside huge numbers of stone age flint tools, pieces of pottery and the bones of ox, cattle, pig, deer and other fragmentary human remains.  These suggest the consumption of large amounts of meat as part of the activities which took place on the hill.  The site was important enough to become the final resting place of members of the local tribes and these included the bodies of an eight year old child and a young woman buried alongside the remains of her new born child.  The details of Stone-age religion are largely unknown, but the archaeology suggest an emphasis on seasonal gatherings, the importance of the ancestors, tracking of the seasons through astronomical observation and the marking of territorial ownership. (http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/leisure-and-libraries/parks-and-green-spaces/whitehawk-camp)

BHAS members, ASE archaeologists, and volunteers.

Our focus was to get down to the Neolithic layers in the trenches and continue what the excavations in the 1920s and 1930s had uncovered, even though a majority of debris was modern. On this particular hill, allotments were established during WWII and after. These are now gone, but remnants still exist in the plethora of broken glass everywhere, modern porcelain, nails, and bits of plastic.

The main trench just had it's turf removed this week, so we were each given slots to trowel back. I discovered no features amidst the chalky and flint infested top soil and the annoying roots that kept interfering with the troweling. Unlike Ovingdean, where the soil is also very chalky, there were finds aplenty. Besides the usual piece of broken glass, I filled my tray with two and a half rusty nails, blue and white decorated porcelain fragments, two or so bits of CBM, charcoal bits, possible pottery fragments but methinks I just filled my finds tray with some sort of stone that looked like IA pottery, possible slag chunks, fire-cracked flint, fragments of oyster shell, snail shells which I chucked out later, two small echinoids (Cretaceous fossils - 145-66 million years ago) and small bone fragments. Not bad in a day's work.

Hope to get up there at least one day a week until the project is finished at the end of August.

Last of the Plumpton Roman Villa

I happened to have a day off from work last week and debated over checking up on Ovingdean, the Culver Project and Plumpton Roman Villa. I found myself staring at the fine trenches of the villa and the site ditch once again. They have uncovered quite a bit in the past three weeks since I was last up there.

Embarrassingly I forgot my camera so I only have one measly photograph of my find but the crops that I definitely thought were leeks a few weeks ago have transformed into corn. A bit like when Jesus turned water into wine. This turned out to be beneficial to me because the large corn stalks provided much needed shade while I was excavating in Trench 3.

Cow Skull, date unknown at this point.

When I first arrived, I was placed back in Trench 1 with the American student Megan whom I had met a couple weeks ago. We worked on the edge of the ditch, attempting to determine the natural. Plough damage sure made it hard to discern. After a bit, the new supervisor whose name I have now forgotten (sorry!) asked me if I had done this sort of thing before (lots of head nodding and fake smiling) and I found myself relocated to Trench 3 to remove a cow skull that was partially excavated in the lovely hard baked clay. I spent a couple hours there with Andrew (?) a college student who had never done any archaeology before and we made a plan of action to sort of chisel our way underneath the skull in order to prise it neatly from the ground. It did work, surprisingly, because I was able to extract it myself and place it into a tray of bubble wrap. Then, as it was transferred to another tray, it began to crumble. At least our extraction method was successful.

A Twitterer on Twitter commented on my photo and suggested that perhaps it was the Plumpton Poisoner until I pointed out that this skull was indeed a cow and not a human. Although we cannot rule out the cow as the one responsible for adding strychnine to somebody's tea back in the 1935.

Till next time folks! I will likely have a new update on Ovingdean next time!

Plumpton Roman Villa

Main Trench where the villa is thought to be situated.

Much overdue, but during my week of annual leave I was also able to spend two days on the Sussex School of Archaeology (SSA) summer project out in Plumpton, East Sussex. What a gorgeous site, tucked away behind the college in a field of corn (they looked like leeks). The site itself has been known about for quite some time (circa the past 30 years) through extensive field-walking and geophysical survey. There is thought to be a Roman villa with a hypocaust system (heated flooring), bathhouse,  a ditched enclosure and field system. The date, however is still unknown. Hence the need for an archaeological investigation!

Lizzie and Megan washing finds.

Ditched Enclosure.

 We began by attempting to find the edge to the ditch. Not as easy as it sounds. There is extensive plough damage and the soil was quite confusing to read as it kept appearing as if there were other features next to the ditch.

Some bits and bobs were recovered - pottery, teeth, a nice bone specimen.

Sadly I  have not been able to return to the site for the past week and a half so I am intrigued if any questions have been answered or, as archaeology tends to go, if a plethora of even more questions has arisen!

Another ditched enclosure? Pete is surveying the trench.

Culver Project AKA Bridge Farm

Bridge Farm  was one of those digs that I tried to make it to last summer, but as life would have it,  I unfortunately ran out of time. This year however, I managed to get up there for three glorious days. Located just north of Lewes in Barcombe, East Sussex, Bridge Farm is an on going Roman excavation project. It is the site of a Romano-British settlement where evidence has been discovered for domestic and industrial use from the late first century to the late fourth century. Although there is also evidence of usage from the Mesolithic to the 19th century, the focus is on the Roman settlement. The site has an impressive trench teeming with an abundance of students, and volunteers.

Run by Rob Wallace and David Millum, I was placed in the main trench to excavate a post hole which I successfully sectioned, uncovering some CBM and charcoal. It appeared to sort of expand underneath the natural, so there was a little bit of tunneling involved in my work.

Natural inclusions included flint and ironstone (how I have not missed you since last summer!!) Day two I measured and sketched out my feature - my least favorite activity but it was good practice nonetheless! Took some levels with the dumpy and measured my grid coordinates as well.










Day three I joined the CAP students in practicing how to use the resistivity equipment (a geophysical field survey) which seemingly appeared quite straight forward but after setting up our grid (20 by 40 metres) we kept encountering problems at line 16 with the machine deleting lines. Third try appeared to work and the grid was successfully completed. Resistivity, I was told, measures the moisture in the ground through electrical resistance. It is best conducted after a good rainfall, or period of rain and as it had piddled a bit the night before, this would be a good chance to conduct a survey. Although, apparently this type of survey takes eight times as long as a magnetometry survey.

Results are published on the Culver Project website http://culverproject.co.uk/?p=1304

Ovingdean - Hello Again

Another day of excavation (June 11th), likely my last for June at the moment as I have been accepted to dig on the Culver Project in early July, which is located just north of Lewes here in East Sussex.

I was placed back in my usual trench "H" and cleared away more of the hard chalk rubble, in the hopes that a post hole would be uncovered. No such luck. Instead I hardly found anything except for two nail fragments, one tooth and a possible piece of coke (a fuel made from coal) or slag.

Got a pretty nice sunburn again.

As of June 23, some interesting questions, posed by John Funnell (Deputy Director), have arose concerning this "light loamy layer, which appears to be circular. Is it a very large pit or well? And if so what date?" Well, we are still stumped. I am reading the BHAS bi-weekly updates very closely. The last time I was away from a site long enough, they found a baby burial right beneath where I had been sitting for two weeks. What have I been sitting on top of now?

Keep y'all posted.

Ovingdean x 2

My Brony

As English weather willed it, rain and thundershowers threatened our day. A few archaeologists remained optimistic as we huddled in a car and then under the entrance to the 13th century church munching on crisps. The horses were inquisitive more than usual today, one of them following John Funnell (temporary supervisor today as the other John is away in Sheffield) around the enclosure as he cut the tall grass that is rapidly invading our trenches.

Archaeology is never just about finds and digging, it involves weather, transportation, local wild life, stories, jokes, elevensies, lunch and tea, equipment failure, late archaeologists, lost archaeologists etc..


I was put back into the new trench (550-1), the one that was recently opened as a longer slot for the young archaeologists club that visited a few weeks ago. In this trench, I removed quite a bit of large chalk pieces in addition to large flint nodules. Some sections were quite hard packed and I found a fragment of rusted glass, pottery, fire-cracked flint, p-grit, fragmented bone. The hard packed chalk may indeed be some type of feature but more of  it needs to be cleared away in order to assess the section better.

May 21st I was up there again but forgot my camera so no photographs were taken. Not much to say about this day except that I was put back into my old trench (555). My notes say : dirt, 1 large nail, bits of red pottery, fragmented bone, oyster shell and shell that was moderately sorted (25%) and sub-angular. Underneath this context I found: lots of small stones (flint, chalk), fire-cracked flint, shell, fragmented bone and pottery (black and red), fragmented nails with a sandy loam and 40% poorly sorted sub-angular stones.

Oh yes, possible post-pipe feature. Flint nodules surrounded the south-east edge. Mainly dirt in centre with chalk slanting down from Section C-D. Small finds included - fragments of bones and pottery, fire cracked flint and a possible piece of carved flint.

Will head back on Wednesday to continue to create more questions than answers.

Ovingdean Round Two!

Excuse the shadow. My lovely, clean slot. Not entirely sure what all the chalk symbolizes.

My slot right in front. Carol was excavating a half circular unknown feature.

 The trenches at Ovingdean have changed greatly this past week to reveal post holes and hard chalk features, as well as a few special finds. I was placed in a new slot in the same trench that I excavated on April 27th. After clearing away quite a bit of dirt, there lay a hard chalk packed feature.  I brushed it up as you can see in the photograph. There were no visible post holes but may be part of a building or wall? I will leave that one up to the experts to debate. Not many notable finds - a few fragments of pottery, fire cracked flint. When that slot was cleaned, I was relocated to a square shaped test pit just northeast of where I was working previously.

Unfortunately I have no photographs to display of this test pit. I excavated a square section (since it was a fairly large test pit) and whilst, it was mainly dirt that was coming out of the ground, I did chance upon a gorgeous piece of blue flowered porcelain - possibly 18th century? Also fragments of yellow porcelain, one fragmented oyster shell, bits of pottery and flint, and three pieces of glass.

Director "Big" John drawing features.

Surprisingly until yesterday, I did not own an archaeological trowel. Why buy one when I could borrow? (Student mentality still kicking in). Brenda was kind enough to give me a used trowel for keeps, likely out of exasperation of my continuous borrowing at Rocky Clump. Up until now, my archaeological kit had only consisted of a green garden mat and durable gloves. But now I am thinking I really need to invest in a few good brushes as well until someone invents an archaeological vacuum that will suck up the troweled dirt. At the same time this vacuum will all the while be analyzing the contents and transferring any fragmented artifacts into a special compartment. Ingenious? I had a lot of time on my hands to think up this one yesterday. Maybe I will patent this invention. "The Sweeney Hoover," it shall be forever known as.

The bullies plus one (missing the chocolate brown new inmate.)

Oh, yes. Cannot forget the horse drama either. The three rescued horses in our field decided to bully the newest "inmate" by chasing him around the field and rear-kicking him. He eventually kicked back, covering the front of a gorgeous white horse with hoof marks. Naturally, we were all distressed watching this event continuously repeat itself throughout the afternoon. I half expected the four horses to charge our flimsy fence separating humans from animal.

Ovingdean

Ovingdean

One of BHAS's new projects this year is located in Ovingdean, just north of Brighton. Situated in a field shared with rescued horses, next to a charming 13th century church, Ovingdean is a medieval enclosed site (for some reason I was under the impression that it was a Roman site before I went up there last Saturday).

My section.

Post Hole

Ladies busy at work.

It has been under excavations for the past twelve-fourteen years or so by the BHAS. Geophysics suggest an enclosed area that once contained a large house and possibly barns and/or workshops.

Our mission was to look for post holes and rubbish pits. There was a nice sturdy post hole in my trench slot, but I got as far as uncovering two rusty nails, fragments of pottery and tile, a snail shell, debitage and other interesting flints.

John Skelton, the director, assisted me with brushing up on my skills to identify different types of soil. Part of this included taking a soil sample in the palm of my hand, adding a bit of water, and rubbing it around to see if it would create a ball or crumble from all the inclusions in it. My sample formed a neat ball, concluding that the soil I was working in was of the "clay loam" type due to its slightly gritty nature. This information is useful in the cataloging of soil deposits in this particular area.




I am hoping to continue excavating on and off this season! Will keep you all posted on exciting finds and discoveries.

Church next door.

Oyster Shells!

Credit to Parasitic Tube Worms at http://www.asnailsodyssey.com
(This is not an oyster shell, just an example of the Polydora parasite.)

 She sells seashells by the seashore!

Except these shells were no where near the shoreline. One of BHAS's late January 2014 recording sessions involved weighing and categorising oyster shells, one of the many items found at Rocky Clump in East Sussex (not by me, I'm afraid). There were quite a few bags full of dirty, fragmented shells, some nearly entirely intact. Back in the day, Oysters were a staple food in the Roman Empire and were one of the resources that was exploited when they arrived in Iron Age Britain in 43 CE. Recording these shells was not too difficult as I had to differentiate between top and bottom, weigh it (or them if they were too fragmented to differentiate) and note any parasitic or human activity (such as breaking open the shell to eat). One of the most common parasites that I kept encountering was the Polydora (see photo on right).

Credits to the lovely Lesley Hains. Me, running on three hours of sleep, with a nearly intact oyster.

Rocky Clump Wrap Up For 2013

Photo courtesy of Lesley Hains, pictured on the left, myself in the
middle and Hestor Adams on the right.

I never find anything remotely exciting
but somebody unearthed an animal skull - sheep?

Rocky Clump wrapped up excavations for the season on December 7th, although I went back on the 10th to "tickle up" (so to speak) the ground for the final photographs and drawings. It was a cloudy-sunny day with a wonderful turnout of archaeologists so plenty was accomplished. The site has since been back-filled from the 20th. As you may have noticed, we were all a bit cold as December has sneakily crept upon us.

However, the ground was still as supple as ever for troweling. With luck, new trenches and test pits will be opened up around the end of March or early April 2014 as soon as planning and acquired permission has been met. We will be exploring an area where we think some roundhouses are. In the meantime, the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society has several activities planned this winter - winter walks, lectures, museum visits - to keep us all connected and to keep our archaeological and historical appetites whet.

Areas where I have been troweling.

 Not surprisingly, I uncovered more chunky flints, the usual bits of pot and flaky bits of bone. No special finds yet on my part but there were a couple animal skulls that were uncovered in one of our large trenches. Their identity is speculated to be that of sheep.

Till next time, adios!

Stories from "Windy" Clump (2013)

My slot in the middle.

I try to make it out to Rocky (AKA Windy) Clump at least once a week now, but last Wednesday (the 23rd) left a long gap of 1.5 weeks since I had last been out there. I was placed back in my little muddy Stonehenge slot, amongst my ring of large friendly flint stones and chunks of white chalk. John, the director of RC, bestowed upon me a new nickname on Wednesday in honour of my new troweling context (announced in his weekly e-newsletter of the shenanigans that we get up to): "Pete, Chelsea (Rocky to her friends) and Fran, along with Mark worked on the floor surface north of the barn, and it is producing lots of archaeology. Chelsea had lots of large flint nodules in her section, and was loathe to move them, while Fran and Pete got down to those lower levels where there were fewer flints." That pretty sums up excavations conditions on Wednesday, with many poor attempts to find a comfortable middle ground amidst the flints that were slowly closing in around me like angry gnomes, to rest my knees on my foam gardening mat . I troweled up the usual bits of pot, fragmented animal bones and teeth (an assumption here), fire-cracked flint and a few bits that looked very important but were covered in so much mud that they are probably going to turn out to be just clumps of ironstone or sandstone when cleaned.

Fernando, Rocky, Windy.

The weather kindly held up but that cheeky wind had me chasing Pete's kneeling mat around the field. There were no inquisitive cows again, although we did have a rather irritable cow mooing over to the next pasture whose voice echoed eerily around the downs. We concluded that he liked to hear the sound of his own voice. 

Rocky Clump, Stanmer, East Sussex (2013)

Rocky Clump, Oct. 2013

It is quite a difference digging here at Rocky Clump than at the Isfield site in July/August. I was first made aware of this project, managed by the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society, whilst I was enjoying my time at the Bentley Woodfair at the end of September. Rocky Clump is a Late Iron Age to 4th century AD Romano-British enclosure and farmstead, with numerous post holes and pits, and a series of very large ditches forming an earlier enclosure. In the past, an area discovered strewn with animal bones over a flint cobbled surface was believed to be the site of a butchery location. Finds have included a complete cow and dog burial, and last season a baby burial was found in one of the ditches.

In my little Stonehenge.

Excavation conditions are not redeposited clay and extremely hard to trowel through, but rather lovely loose, chalky soil. I have not stumbled upon any special finds yet, but plenty of bits of what looks to be IA pot, animal fragmented bones, fire-cracked flint and other bits of flint with the bulb and platform. Last Saturday I was back working on the barn structure area, removing the last traces of fill. Director John Funnell observed, in his biweekly e-report of Rocky Clump, that I "did have a nice collection of large flint nodules, some in a circle, but is it a feature or creative archaeology, we will find out..." Have I created my very own Stonehenge in my slot? With me, I should think it very possible. There is definitely something going on there it looks like, whether of my own creation or of something else.

Lesley's Roman coin, Oct. 2013

 





At this point in the autumn, each clear Saturday and
Wednesday are a blessing to dig in. Hold off, ye snow, frost and rain! As soon as conditions become unrealistic to continue working in, I believe this site will be back-filled and come March 2014, a new section of the field will be opened to for us to excavate. Therefore leaving me to discover a new hobby to tide me over during this upcoming English winter!

Isfield Enclosure, Sussex (2013)

Excavating a test pit in sunny Sussex! July 2013

The excavation project near Isfield, Sussex, managed by the Sussex School of Archaeology, formally finished on August 2^nd, 2013.  Throughout the two weeks that I participated as a volunteer, I was introduced to Iron Age features and types of dwellings that would have existed during this period (circa 800 B.C.E until 100 C.E.). I spent several days excavating a test pit, in an area where the geophysics reading had indicated a considerable level of activity. This area was thought to be where the drip gully of the roundhouse ran through. Despite finding bits of plastic, paper, felt, and some sort of animal tooth in the plow levels of the soil, the feature turned out to be very shallow and was suspected to be in fact a decomposed tree root. The field, as I was informed, was a heavily wooded area until the early 1970s when it was deforested for agriculture, resulting in mass piles of burning brush and stumps. Traces of these burning piles were thought to be found in another test pit, where there was a charcoal-like feature. Other evidence of the once forested field were tree “throws” – depressions in the subsoil created in the wake of a tree collapsing on its side, or from when stumps are removed, and dark linear soil outlines suspected to be the decomposed roots from the trees.

Test Pit B with possible tree throws?

The test pit with the charcoal feature was excavated after a set of aerial photographs were taken of the field. These photos revealed a rectangular pattern in the crops (a recently harvested hay field) near to one of the main trenches. Yet, once excavation was underway in an area where the north wall would have been, no evidence of a structure has yet been found. Only an excellent example of a plow line was uncovered in this pit in addition to a Mesolithic flint arrowhead. This test pit example highlights the importance of consulting both geophysical surveys and aerial photography when attempting to locate a feature.

Looking for the ditch.

I spent the remainder of my last week troweling and mattocking in two different trenches. In one, a cobbled track was thought to have been uncovered. In the other trench, there were several features that contained bits of charcoal, pottery, worked metal, and plenty of flint and ironstone. This area is highly debated at the moment. The site enclosure trench is also thought to have been uncovered just outside of these pit-like features, indicating that maybe they were not completely rubbish pits but perhaps a workshop area.

A full report by the Sussex School of Archaeology will be available soon.
                                                                                   http://www.sussexarchaeology.org/

Stobi, Macedonia (2012)

Excavating a residential room, Stobi, Macedonia (2012).

"The excavations in 2011 and 2012 were focused on the Northern Residential Area of Ancient Stobi, inhabited from the Late Hellenistic till the Late Roman period. Further excavations at the same area are planned for next season in conjunction with the efforts of the National Institute (NI) Stobi in order to preserve and display this part of the site. The layers to be studied in 2013 mainly include the Roman and Late Roman periods of the existing ancient neighborhood." -source bhfieldschool.org