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.

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/