And Yet Again, More Experimental Archaeology, Sussex (2013)

SSA Manager, Lisa Fisher in front of our exhibit.

An array of food: crab apples, acorns, black mustard seeds, fermenting elderberries.

The weekend of September 20-22nd, I assisted in promoting the Sussex School of Archaeology at the Bentley Country Park Woodfair. We had several exciting projects occurring such as flint knapping, bone carving, Mesolithic and Roman cooking, spinning and weaving, repairing a Saxon sunken-feature dwelling and teaching children how to make pinch pots. There were also several dishes of raw food that would have been available in the Mesolithic, Iron Age and Roman periods on display that led to hearty discussions with visitors passing by our table. We swapped knowledge throughout the two days that I was there. Many had never heard of the SSA since the school is brand new this past year. I described some of the projects that the SSA has been doing such as the excavations in Isfield and the past two weekends of reconstructing pottery. Visiting groups of children were especially fascinated when I donned my safety goggles and pounded some fire-cracked flint in a mortar and pestle to use as temper for making pottery.

Me, up to mischief as usual.

Experimental Archaeology, Sussex (2013)

Iron Age bowl I whipped together.

One of the final boxes of pots.

Over the course of two fun, filled Sundays, the ladies from the Sussex School of Archaeology (SSA) and the Sussex Archaeological Society (SAS) (and myself) reconstructed and created several pieces of Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman pottery. The lighter coloured clay came from the Isfield site in East Sussex and is to be fired and tested to see if the Iron Age pottery that we found there during our excavations was  indeed of a local origin.

 

Pounding out some fire-cracked flint to add to the clay for inclusions.

 The firing finally occurred on Sept. 15th, where we built a small bonfire covered with wet hay. Unfortunately, the firing involved several small explosions of which some pottery may have completely shattered. Details will be known later on this week.

The bonfiring, phase 2.

Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire (2013).

Spinning Yarn, August 2013

Drop Spindle, September 2013.

My life has taken a new twist - I have taken on the role of an Iron Age maiden at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire. Here I am using a drop needle to make yarn, or rather cord in my case.

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/