Forthcoming Archaeology seminar series - Exploring and Mapping the Historic Landscape around Newark

Exploring and Mapping the Historic Landscape around Newark 

5 sessions November 2018-April 2019

Be involved in creating the storyboard for a video which aims to unravel landscape development around Newark from the present day back into the Ice Age by using the evidence from topography, geology, archaeology and historical maps and documents.

We’ll start with satellite images like Google-Earth, then examine the evidence for changes through time until we can focus on the landscape which emerged at the end of the Ice Age.  As we work backwards, using geographical and historical map regression, our study will provide an essential backdrop to investigations of all periods of time.  Our focus will be around the interfluve of the Rivers Trent and Devon, and, besides seeking the hidden late glacial landscape, will assemble the evidence for river movements around Newark essential to the understanding of historic landscapes (e.g. the Civil War) and the parish boundaries studied by the CBA Parish Boundaries project.

For the first session each day specialists will talk about their work in archaeology and geology, and then engage in question and answer sessions.  The second session will focus on assembling material from that topic on a map using a freely-available Geographical-Information-System  (QGIS).  The  IT sessions will be led by Ian Ross, so provide opportunities to learn more, or be introduced to, computer mapping tools. We will also identify resources that need further research, so be prepared to conduct your own research at museums and/or Record Offices to track down new data to contribute to the overall map.

Our work will be incorporated into a ‘fly-through’ of the landscape for an interactive web-resource for the Ice Age Journeys project... and who knows how much more history will be revealed?

Tues 6th November 2018:  Ursilla Spence (Nottinghamshire County Council) – Interrogating the Historic Environment Record for archaeological data

Tues 4th December 2018:  Colin Baker (author/ contributor to Mercian Geologist) – Coversands and investigating past landscape from borehole & auger records

Tues 12th February 2019:  Leanne Hughes (British Geological Survey) -  Insights from correlating the records of topography and superficial geology

Other sessions on 12th March  and 2nd April 2019

Session 11-1pm. Presentations led by specialists about topographical, geological and archaeological sources for landscape changes. All welcome.

Session 2-4pm. Practical workshop and GIS sessions to assemble information and identify resources to research. Bring your own laptop (also some available to use). QGIS users very welcome (download QGIS3 onto your laptop ), but no detailed knowledge required and suitable for those with a basic IT literacy (e.g. use of word/spreadsheet/internet).

Venue: Community Space at the Newark Civil War Centre, 14 Appletongate, Newark, NG24 1JY. Long-stay car parking on Tolney Lane/Riverside Park NG24 1BZ

We will request a donation of £3 to contribute to the funds required to match the Heritage Lottery Funding which supports these sessions.

Ice age Journeys Update

We have had an update on the progress of the Ice Age Journeys project along with the plans for fieldwork in September. 

Ice Age Journeys has won a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for a collaborative partnership between the Late Upper Palaeolithic sites at Farndon Fields, Creswell Crags and Bradgate Park. These areas reveal the lives of the first colonisers of the East Midlands at the end of the Ice Age 14,000 years ago.

We’ll be mapping the Ice Age landscape, following the clues left by people who moved into and through our region.  Over the winter we’ll have a series of talks and be creating a new web-site.  But, to kick off in September, we’ll be conducting some fieldwork – in a new field which extends the known distribution of the Ice Age flints.  We’ll be using augering and test-pitting to investigate the stratigraphy in this field, and, if we’re lucky, hit undisturbed deposits containing flints.  Later in the autumn, we’re hoping to do some more fieldwalking.

September Fieldwork programme

12th – 14th - fieldwork

?15th          - young people ‘taster’ session – if it can be arranged

17th -21st   -  fieldwork

22nd           - fieldwork and public open day

24-25th       - final recording and completion

Further information available soon – or contact John Miller, Ian Ross or Daryl Garton.

In addition, on Sunday 9th September, James Dilley will be demonstrating flint-knapping in Sconce & Devon Park between 10.30-4pm.  

Plans for the next couple of months.

A quick update on plans.

We are somewhat better organised than usual and so have plenty to look forward to over the rest of the summer as far as both Wednesday nights and fieldwork are concerned.

Looking at Wednesday nights first, this is the schedule going forward to the beginning of the autumn:

Wednesday 25th July - Launching the Parish Boundaries Project
Wednesday 8th August - Farndon Village Walk
Wednesday 22nd August - Ice Age Insights Update/Plans - Daryl Garton
Wednesday 29th August -  Business Meeting
Wednesday 12th September - Talk: Magdelanian Personal Ornamentation - Izzie Wisher
Wednesday 26th September - Wrap up of 2018 Ancaster Excavations
Wednesday 10th October - Talk: Excavations at Flag Fen and Must Farm - Richard Tyndall

In addition I am hoping to book a Saturday at the hall in October where we can lay out all the pottery from Ancaster and get some expert opinion on it with the aim of building a better understanding of the nature and dating of the site.

As far as field work goes, we will be continuing to excavate at Ancaster into the autumn. So far the following dates are confirmed:

Friday 27th July
Saturday 28th July
Thursday 2nd August (only 1 day this week)
Thursday 9th August
Friday 10th August

There will be further digging in September but this will ned to be organised with the start of field work at Farndon Fields in mind as we expect to be starting test pitting and other field work there in September.

Talk this wednesday

A quick reminder for everyone about our guest speaker at FARI tomorrow night (Wednesday 27th June)

Laura Binns is a Project and Community Archaeologist for Trent and Peak Archaeology where she has worked for the last 8 Years. She studied at Sheffield University, graduating in 2009. In addition to her degree she has an MA in Community Archaeology.  

Laura is coming to FARI to talk about the ongoing excavations at Nottingham Castle. These are being undertaken in advance of redevelopment of parts of the site with work currently concentrating on the Service Courtyard which is part of the remodelled Ducal Palace that was rebuilt in 1878. It is hoped that these excavations will reveal the line of the ditch of the inner bailey - part of the original medieval castle that was destroyed in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The castle itself will be closing for two years on July 1st due to a major redevelopment programme but there will be an opportunity to take part in the digging alongside Trent and Peak between 16th July and 17th August.

More details of this can be found on the website at: 'We Dig The Castle'

Laura will have a lot more information on all of this tomorrow night so hopefully we will have a good turnout for the talk.

A Brief Interlude

As much as we would love to spend all our time in the field uncovering the ancient history of Ancaster, the real world does tend to intrude every once in a while and work commitments mean we will not now be digging again at Ancaster until early July.

I will have the dates for digging in July ready shortly but in the meantime we are starting to plan for other projects which  can continue when we are not digging and particularly which can be pursued through the winter.

First and foremost of these is the Parish Boundary Project being organised by the Council for British Archaeology East Midlands.  

In the words of the CBA website:

"The idea of this project is to involve local groups in a regional exercise to map their local parish boundaries and identify features  of archaeological and historic interest. The result will be a unique online resource accessible to anyone with an interest in historic landscapes and will serve as an important record. The database will be built up over time and it is hoped  that eventually the whole of the  East Midlands will be covered"

The two parishes we are initially interested in are of course Farndon in Nottinghamshire and Ancaster in Lincolnshire. 

To begin with we will have a Wednesday night session looking at current and old maps to identify the existing parish boundaries and whether or not they have changed over the last couple of centuries. After this we will begin mapping the features that delineate the boundaries using the system developed on the pilot project in Bingham. All the details of how this will be done can be found on the CBA Parish Boundary Project website. 

Ian Ross is in the process of registering FARI to carry out the work at Farndon and once it is underway we will also begin work at Ancaster. Depending on how well the project develops we can then look at expanding it into adjacent parishes. 

The first meeting to kick off the project for FARI will be on Wednesday 25th July. 

If anyone has any input, suggestions or questions please contact either myself or Ian Ross. 

2018 Ancaster Fieldwork Season - Update 2

It has been a week of very changeable weather and whilst Friday was a great digging day - if a little humid - a fair bit of today was spent dodging thunder storms. Standing in the middle of a field waving a metal pole around is never a good idea when there is lightning about so we went without surveying today and alternated between excavations and, when the rain got too heavy, extended tea breaks.

Still, there has been a lot of advance in our understanding of the site over the last few days and the ability to get the drone in the air and get some photos of the main linear features we are seeing in the trenches did help to confirm that a number of them are very extensive across the site.

First of all there is the road of course. We are successfully locating this in each trench across the site from west to east with the northern side of the road just having appeared in our most easterly trench (10) this afternoon. We have also now identified the remains of a wall on the northern side of, and running parallel to, the road in three trenches. At the same time we are finding the ditch on the southern side of the road is also to be found right across the site and potentially has another wall similar to that on the northern side built after it had almost completely filled in.

It is this ditch - which appears to have been recut at least twice after its original digging - which is providing the best and most exciting dating evidence on the site with plenty of late Iron Age or early RB pottery coming out. And today it produced another rarity for us - a complete pot, found by John Goree in the fill of the first recut of the ditch.

 Whilst somewhat smaller this looks to be remarkably similar to another almost complete pot we found in what we believe to be the same ditch in trench 6 a few years ago.

What is particularly interesting is that both these pots seem to have been discarded because they had blown during firing. The smaller pot had blown out through a small hole in the base.

Whilst the larger pot had blown out at the base and on one side. 

The presence of two discarded failures might indicate there is a kiln site nearby.

Here are the two pots side by side. They probably date to the late 1st or early 2nd century.

Other exciting finds today included a 2nd Century T Brooch and a selection of late Iron Age or early RB tempered ware.

We are back digging again on Thursday and Friday of next week so do come along for a look if you are interested.

2018 Ancaster Fieldwork Season - Update 1

Whilst archaeologists don't exactly hibernate over the winter, we do prefer good weather and reasonable temperatures before we venture out to do our work. So it is that the rather late arrival of some proper spring weather has tempted us back onto site at Ancaster to continue our excavations of the Roman-British remains to the south of the town.

In previous seasons we have revealed a well constructed road dating to the RB period in two phases leading from Ermine street to (we think) the Lady Well; a natural spring which is believed to be what first drew the Iron Age settlers to this location. We have subsequently found that the road is bounded on its southern side by a large ditch - probably an earlier boundary ditch dating to the late Iron Age or early RB period. It is this ditch and its associated features which are forming the focus of our work so far this year.

 

As the photograph (from Trench 11) shows there are likely a number of phases to the ditch which is cut into the underlying post-glacial sands. Once the ditch had undergone substantial infilling and at least one recut, it was replaced or augmented by a wall, perhaps one of two delineating the sides of the road, the basal remains of which can be seen in the photograph about 1m above the ditch bottom.

In other trenches the wall is far more substantial and appears to have served a second function which is to prevent colluvial creep into the ditch and onto the road. The photograph below shows the wall in Trench 6

Finds from within the lowest levels of the ditch help to date it to the late Iron Age or Early RB period. 

Looking from the inside of a late IA or Early RB vessel. We have recovered almost the complete pot from within the boundary ditch.  

 

An imported vessel probably made in northern Gaul in the 1st century AD. 

The wall appears to date to the late 1st century AD again based on pottery and some metalwork found in association with the rubble. We will have more photos of these finds in future blogs. 

Work continues at Ancaster this coming Friday and Saturday and all members are welcome to come and take part. If you are not a member and fancy coming over to take a look at what we are doing then let me know and I will provide directions.