The Day of Archaeology 2013: In limbo: site slippage and juggling jobs

 
Posted as part of The Day of Archaeology 2013

I was meant to be working on site today; at less than an hour’s drive up the road it would have made a pleasant change from working several hours’ drive away, but the site start date has slipped. It’s a fairly common occurrence and can happen for any number of reasons, sometimes down to delays in planning permission or due to other construction work, the client’s cash flow, or sometimes just the weather. Sometimes sites go into apparent hibernation and only resurface months or even years down the line, when suddenly you get a call or an email saying that 'the footings are being pulled next week, where are you'!

On this occasion it is due to planning control and not yet having the Written Scheme of Investigation signed off –this is the document that says what we will do on site (and afterwards), and how we will dig and record it, and it has to be approved by the local Planning Archaeologist within the relevant local authority. Ours is still in limbo, so the site can’t start.

Managing the flow of work is never easy, and is part of the reason why site staff contracts are often short, and not extended until the last minute –no-one knows if the work will be there on Monday. When you are a sole trader it gets harder –you either need to be able to clone yourself to deal with a glut of work, or find something to fill the hours when a job slides. It is almost always outside your control, and sometimes there seems to be little that can be done to mitigate the problem.
My freelance work is luckily not restricted to site work –I’m also an illustrator, create training materials, do grant-funded research and I carry out post-excavation and publication work on various archaeological projects. All this work often has slightly less demanding deadlines than the fieldwork -it has to be done, but the deadline is usually 'tomorrow', rather than 'yesterday'. So having a mix of different types of projects gives me the flexibility to be able to deal with last minute delays to sites. Picking up and putting down projects every few days isn’t the most efficient way of working, but  sometimes you have to do it: its a juggling act.

Day to day the juggling of current jobs is usually ok, and you do get the occasional day off to counterbalance the runs of 18 hour days required to meet deadlines. The bigger impact of slippage is in tendering for future work as it may take a month or longer for sites or PX programmes to go live, and all the time all your jobs are slipping, being brought forward, and morphing from one day watching briefs into three week excavations. The Year Planner starts to look like 4-D Tetris, and its often only at the last moment that it all comes together.

So today, instead of digging a late prehistoric/Roman and medieval site next to a pub in the Cotswolds, I am finalising the report on a project I did in Nepal earlier in the year…

Animated fly-through of Khasa Malla nauli

I've just finished processing some of the record shots from the recent fieldwork in Nepal. I'm using Autodesk 123D Catch to stitch digital photographs and create 3-D photogrammetric models of a sample of the monuments so we can see if this is a viable way of recording monuments quickly and accurately. An added advantage is you can easily create animated fly-throughs of the models that give a 3-D impression of the actual monument which is great and has lots of potential uses within a project that aims to help enable heritage tourism.

This 3-D model was created using standard archaeological record shots, for a full 3-D model we'd have needed to take many more photos to cover all the angles, still it gives a good idea of what is possible given a bit of time and a digital camera.

The featured monument is a nauli or waterpoint at Bhurti in Dailekh, West Nepal. It is 20 yards or so from the major Khasa Malla temple site of Bhurti, which has 22 intact temples, plus the remains of potentially many more. I'll add some more fly-throughs as and when I get them processed.

Kankrevihar temple, Surkhet

We are waiting for the last of the team to arrive and are still in the town of Surkhet, down at about 700m altitude in the middle of a roughly circular valley surrounded by hills. The town has got increasingly busy over the 13 years since my last visit and has a large bustling bazaar and on a sunny day like this is a great place to soak up the atmosphere of being back in Nepal.

This morning I went on a short sightseeing trip to the remains of the Buddhist Kankrevihar temple which is about 15 minutes drive outside Surkhet on a wooded hill in the centre of the valley.

 

View of temple platform, surrounded by carved stones

The temple had either collapsed or been destroyed at some point in the past and the site was

Unfinished business in the Himalaya

In 1998 I spent two months walking across Nepal from the southern Terai to the mountains and valleys north of Jumla. Logistically the expedition was totally self-supporting (bar the odd bit of spinach) and worked its slow way across a changing landscape from the flat plains of the Terai through arid foothills, across alpine meadows to wide gravel valleys with braided rivers, lush terrace systems and dense forested slopes. The aim was to carry out a reconnaissance of surviving monuments along a 'royal road' between the Summer and Winter capitals of a medieval kingdom that helped shape modern Nepal: the Khasa Malla.

Camp at contemporary temple site at Dullu

CVs for fieldwork jobs

I was reading this post about CVs on Doug's Archaeology site, its one of two good posts Doug has written on CVs, the other one is here. I wrote an article back in 2010 for the Diggers' Forum on CVs and thought I would repost it here, its a rough guide to archaeological CVs, plus how to get hired without the magical '6 months of commercial experience'. It was originally published in the Forum Dispatch Issue 5.

Professional archaeology is still a small world where most people will know someone who knows you, but the days of getting jobs down the pub and by word of mouth are (mostly) gone. This article gives some advice for the those looking for site work. It is primarily intended for those at the start of their career but the advice is just the same for old lags struggling to cope with the baffling world of email applications and HR forms.

Integrating excavation and analysis on urban excavations

Text of presentation to CAAUK 2013, video of the presentation is available on Doug's Archaeology blog HERE.

This paper is from the perspective of an archaeologist who works principally on urban sequences, I am neither a technophile nor a complete Luddite, but Guy [Hunt, Partner at LP: Archaeology] felt it would be good to get a digger’s input into the debate.

I wrote the initial abstract after a conversation with Guy, and as with all things it has evolved into something more or less completely different. What I’d like to talk about is some of the issues around technology on site –from a fieldworker’s perspective- using London as an example, and with a case study of where we have been successfully using new technology.

First off I think its worth giving a brief run down of London’s archaeological landscape –in terms of how we excavate and analyse our sites:

CAAUK 2013

The Computer Methods and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology -UK Conference (CAAUK) is being held in London on the 22nd-23rd February, hosted by L-P: Archaeology. The programme and abstracts are now out, and it looks like a really good mix of papers. I will be giving a paper on urban excavation and analysis techniques that will look at how we can use computer applications to create elegant systems and enable better excavation:

Integrating excavation and analysis on urban excavations: developingelegant methods for integrated systems and methodologies for the excavation andanalysis of urban sites

For the last 40 years the excavation of urban sites has increasingly been characterised by the use of single context recording; for the last 25 years the post-excavation analysis of these sites has been increasingly characterised by a system of aggregation into larger stratigraphic groups (context<subgroup<group<landuse). These systems have been increasingly integrated with digital recording systems, databases and GIS systems. It is a testament to the logic and rigour of the original processes that they generally work very well within the digital systems that have been developed.

This paper will outline some current approaches to excavation and post-excavation used within London. It will highlight the role of databases and GIS, and will explore how we can integrate the excavation processes and recording systems to achieve better results on site and in post-excavation. The paper will also outline how we may increasingly utilise modern technology on site to facilitate these systems and enable the archaeologists on site make better use of their time, and make more informed decisions about the excavation process.
http://www.lparchaeology.com/caauk/integrating-excavation-and-analysis-on-urban-excavations/

TAG 2012 Liverpool

I’m just back from three days at TAG in Liverpool. I presented a short paper on simple, affordable and effective training methods for site staff as part of the Diggers' Forum session, the paper will be published in full next year and the DF is planning on publishing all the papers from their session in some format. An earlier version of my presentation is available on the FAME website: http://www.famearchaeology.co.uk/2012/07/presentations-from-fit-for-purpose/#more-618

 

The rest of TAG was the usual mix of sessions on theory, research and practice (although it didn’t seem very ‘TAGy’ this year, no sessions on post-processualism in Star Trek…) and catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones. Highlights for me included an excellent keynote speech critiquing reflexive archaeology and multivocality at Çatalhöyük by Shahina Farid, a paper on oral history and industrial period archaeology by Kerry Massheder, Anglo-Saxon cremation pots as brewing vessels by Gareth Perry, Viking Age archaeology by James Barratt, salt-making on the Atlantic coast and the EcoSal Project by Andrew Fielding, and Michael Nevill on Industrial Archaeology, databases and Grounded Theory. I’m looking forward to next year’s conference at Bournemouth.

Sections, shoring and single context recording

A recent contract with LP Archaeology in the City of London raised some aspects of recording worth some thought. The contract was an archaeological evaluation on a site that straddled the projected line of the Roman, medieval and post-medieval ditches that lie immediately outside the walls of Londinium and London. Due to the expected depth of the archaeological deposits (geo-technical boreholes showed up to 7.8m of potentially archaeological strata) the evaluation strategy was for five 2.5m x 2.5m test pits that would be dug as fully shored shafts. The test pits were located to give information on the survival of archaeological strata, the nature of any such deposits, and the potential survival of complex masonry and environmentally significant remains. The pits were positioned across the site in an L-shape with three of the test pits located to provide an east–west transect across the expected line of the defensive ditches.

In order to illustrate the excavated sequence it was decided to record a representative section of each test pit, these could be used to construct an illustrated section across the site which would illustrate the strata found in the test pits, along with their conjectured extent. The impact of the proposed development could be mapped against this to give an immediate visual representation of the site. Unfortunately given the projected depth of the test pits they would need to be close-shored with steel trench sheets and timberwork. After the first metre or so of each pit had been dug and the shoring had gone in, there would be little opportunity to view and record a traditional section as due to the loose nature of the fill the trench sheets needed to be dropped every 200-300mm to ensure the integrity of the shoring*. 

View of Test Pit 3 at approximately 7m depth

Electronic site registers: a way forward?

For many years context sheets and registers have been written on paper, whilst the databases containing the context information have been held on computer. Many early context sheets were designed for computer entry, and the standardised format, definitions and controlled vocabulary of a processual recording system lends itself perfectly to computer entry. The level of actual computer entry of context data varies massively across the country, with some units inputting all context data, whilst others select certain key details, and most of this data entry takes place off-site and in post-ex.

Minories

Work at the Minories evaluation is now completed, the test pits have all been backfilled and work on the report is well under way. The evaluation has given LP Archaeology an excellent insight into the type of deposits on the site, the range of artefacts, and the environmental conditions. Just as importantly we now have a better idea of the existing building’s foundations, and how they have affected archaeological survival, and how they will govern the excavation methodology.

 Natural gravels visible in a sondage through the lowest, organic rich, ditch fills

London Finds Factsheets

Urban Archaeology is planning a new series of illustrated factsheets on common London artefacts and has submitted an application for a grant to cover the cost of research, writing and production. 

The factsheets will be illustrated ‘spotter’s guides’ to each class of find, with a brief text on the artefact class, illustrated examples, common identification features, date ranges, and further reading. The information will be pitched at a level suitable for both professional Diggers and the interested amateur archaeologist or student. The factsheets will be published online as free pdf downloads and will be available as A2 posters  and as A4 factsheets. Work on the initial series of factsheets will be completed next year, with planned factsheets including London clay tobacco pipes, medieval and post-medieval pottery, and ceramic building material.

Urban Archaeology believes that these factsheets will help archaeologists in the basic identification of artefacts, will expand their knowledge of those finds, and will hopefully encourage further interest in finds and their study. The factsheets will hopefully prove invaluable to a wide range of archaeologists, from Diggers wanting to know more about the artefacts they are digging up, to members of the public eager to identify finds seen on the Thames Foreshore. The publication of the factsheets on the web will mean that they can be accessed at the point of need, via a smartphone or computer, as well as printed out for display in site huts, processing areas, for use as training and educational material, and for individual use. Urban Archaeology plans to expand the series over the coming years and hopes to develop factsheets on a broad range of archaeological subjects.

The City ditch

At the close of the week we were still excavating late 16^th century deposits within the test-pit sited over the City ditch; the adjacent borehole records further deposits beneath these which should date to the disuse of the ditch in the late medieval/Tudor period. John Stow records in the Survey of London that the entire City ditch was ‘cleansed’ in 1477, and that parts of the wall were repaired in brick at the same time. Sections of those brickwork repairs, including ‘diaper’ patterned decorative work, are still visible at St Alphege on London Wall.

Mapping, dumping and dating at Minories

Evaluation work is continuing at Minories. So far the archaeological sequence is broadly as predicted in LP Archaeology's desk based assessment, and we are now down to mid 17th century levels in one trench, digging through levelling dumps containing lots of brick rubble.

The upper surface of these dumps had been levelled out to form an external surface in the mid-late 17th century, with a brick pier base suggesting a building that is not shown on Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1676. Ogilby and Morgan's mapping is known to be highly accurate and is an excellent snapshot of the built environment in the late 17th century, however the surveyors could not always access back yards and enclosed private land, and the speed of building after the Great Fire means that some buildings are missing -especially smaller or more temporary structures. The map is however by far the best City-wide survey of London before the Ordnance Survey, and is a fantastic resource for archaeologists and historians with accurate mapping of roads, yards and houses, as well as the contemporary street and place names.

There are tantalising glimpses of industrial activity within the rubble dumps including glass making waste, crucible fragments and slag, as well as Roman brick and opus signinum (which may or may not be from the adjacent Roman town wall). Closely dateable clay tobacco pipes and ceramics should allow the sequence of dumps and surfaces to be dated and the rate of the dumping worked out -is this a single, orchestrated, episode of ground levelling intended to eradicate the line of the former City Ditch, or a piece-meal and ongoing process? 

Deep excavation in the City of London

For the next few weeks Urban Archaeology will be supporting LP Archaeology on an evaluation in the City of London. The site is on Minories, north of the Tower of London, and is situated immediately east of the City wall over the line of the Roman and medieval city ditch, and the land immediately to the east –possibly including areas used as a cemetery in the early Roman period. 

The view from the Minories site, Tower Bridge, Tower of London and the medieval City wall.

FAME Forum and Diggers' Forum/Prospect conferences

Last weekend Chiz spoke at two conferences in as many days: the FAME Forum which was themed on skills and employability, and the Diggers' Forum/Prospect conference on careers, both in York. Chiz gave an updated version of the training and reskilling paper he presented at Winchester at both sessions, as well as a short presentation on the Diggers' Forum survey on away work and travel.

21st Century Archaeologists

Chiz Harward presented a paper on training and reskilling at the recent 21st Century Archaeologists day-conference at the University of Winchester on the 19th June. His paper continues the themes set out in Chiz's recent article in The Archaeologist, and sets out the need to put training at the heart of everything we do on site. Chiz argues that there is a need for clear and logical methodologies on site in order to provide an adaptive framework within which we can excavate and record. These methodologies also need to be integrated with Post-excavation procedures and the boundaries between site and post-ex, and supervisor and archaeologist roles need to be blurred.

Training must be given space in which to be provided, but we also must give staff the time to do their job properly. It is no good training staff in stratigraphic excavation techniques if they are ordered to 'just hack it out' when they return to site.

Short-notice, short-term site cover on the Isle of Wight

Urban Archaeology has just finished providing watching brief cover for a national archaeological contractor and IfA Registered Organisation. Work involved  the monitoring of construction works on a major housing development on the Isle of Wight. The experience of many years working on construction sites means that following a client  briefing Chiz Harward can be trusted to 'read' the situation on site quickly, and to respond effectively with minimal need for the client to manage the situation.

Urban Archaeology can mobilise quickly and can be relied upon to provide flexible and professional cover on the full range of archaeological fieldwork projects from watching briefs to full excavation. The ability to engage a highly experienced archaeologist, who can be trusted to make the right decisions on site, is a major advantage to any archaeological employer. Urban Archaeology's services are of benefit to any archaeological organisation that finds themselves short-staffed, or in need of specialist site knowledge, such as for urban excavations.

Thames Discovery Programme Foreshore Factsheets

Looking through my past projects I came across the factsheets I prepared for the fantastic Thames Discovery Programme. The brief was to prepare a series of double-sided A4 factsheets presenting information on a range of common structures found on the Thames foreshore: causeways, fishtraps, gridirions and bargebeds, jetties and wharves and vessels. The finished factsheets were designed to be downloaded and printed out for use on the foreshore by the FROGS and can be viewed at http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/discover/foreshore-factsheets-vessels.

Upcoming training papers

I'll be presenting a new paper on training archaeologists at the upcoming 21st Century Archaeologists conference in Winchester on the 19th June. I'll also be talking on training at the FAME Forum in York on the 13th July, and on both the Diggers' Forum Away Work and Travel Survey, and training for archaeologists, at the Diggers' Forum/Prospect conference in York the next day .

Roman key from Southwark

I was recently commissioned to illustrate this magnificent Roman key from Southwark for the Portable Antiquity Scheme. The key is made from copper alloy and was originally made in two parts: the lion couchant body which is finely cast, and the key itself, also cast and inserted into the rear of the lion.
The body and legs of the lion has ring and dot, and line decoration, as well as a beautifully sculpted mane, and a rather enigmatic smile. Zoomorphic artefacts can be particularily tricky to illustrate, especially if they are laughing at you!

Water supply in Roman London: new research

Urban archaeology has just been awarded a generous grant by the City of London Archaeological Trust (CoLAT). The grant is to cover research into water supply in Roman London, using the eastern hill as a pilot study area. The project will examine excavated evidence and attempt to map the evolving systems of water supply, distribution and disposal throughout the Roman period using a GIS system. The resultant models will be then used to examine aspects of control and growth within the settlement over time.

Cheapside hoard illustrations

A few illustrations of pieces from a Late Saxon metalworker's hoard of over 40 unfinished pewter brooches, beads and rings found in a sewer heading in Cheapside, City of London in the 19th century (click on images to enlarge). They probably date to the 10th/11th century. These pieces, normally on display in The Museum of London, are not to be confused with a hoard of 17th-century jewelry commonly known as The Cheapside Hoard, some items of which are also in the Museum of London.

The large brooch was cast in one piece, and is directly paralled by a find from Dublin, almost certainly from the same mould.

The smaller brooches were made of twisted pewter wire within a surrounding wire ring and a central glass bead setting. This was all fixed in place by dipping the reverse of the brooch into molten pewter. The clasps were attached to the reverse whilst this was still hot, fusing the clasps to the brooch.

Fine metalwork like this needs careful and accurate illustration to show how the object was made, as well as what it looks like. The pieces have to be drawn to a level of detail where they can be compared with other published examples. The detailed examination necessary to understand how to illustrate the pieces also informs the wider research into the artefacts: here it was possible to tell which objects shared common moulds, and the sequence and method used to make the brooches.

PAS finds illustrations

Recent work has involved illustrating selected finds from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Clockwise, from top left, a copper-alloy Roman branch, probably from a statuette; a fragment of a Bronze Age adzehead, probably broken up for scrap; a medieval copper-alloy strap end with incised decoration; and an 18th-century French clothseal from Calais (click on image to enlarge).

PAS finds illustrations

A Mesolithic flint adze drawn from photographs (click on image to enlarge).

Metal finds from Finsbury Circus

Roman small finds from Finsbury Circus, in the collections of the Museum of London; clockwise from top left:

Copper alloy wire bracelet or armlet with terminals, probably from a burial; Roman copper alloy key; Roman cast lead weight with raised concentric circular lines; Roman copper alloy balance (click on image to enlarge).

Finsbury Circus: Roman small finds

Roman copper alloy finds from Finsbury Circus, City of London in the Museum of London Collection (click on image to enlarge).

These pins, spoon, ligulae and tweezers were found during the construction of Finsbury Circus in the early 20th century and probably derive from burials within the Roman Upper Walbrook cemetery. These finds complement examples excavated under controlled conditions by MoLAS.

Finsbury Circus: Roman tombstone

Roman oolitic limestone tombstone from the Upper Walbrook cemetery (click on image to enlarge). Found in 1837 it is in the collection of the Museum of London.

The Inscription reads:
D M GRATA DAGOBITI FIL AN XL SOLINUS CONIVGI KAR F C

'To the spirits of the departed and Grata the daughter of Dagobiti, forty years old. Solinus arranged for this to be made for his dearest wife'

Stove tile

Medieval stove tile in the collections of the Museum of London (click on image to enlarge).

Hadrian's Wall

September and October 2009 saw Chiz working as site supervisor for English Heritage's Archaeological Projects up at Birdoswald on Hadrian's Wall. The site was part of a cremation cemetery which was fast disapearing over the edge of a 300 foot cliff into the River Irthing so the plan was to excavate a strip along the cliff edge to get ahead of the erosion. The team was led by EH Project Manager Tony Wilmott.

Recording on site was using a digital system from Sweden called Intrasis, which involves digital inputting of all data. This did cause some problems and issues, but given time and tweaking does have potential. The site also acted as a training excavation for a great bunch of archaeology students from Newcastle University under the direction of Professor Ian Haynes.

Numerous cremations were excavated, dating from the Hadrianic period onwards, with two possible 5th-century inhumation graves possibly relating to sub-Roman occupation of the fort. The cremation cemetery was contained by a small marker-ditch, parallel to a cobbled roadway, which had eroded into a hollow-way as it led downhill. The cremations were of various types, with possible bustum burials, as well as stone cysts and cobble lined cremation pits. Some cremations appear to have been marked by small ring ditches. No pyre sites were located, but areas of cobbled surface may indicate heavy use of some parts of the cemetery, possibly adjacent to pyres. Finds were fairly limited, although some pots were removed to Fort Cumberland for excavation in the lab, and initial x-rays suggest the presence of metal artefacts, including possibly fragments of chain mail. Tony Wilmott's weekly site roundups can be read here.

Site accomodation was next to the Augustinian Priory at Lanercost, a fantastic site and well worth a visit (photo above). The Cricket club is also worth a visit.

Site handouts

Urban Archaeology has developed a series of handouts covering excavation and post-excavation processes, and basic finds information (click on examples to enlarge). These are similar to 'crib sheets' used by some archaeological units but are not confined to basic archaeological techniques.

The handouts can be posted in site huts, handed out to staff, or used in training or seminar sessions or as the focus for weekly archaeological 'toolbox talks'. They have proved to be very useful on sites as both training tools and as an aide memoire and complement the basic technical information in the site manual.