Day 6: Hatcliffe geophys and a Roman Ox

Antonia writes: “On the Roman site at Hatcliffe my colleagues and I were given the opportunity to participate in doing a geophysical survey of two areas of the site. These were to the north and west of the field in which the main part of the Roman site lies (that was known about from the excavations last year, posted on last year’s blog and an earlier geophysical survey commissioned by Dr Steve Willis). Our aim over the past two days has been to see if the site continues beyond the known area.

Using a variety of University of Kent equipment varying from tripods and controllers such as GPS to data loggers and staffs with prisms on top, we were able to pin-point the coordinates for the grid we would use in the survey. Once we had mapped out our 30m by 30m grids which proved to be straight forward (once you understood the equipment), we were able to move on to using the ‘magnetometer’ which measures the magnetic properties of the ground below and the air above the machine. I was very impressed by the machine as I had very little knowledge of the device as a whole and geophysical survey also, but now I am learning ‘in the field’ as part of my undergraduate degree. The University of Kent Archaeological Technician, Lloyd, oversaw the setting up and suggested we used the method known as ‘zig-zag’ when using the magnetometer, which proved to be effective as this allowed us to cover a larger area more rapidly than if we had used the other approach available to us known as ‘parallel method’.

These two survey areas at Hatclliffe are long strips of grassland. One a paddock area above the stream (Waithe Beck) that runs by our Roman site at Hatcliffe, and the other a strip of meadow grassland by a plantation wood. Once we had finished the surveying we were able to look at the results by downloading the data to a laptop. The paddock area results showed that underneath the soil some of the main ditches of the site (around which the Roman settlement was organized) continue but not beyond the point where the land falls away to the beck. The meadow area had an arcing anomaly which is thought likely to be a Roman or prehistoric ditch similar to others detected in the main field close-by. This appears to be at the fringe of the site so our surveying showed that the site is indeed mainly located in the field where the excavation trenches have been so far.

I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the geophysical surveying as it was a fascinating experience and was glad to learn the principles of the methods from our instructor, Lloyd, and how the results can be interpreted. I can add these details to my portfolio on the work we are undertaking at Hatcliffe and Brookenby this year”.

The dig team write: Back at Binbrook trowelling to define the archaeological layers and features in our Trench C showed that the whole surface area of the trench is archaeology (with no natural chalk showing through). This is unusual at a rural site as often archaeological layers and features are found to be separate, surviving as discrete features cut into natural subsoil. Steve said what we had here looked more like you would see with urban archaeology. We think this is because we are in what was a ‘busy area’ of the site by a building or buildings. We will see in the coming days. One highlight was that the cleaning revealed a surprising find lying in the top of a linear feature. These were the articulated leg bones of a very sturdy ox (see picture). The scale of the bones indicates this is not a cow of indigenous British breed but ‘improved’ stock of Roman date and quite likely to have been one of a pair of a team of oxen used for ploughing or cart haulage and transport. This will have been a valuable animal and an indication of standing. Our Roman site at Binbrook seems likely to have been a farm hence this seems to be a reasonable interpretation. There is so much building stone in the Trench and across the field that had been brought to the site from Roman quarries along the Wolds scarp about 8-10 miles away for the construction of this settlement that the animal may have had a role in the transportation, pulling a cart. Large and articulated bones are an unusual find on archaeological sites as more often butchery, marrow extraction, boiling down, dog chewing and scavenging are at work leaving only fragments for diggers to uncover.

View to the east from the Hatcliffe site

View to the east from the Hatcliffe site

Andy at Trench C

Andy at Trench C

Lucas at Trench C

Lucas at Trench C

The articulated ox bones

The articulated ox bones

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Day 5: Corn-dryers, more on Crispus, and the Night Sky

Excavation of the large pit feature (that showed as an anomaly on the geophysical plot) is now well underway. Below an upper layer of mixed chalk and soil is a dark silty fill. Oyster shells are present in this feature. In this case they are surprisingly large and well-preserved, in contrast to the animal bones. Whilst many of these bones are sizable or complete they show the first signs of beginning to break down as a consequence of acids in the soil. There is a lot more of the fill of this feature to take out in the forthcoming days.

Trench C has meanwhile been getting progressively larger as Andy, Peter and Alan spaded and shovelled off more ploughsoil (the photos here show the trench at the start of the day). Careful cleaning which followed has revealed more Roman evidence: the remains of a wall foundation and the outline, in plan, of what could be a corn-drying oven. We will have more work to do to confirm these impressions. A corn-drying oven is a feature seen especially at some sites of the later Roman period in the countryside and was a low temperature oven conventionally thought to be used for drying or parching cereal grains to prevent them from germinating, so the grain might be stored, or for malting and brewing beer. Hence they may point to an excess of grain being grown at the time and employed to produce a non-essential product for cash sale or to fulfil a contract for the army. Another possibility was that such drying made it easier to de-husk the grains. Blog followers will know that we found features of this type at the Hatcliffe site last year.

Below the site is the Waithe Beck. Both it and the valley will have been a focus for human activity and settlement over millennia. We have found some flint tools and blades in our fieldwalking here that show there were people using this landscape in the Middle and Late Stone Age. They were not farmers but hunter-gatherers. In Modern times the Beck had several watermills along its course, including mills near our sites at Binbrook and Hatcliffe. We can see the windmill at Waltham from the Hatcliffe site. It is now a heritage centre. The ancient corn-drying ovens and quern stone finds we have made on this project, as with the watermills and windmills, are testimony to the deep importance of agriculture and the growing of cereals in this part of the world over centuries. The Romans might perhaps have had watermills on the Waithe beck but to search for those would be a something for another year.

A bit more information on the coin of Crispus featured previously … The obverse (front) of the coin shows Crispus holding a shield on his left arm and carrying a spear over his right shoulder. The inscription is IUL CRISPUS NOB CAES (Iulius Crispus Noble Caesar). At this point the Roman Empire was divided into two parts, eastern and western, each of which had a senior and junior emperor. Crispus (who was the eldest son of Constantine I) was junior emperor, or Caesar, of the western empire and had his base at Augusta Treverorum (modern Trier, in Germany) where this coin was minted. The reverse has the legend BEATA TRANQUILLITAS (Blessed Peace) and depicts an altar inscribed VOTIS XX (Votis Vicennalibus), meaning vows (prayers) for twenty years’ reign. This is a piece of political propaganda attributing peaceful times to the Emperor Constantine and therefore the desirability of his continued rule.

There is less light pollution at night in rural Lincolnshire than at some urban centres; the night sky is more strikingly visible and we include here a shot taken around dawn as it may also have been seen by our ancestors in prehistory and the Roman era.

The Dig Team

Some of our Roman Oysters

Some of our Roman Oysters

Extending Trench C

Extending Trench C

Alan, Peter and Andy at Trench C

Alan, Peter and Andy at Trench C

The Moon and Venus at Dawn

The Moon and Venus at Dawn

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Day 4: Oysters, Columns And More Geophys

Our big anomaly is now largely exposed. It is a massive pit filled with dark soil containing copper working slag and other finds … but we will not know its function till we have excavated more of it.

Ash continued working in the east end of the Trench (Trench B) where she was yesterday, and has found a ditch which Lloyd had said should be there. In the top there are many oyster shells which look like the remains of a Roman feast. They are some way from the sea here but we know oysters went to Roman Leicester in the centre of England. By comparison we can see the sea (the Humber estuary) from near our site. Maybe they arrived packed in seaweed to help preserve them.

Meanwhile Gareth found some chalk bedrock – bright and rocky (see photo) so we know what the ‘natural’ subsoil looks like that the past people settled on.

Jonathan has collected the stone column drums from the bottom of the field by the stream and after carrying them with Herculean powers a long way then wheeled them up the hill to the road so we can take them away for further study. The socket holes are very square and they have got Steve Willis very excited.

Down the slope, Trench C was started. Resistivity survey suggested to Lloyd and Andy faint traces that might be walls below the ploughsoil; there is a lot of broken up stone in this part of the field which might be the remains of a building. We think the best building stones are likely to have been carted away long ago for use in other buildings. The trench is just small at the moment but already we can see stones below the ploughing zone and there are several big and small animal bones: the small bones being ribs and leg bones of a chicken.

One of the highlights today was the result of the magnetometer survey at the top of the site (up slope). Last year’s survey had suggested the site was arranged along a road bordered by deep ditches, traced over 280m, heading to cross the large stream, but the survey today shows the ditches turn a right angle further up the slope. Is this a road junction for chariots and oxen carts or does it mean our site lies within an epically large enclosure surrounded by these broad ditches. If so it is at least the size of two football pitches and bets are on as to whether it will be the equivalent of four.

The dig team.

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Day 3: Opening the First Trench and More

A major step forward for us as we opened our first trench this year at the Binbrook site today. Our aim was to examine a large circular ‘anomaly’ found during the geophysical survey in the previous season. This was the work of Lloyd Bosworth (University of Kent) who identified the location again this year using GPS. The survey of last year gave us precise locations of the Roman remains and this is being used in this year’s excavation campaign. This survey – using magnetometry, showed the site outline that lies hidden under the top soil.

We also finished our fieldwalking survey. Points in this large field were triangulated and pottery and tile samples were collected by the students and local society members. These will be studied and fully recorded subsequently. After a morning of fieldwalking by students and volunteers, we begun to more closely examine the circular ‘anomaly’ prominently exposed via the geophysics last year.

We engaged in our first excavation with enthusiasm and patience, though we were not to fully understand the strenuous nature which the activity entailed till we had been at it for a few hours! Initial removal of top soil was followed by scanning the soil as it was removed, before moving it outside the direct parameters of our trenches. Following this, the ploughsoil was on the spoil heap, following diligent examination for any artefact remains. Armed solely with trowels, knee cushions and elbow grease we set about trowelling clean the area of our trench to see if we could see this ’anomaly’. Trowels are the most often used equipment in archaeology. Soil is slowly moved by the side of the trowel and collected into hand shovels. The trowel enables the site to be uncovered systematically and helps the excavators to identify materials and changes in soil, precisely and carefully. We were able to handle this responsibility well and used a firm hand to uncover the top of the ancient soils below the farmland ploughsoil.

The immediate result of the trowel work enabled the natural chalk level to be visible as it could be seen in some areas of the trench. The ‘anomaly’ was there, which confirmed the accuracy of the geophysical survey. We shall be interested to see what it contains; it seems like a big pit 5m across. Lloyd said the readings suggest the signal is not caused by iron: but he tells us something has been heated up. Steve Willis said it could be a well.

By the end of the day our trench measured 15m in length and 1m in width. The finds of copper slags of metal working, well-preserved oyster shells and specks of charcoal were found within the top of the ancient soils we were trowelling to reveal. A mixed variety of expectations are brought to the table by the students. Some of us expect to learn excavation skill but find very few artefacts or bits of evidence, and some students expect to find a substantial amount of Roman remains in the trenches and via the surveys.

We hope to ascertain whether the anomaly holds something special; at present it looks like a double halo feature within the Trench. We also aim to see if elsewhere we can locate building foundations relating to the Roman site. Further digging will be required. The work on site has been important to identify the skills and equipment needed for archaeology by the undergraduates and local volunteers and we hope to learn more. For more updates watch this space and we hope you join us in our first journey in archaeological practice. Lloyd is continuing the survey this year and we await the provisional results when they are downloaded to the computer. A great find has been a Roman coin of ‘The House of Constantine’ – depicting Crispus (AD 322) minted in Trier (see picture).

The other picture today shows the field looking to the stream.

Roman coin of ‘The House of Constantine’ – depicting Crispus (AD 322) minted in Trier.

Roman coin of ‘The House of Constantine’ – depicting Crispus (AD 322) minted in Trier.

The field looking to the stream.

The field looking to the stream.

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The 2015 Fieldwork Season Begins!

September 2015 and we are back to the fieldwork on the Lincolnshire Wolds! Once again the University of Kent team of students and staff is teaming up with the North East Lincolnshire society (NELALHS) to explore the archaeology of the Wolds so it is back to the site near Binbrook and the site at Hatcliffe where the remains of Roman settlements were coming to light last summer. Thanks to the famers and land owners for their kind permission to allow the investigations to go ahead and to NELALHS Chairman David Robinson who undertook a lot of the liaison.

On Saturday and Sunday we were at the site near Binbrook (same one as last year) and already have had some headline discoveries. Thanks to the fine weather and the fact the fields are all harvested and ploughed we can see on the surface of the land various remains from the past telling us what might lie below the soil here. On Saturday we found that stones cleared from the field in the past and thrown into the hedgerows (so they do not cause a problem to farmers’ ploughs) include at least four ancient column drums! So we think these mean that this site’s buildings were very elaborate, fitted out with the architectural grandeur typical of quality buildings of the Classical World. We interpret this as a sign that there was a prosperous settlement here, perhaps gaining wealth from farming the land. A quern or millstone for milling corn was found yesterday during our systematic fieldwalking survey. It was made from Millstone Grit and imported to the site. It too is likely to be Roman … bread was as important to the people of Roman Britain as it is to us today.

We also found a Samian ware vessel with graffiti on the base which seemingly is the sign of ownership by an individual. This imported pottery was expensive flashy tableware and you would not want to lose it.
One of the metal detectorists from the local club explained what he had found during previous visits and it is great that people with various interests share info; this all leads to developing a strong picture that this recently discovered site is important.

Post by the UniKent Team

Worked stone we believe to be from Roman columns at the Binbrook site.

Worked stone we believe to be from Roman columns at the Binbrook site.

Laying out our fieldwalking grid on Sunday at the start of the 2015 season.

Laying out our fieldwalking grid on Sunday at the start of the 2015 season.

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Opening out a trench at the Binbrook, 2014

Students and local society members opening out a trench at the Binbrook site during the 2014 season.

Students and local society members opening out a trench at the Binbrook site during the 2014 season.

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1/10/14 — Finds Spotlight: Brooch & Bone!

From our collection come another two unique finds from our site near Hatcliffe, discovered over the course of this project.

Whale bone.

Whale bone.

The whalebone, though not unprecedented, was an unexpected and rather
unusual find and probably represents the opportunistic use of a
stranded animal/carcass. Further scientific analysis should be able to
reveal to which species it belongs.

Brooch.

Brooch.

The penannular brooch would have been used to secure clothing. This
pleasingly intact item will be more photogenic following conservation
and cleaning.

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26/9/14 — The Final Stages

Being the last days on site for much of the team, including the undergraduates, the main focus on site has switched from excavation to the recording of any features.

One of the most important elements of the record is the site plan. The site plan is crucial as not only does it record the individual features in the trench but it also helps show the relationship between the different features. By setting out a basic grid plan within the trench, key points can be mapped out on a sheet of permatrace over graph paper, much like with the profile and section drawings, and the features drawn in this enables a great level of detail to be precisely recorded. While the profile and section drawings are drawn at a scale of 1:10 the size of the trench means that  it is drawn at a scale if 1:20 instead; this is a normal convention for site plans.

Starting to finish off at Hatcliffe

Starting to finish off at Hatcliffe

While many of the features are recorded through the profile and section drawings and the site plan some features also call for soil samples to be taken. At Hatcliffe the features that were selected for soil samples are thought potentially to be corn dryers and it is not surprising that they had a high carbon content from burnt material including clay. These samples will now be sent to a specialist who will carefully sift out any inclusions in the soil and analyse what is found to see if the corn dryers can be more exactly dated and their function determined as we are only working on an assumption that they are likely corn dryers . Inclusions in the soil such as bones from small animals can be crucial as animals such as a house mouse could indicate the presence of settlements in the area and therefore could add to our knowledge and interpretation of the site.

The time both at Hatcliffe and Binbrook has been an incredibly important learning curve for the undergraduates who have been able to improve their knowledge of Archaeological practice greatly.

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25/9/14 — Finds Spotlight: Quern stone!

Earlier in the week, one of our undergraduate team uncovered a find that nicely adds to the different categories of finds so far on the dig – a piece of a quern-stone from the Roman period. What is a quern-stone, and why is it significant in this project?

Quern-stone, found on the site near Hatcliffe.

Quern-stone, found on the site near Hatcliffe.

Querns are hand mills used for grain processing. In the Roman period it is likely that flour was ground on a frequent, perhaps daily basis as in the days before preservatives, wholemeal flour kept for only a short period. Most sites with domestic occupation dating to the Roman period will produce quernstones, although often only in fragment form.

Only a limited number of rock types are suitable for their manufacture so they often travel over comparatively long distances and can tell us about trading patterns and other links between different regions. This example is made from Spilsby sandstone, a local variant of Greensand which outcrops on the western side of the Wolds, where there is very likely to have been a quern factory in the Later Iron Age and Roman periods. It is part of the upper stone and shows the dished shaped of the hopper where the grain was introduced.

As is often the case, the broken quernstone was re-used and incorporated into a Late Roman floor surface.

Its shape clearly indicates that it is part of a larger, circular object.

Its shape clearly indicates that it is part of a larger, circular object.

Querns are made in different shapes according to region and stone type. Interestingly Lincolnshire Spilsby quernstones show stylistic affinities with some of those made in Kent from the similar Folkestone Beds Greensand.

We have found another fragment of grinding stone from our other site near Binbrook. This is much flatter, probably manufactured from Millstone Grit from Derbyshire or South Yorkshire and likely to come from a larger millstone. It was a surface find and as yet we are unsure of its date: it could be Roman or medieval.

 

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23/9/14 — Gone are the trowels, out come the pencils

Work has continued as expected at the Hatcliffe site with more feature excavations under way. From these features have emerged a steady flow of finds including sherds of pottery, fragments of bone and a cluster of oyster shells.  The oysters were found in a tight group and are evidently discarded shells from a meal, on Roman sites we occasionally find clusters of oyster shells in features.  This could be mean the oysters are consumed to mark particular calendar days (such as religious festivals or imperial celebrations) or celebrations relating to family events.

Several of the features have unearthed apparent corn dryers, these are similar in structure  to kilns and were used to dry out the corn after it had been harvested.  If this was barley, it may have been used for malting.  This is supported by flecks of charcoal and burnt clay among the soil. Corn dryers were typically used in the later Roman era, which enables us to gain a better understanding of the site and it’s economy, and usage.

Excavated Oyster cluster

Excavated Oyster cluster

The undergraduates added to their skill set completing section and profile drawings of the features. A section drawing is when soil is still present in the feature, while a profile drawing is of an empty feature. The process of section and profile drawing begins with metal pegs known as arrows being inserted either side of the feature. A piece of string referred to as the datum line is tied at a right angle between the two arrow then a tape measure is attached with clips below the datum line. The distance from the base of the feature to the datum line is measured at 5cm intervals, the diagram in drawn onto graph paper and permatrace at a 1:10 scale to record the shape of the feature and any inclusions or variations in the soil.

Profile drawing in action

Profile drawing in action

Once the section and profile drawings were completed the team then moved onto levelling. This involves using a dumpy level on a tripod and a measuring staff to measure the height at the temporary bench mark (TBM), a known position, and the heights at the datum lines on the features. This was then recorded on the drawing board alongside the section and profile drawings. This process is useful for increasing the detail of the area we are working on and where the features are in relation to each other.

As our time at Hatcliffe draws nearer it is becoming ever more important to record the features, gathering as much information from them as possible, ensuring that no detail goes unnoticed.

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