Hey Blog! This weekend I had two archaeological digs in a row, so in this post I will tell you about them both!
I have told you about archaeology before, a long time ago in ‘a dig into the world of archaeology’, Jan. 2022; but this is the first time I have told you about an actual dig!
The first dig was with my Young Archaeologists Club. It was in Castleton, which, much as it sounds, does have a castle on the hill. Unfortunately, we weren’t digging at the castle but below it, at the New Hall, that is, we were digging up the new hall as it is now gone. The dig is run by the University of Sheffield, one of the few universities left to still have an archaeology department, and has run for a few years. The archaeologists have found several features of the building, which they believe to be with two ranges and a connection, centring around a courtyard with a well in it. The well was thankfully capped off, and this year’s spoil pile was on top!
I have my own trowel, so I brought it, but circumstances fell that I didn’t even use it – I was doing the mattocking! This is a good thing – I have already done a lot with a trowel so it was nice to let the others use them for the first time. Anyway, I did the mattocking, which is a very warm job, and I wish they had a longer handled mattock as I was having to bend down to use it (I’m 5’10’’). We were very lucky with our timings, as by the time we had finished at the dig site it was clouding over, and by the time we had got the umbrellas up it was a thunderstorm! We spent the rest of the session trying to shelter under umbrellas at the same time as walking to the finds washing barn on the other side of the village. It was still very fun!
Sunday was a bit different. I was with the Derbyshire scout archaeology badge, which I told you about on 20th Nov. 2022, but this was the first dig run by the badge team. It was in Ripley, not far from us, so Mum, who is a member of the team, helped on the Cubs day, but I went on the Scouts day instead. There was a set of four different activities: geophys, digging, finds washing and finds analysing. Of the four, geophys was the only one I hadn’t done, so I really wanted to have a go.
Geophysics is a type of surveying; there are three main types used in archaeology – radar, the most expensive type, using rays that bounce in the ground; magnetometry, the cheapest and fastest, which reveals the soil’s magnetic properties; and the one we were doing, resistivity, where probes stabbed into the earth measure the resistance with electric current. The three reveal different types of features, and is why Time Team uses them all, but the “cheapest” still costs over a thousand pounds, so much more than you can ask for a birthday present! I found it quite straightforward with the machine, and very fun, sticking the probes in the ground and listening for the beep to tell you it’s recorded. But then the out-in-the-field bit is always the best – sitting and prepping the machine or arranging the data is not as brilliant! For whichever type, it’s done over a grid, which is laid out beforehand, and the machine cleverly records the system where it’s placed in the ground. The data-crunchers then orientate the values measured and it gets printed – hopefully showing “anomalies” which hint to where an archaeological feature might be, if you’re lucky, or if you’re not, the gas pipe!
Digging is the next step. Forget Indiana Jones, or any other treasure-hunting program (if you’ve seen them; I haven’t but all archaeologists I’ve talked to agree) – digging only takes a fraction of the total time invested. It was very kind of Morgause, the badge leader, to let us have two stints at the digging, and this time I did get to use the trowel! There were some very good finds, but none of them by me, though everyone found bits of glass and pottery – the site was formerly a brickworks, and people suspect there was a rubbish dump in the area, as huge amounts of broken glass and ceramics were found on the dig. We also found lots of broken brick, obviously!
Finds washing is more boring than the others, but still interesting – when you clean up a find you may reveal the beauty of the artefact. When doing this be careful to only take from one bag per tray, as mixing where you found the finds can lead to confusing mess-ups! And once the find is washed, you can analyse it, putting it into period, type of artefact, material and any other category. This was the last activity, after which specially commissioned badges were given out – mine is already on my Scout Blanket!