23 August 2020

Surveying the archaeology of survey

We have had a great couple of weeks' archaeology at Beacon Ring, in what will probably be the final season of excavations at our Iron Age hillfort for a while. The target this year was the mound in the middle of the site, which hazy antiquarian references suggested could have been a Bronze Age burial mound. However it became clear quite early on that it had more recent origins.

We had always been slightly surprised that the nearby Ordnance Survey Triangulation Pillar (trigpoint) had been built off the top of the mound. The history of trigpoints - and the 'retriangulation survey' which gave rise to them in the 1930s and 1940s - is described in this Ordnance Survey blog post.

CPAT archaeologists at work, surveying the archaeology of survey.

Our trigpoint dates to 1948, so it had some period of usefulness before the famous forestry which now covers the hillfort was planted in December 1953. However it also had a predecessor, at a slightly different location, which our excavations have revealed.

The older Ordnance Survey benchmark is in two parts. On top is a concrete block, which actually looks like the concrete has been poured into a hole cut into the ground. There was a grease-filled metal cap set into the top, which had a very clear circular hole or notch as a survey mark. This appears to be a 'block' type of triangulation point; the top would probably have been at, or just below, the ground surface at the time it was installed.
 

The upper block. Bottom photo shows the metal cap removed.
 
Certainly the composition of the mound above this level seemed fairly modern; a loose dark earth with bits of glass and charcoal. 

The lower part of the older benchmark was a stone slab, about 900mm square. This had been set into the underlying subsoil. A classic 'benchmark' was carved into the top surface, again with a circular hole or notch which aligned with the upper one. The concrete block had been cast in situ.

The lower stone slab showing the carved benchmark.

It is not clear why the trigpoint and benchmark are in different places. Nor do we know how old the stone slab is likely to be. Any information would be gratefully received!
 
As for the mound, it may have been the location of the 'beacon' which gave the hillfort its name. The charcoal-rich deposit above the benchmark was probably the result of bonfires which we know the local gentry had caused to be lit in honour of Royal celebrations (notable occasions included Queen Victoria's Jubilees in 1887 and 1897). Since this is the highest point of the interior of the hillfort, it was probably the location of an earlier beacon, first depicted on a seventeenth-century map.


27 July 2020

Community archaeology in north-east Wales

 It is great to be able to finally publish with my colleague Dr Penelope Foreman, in the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage.

We have been working on this paper since last year, which describes a few long-term projects we have been doing in north-east Wales. Despite the tiny budgets and limited scope of many of the projects, we feel that the long-term gains have been impressive - both for the communities and for the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust. We discuss this in a frank and reflexive way: we have come a long way but there is still a lot to do.

The full article is Open Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2020.1794115]; I have reproduced the abstract below to whet your appetite.

This paper explores the transformation of community archaeology and heritage in a particular part of the UK with unique and somewhat conservative sets of structures for delivering public archaeology. The transformation is ongoing and is bounded by a range of theoretical, methodological and institutional constraints. These frameworks provide the context for an account of the successes and failures of projects in north-east Wales. Important strands of thought and action include the role of national identity in place-making and the ways in which national political priorities may need to inform and shape local initiatives. The paper discusses some of the theoretical and practical approaches that may be suited to further developing community archaeology and heritage in Wales and beyond.

The link to the article is here. As usual, comments are always welcome.



30 June 2020

Archaeology, planning and public benefit

On 30 June the Prime Minister gave a speech in Dudley which set out some of the direction of travel of the thinking of the current government around planning in England.

One of the key tropes of his speech was the idea that environmental regulations delay construction (he referred to 'newt-counting' but archaeology is usually considered in the same category). In fact, as numerous commentators pointed out, the main delays in the system are caused by developers themselves waiting for suitably profitable market conditions.

My concern is that in defending archaeology's role in the planning system over the coming months the sector will focus too much on the economic arguments and potentially lose sight of the other benefits that archaeology can bring to society more widely.

I have written a lengthy piece on Medium, arguing that removing archaeology and heritage protection from the planning system will make society poorer. It concludes:

One of archaeology’s great strengths is its ability to question the received historical wisdom, and to throw light on those darker aspects of the country’s past. These are the bread and butter of development-driven archaeological practice, and they are also quite often the most interesting bits of archaeology that tell forgotten stories about ordinary people. Of course this includes issues that we have been discussing in recent weeks and months — such as the legacies of slavery and colonialism on our present-day institutions and structures. A ‘radical reform’ of the planning system runs the risk of devaluing the undesignated assets that reflect these hidden stories of the poor, the dispossessed and the powerless.

You can read the full piece here. Comments are always welcome.



10 March 2020

Borderlands: rethinking archaeological research frameworks

Living and working across the England-Wales border I am constantly struck by the similarities and differences in the legislation, structures and practice of archaeology and cultural heritage on both sides.

In this recent paper I have chosen to explore the impact of borders on archaeological research frameworks. The paper considers not just administrative borders (nations or counties), but also the 'internal' borders that archaeologists construct for themselves - including the different weight accorded to different sectors of the professions, gender inequality and access to data. I have also slightly reviewed my assessment of archaeological 'biospheres' which I explored in an earlier post.

The paper has been published online in the journal The Historic Environment: Policy and Practice.

Here is the abstract:
Research frameworks for archaeology in the UK have a long history. Since the 1990s research frameworks have been developed in formal programmes initially driven by state heritage bodies. These were intended to facilitate better decision-making in development-driven archaeological projects, and to provide an interface between archaeologists. However the effectiveness of such frameworks is limited by a number of constraints. These include ‘internal’ boundaries created by historic environment professionals: chronological borders; professional borders; disciplinary borders; and borders limiting access and regulating control. There are also boundaries created by others, which include institutional and resourcing constraints as well as the geographical limits of modern administrative boundaries. This paper discusses these issues through the prism of the border region between England and Wales, a borderland zone with long histories of conflict and co-operation. Some suggestions are offered for future changes.
A link to the full paper is here. A more accessible link will be provided in due course; in the meantime please do get in touch if you would like a PDF.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17567505.2020.1737777



6 September 2019

Archaeological associations and the archaeological 'biosphere'

Yesterday the regular meeting of the EAA 'Community of Professional Associations in Archaeology' took place at the European Association of Archaeologists meeting in Bern. This year provided an opportunity to update on the 'Connecting Archaeological Associations in Europe' project that we began following last year's EAA meeting in Barcelona. I posted about it on this blog (link here), and you can read the paper Gerry Wait and I wrote for Archäologische Informationen (Open Access) here. Gerry and I are working with Frank Siegmund and Diane Scherzler of DGUF.

Bern seen from the University

The project has so far had responses from over 140 organisations across Europe - some large, most very small - but together representing 45,000 citizens. This justifies one of the rationales for the project - archaeological associations (of whatever form) provide a huge opportunity for archaeologists to engage with the wider world.

My own contribution was to try and characterise the situation in the UK. I chose to use an analogy from natural science, and described the archaeological frameworks in the UK as a series of ecosystems together forming a biosphere. This was then used as a background on which to map the influence of the different types of archaeological association. I will summarise the talk here.

In my very simplified scheme I identified four broad archaeological 'ecosystems' in the UK.


Academia is arguably the oldest of these 'ecosystems', but many UK academics do not study the archaeology of the UK. Moreover academics do not always engage with the other ecosystems (but more on that in a moment). Arrangements for 'state heritage agencies' differ markedly between the different parts of the UK. Wales effectively has three actors in the system (Cadw, the Royal Commission and the Welsh Archaeological Trusts), England now has two (Historic England an English Heritage) and Scotland just one (Historic Environment Scotland). The other two 'ecosystems' have emerged following the adoption of 'polluter pays' legislation from the early 1990s. Planning authorities and commercial archaeology represent the two sides of that coin. Planning in archaeology is generally done at 'county' level in the UK, with some notable exceptions such as London (where is done by Historic England) and Wales (where it is done by the Welsh Archaeological Trusts). Consultants and contractors come in a bewildering variety of sizes and institutional structures.

These four 'ecosystems' work together in a 'biosphere'. This is my rough attempt to characterise the flows of information and action between the different 'ecosystems' in the archaeological 'biosphere'. The thicker the arrow the stronger the flow, and the closer the connection.


Clearly the strongest connections are between those two sides of the 'polluter pays' coin - between planning archaeologists and the consultants and contractors in the private sector. Information flows regularly between them: consultants and contractors work to a brief prepared by their planning colleagues; they use data in the Historic Environment Records (HERs) to inform their work, and their work adds data to the HERs - and this all happens on a regular and frequent cycle. Planning archaeologists tend to have good links with their colleagues in the state heritage agencies too. Those in the state heritage agencies are usually well-connected politically, but not always directly with archaeologists 'on the ground' or with local communities. Academics tend to engage less frequently with commercial archaeologists and with planning archaeologists (and HERs); they do have closer relationships with state heritage actors who provide permission to undertake work on certain sites, and are useful partners when seeking funding.

This is an enormous simplification, but non-UK colleagues found it a helpful way of describing a complex and not always logical system. Of course archaeologists in the 'biosphere' are aware of the tendency of the 'ecosystems' to become silos, and so they join and participate in archaeological associations to learn more about what is going on elsewhere, and to keep up-to-date with their own interests.

There are a number of different types of archaeological assocation. To simplify, I again characterised these into four broad types.


The category 'professional associations' contains the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), which is the only body to accredit archaeologists and to hold them accountable to a Code of Conduct through peer review. Associations 'by similar employment' are those representing institutions - I used the examples of the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers (ALGAO) and the Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers (FAME). Essentially these associations represent institutions forming the two sides of the 'polluter pays' coin - ALGAO for planning archaeologists, and FAME for contractors and consultants. Pressure or lobby groups have been formed almost in a 'counter cultural' way at particular times of development pressure, and are now part of the archaeological establishment. I used the examples of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) established in 1944, and RESCUE - established in 1971 during the second wave of post-war redevelopment and still an important voice.

Finally there are the learned societies. These go back to the post-Enlightenment eighteenth century, and range in size from very local, to regional, national and international. Some specialise in a particular period (the Society for Medieval Archaeology for example), others in particular types of archaeology regardless of period (for instance the Historical Metallurgy Society). Most have a journal and organise trips and meetings; many are constrained by the demographics of their membership.

Now I attempted to map these associations against the 'biosphere' of the active archaeological discipline.

 

Generally speaking learned societies are dominated by academics, and to a lesser extent those from state heritage bodies (usually senior people in stable employment). They appeal to those in the 'polluter pays' part of the system too, but for a variety of reasons to a lesser extent. In contrast the associations by employment appeal exclusively to planning archaeologists and archaeological contractors and consultants.


Professional associations appeal largely to archaeological contractors and consultants, with significant engagement too from colleagues in planning authorities. This is because CIfA offers independent accreditation and a 'badge' of competence to practice, which is valued by clients and other non-archaeologists. In contrast academic colleagues, and those in state heritage agencies, feel validated by their own status and the accreditation that their own institution provides, so see less value in CIfA membership (although I think they are wrong to do so).

On the other hand pressure or lobby groups appeal much more to academics, who are not as tightly constrained as their colleagues elsewhere. Archaeologists working for the state heritage agencies or in local government (or in the case of planning archaeologists in Wales working for neither but funded by both) have to remain politically neutral. Commercial archaeologists likewise can be more cautious about the political aspect of pressure and lobby groups as they do not wish to alienate clients.

The video below is an abridged version of the full presentation.



I hope you find this useful. If you have any comments please let me know. Perhaps the best way of doing so is via Twitter but other ways are also welcome!


21 March 2019

Connecting archaeological associations in Europe

The annual session of the EAA ‘Professional Associations Community’ has tended to focus on the work of organisations such as DGUF and CIfA, and progress being made in similar vein elsewhere. Whilst this is excellent and necessary, it became clear at the 2018 EAA meeting that this approach risked ignoring a huge and valuable range of other organisations that – although they were not national or regional state heritage agencies, private companies or professional associations – nevertheless made an essential contribution to archaeological work.

These sorts of organisations may be very specific in their focus – a particular town or region, a specific period, or a certain specialist interest. Many of these organisations have a very wide range of individual members, and there is a degree of overlap in membership. In some cases these associations or organisations are open to non-archaeological members too.

However, there is considerable duplication of effort, and not all archaeological organisations are communicating effectively with each other. This is perhaps most apparent in the efforts by archaeologists to interact with, and to influence, a wider socio-political agenda. Archaeology does not exist in a vacuum, it is a public endeavour which exists in the public realm. It is governed and influenced by political decision-making but has not always been able to vocalise its concerns. Thus, it is not possible to send unified, consistent messages to wider society unless the sector knows who all of its constituent voices are. Therefore, the first step is to know who represents individual archaeologists and then open a discussion and dialogue between them.

Therefore a small group – including Frank Siegmund and Diane Scherzler of DGUF, Gerry Wait of Triskelion Heritage and myself partly as a representative of CIfA – have begun to try and overcome these issues by setting up a project for ‘connecting the archaeological associations of Europe’. 

The first stage of this project is to collect data by questionnaire, which can be found on this page:


More information about the thinking behind the project can be found in a paper by Gerry and I, which is linked from this page:


Further updates will appear from time to time as data comes in and the project develops.





14 November 2018

Blood, faith and iron

I am delighted to announce that my book on early industrialisation in the Ironbridge Gorge has been published by Archaeopress. It examines the development of the landscape before c.1650, looking at pre-Dissolution industrial activity but mainly focussing on the period after c.1540.


It is available from the Archaeopress website, and I think it will also be available at TAG. This is the blurb:

'The Ironbridge Gorge is an iconic industrial landscape, presented as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and so part of a national narrative of heroic Protestant individualism. However this is not the full story. In fact this industrial landscape was created by an entrepreneurial Catholic dynasty over 200 years before the Iron Bridge was built. This book tells that story for the first time. 

'Acquiring land at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Brooke family invested in coal mining and iron production – and introduced a radical new method of steelmaking which transformed that industry. Drawing together years of painstaking archaeological and historical research, this book looks in detail at the landscape, buildings and industrial installations created by the Brooke dynasty between the Dissolution and the English Civil War. It also explores the broader contexts – religious, economic and political – which shaped their mind-set and their actions. It considers medieval influences on these later developments, and looks at how the Brookes’ Catholicism was reflected in the way they created a new industrial landscape. In so doing it questions traditional narratives of English industrialisation, and calls for a more sophisticated understanding of this period by historical archaeologists.'

Enjoy!



1 October 2018

Offa's Dyke seminar and excavations

Last month we ran a day school on behalf of the Offa's Dyke Collaboratory, an initiative which I wrote about earlier in the year. In contrast to previous events, this was very much an opportunity for local groups and individuals to come and present their work and to discuss their approaches to Offa's Dyke and the world of Mercian border studies more generally. The event, which took place in Oswestry, was followed by a visit to the ongoing CPAT excavations at Chirk Castle.


CPAT stalwart Ian Grant talking to day school delegates at Chirk Castle.

The event enabled a wide range of views to be presented. This is the programme for the day.


Highlights included Niall Heaton's presentation on the Dyke at Trefonen - a very engaging and confident contribution from a teenager's perspective which turned a few ideas on their heads in a very welcome way. Mel Roxby-Mackey explained the interesting ways in which the CoSMM project hopes to develop. Dick Finch and Ray Bailey (the latter accidentally without any slides) gave fresh and unconventional approaches to the Dyke at - or even beyond - its conventionally-established extremes.

All in all an excellent day, and we hope to be able to follow this up in 2019 with another communit-led event.



13 September 2018

European Association of Archaeologists 2018

Well, another superb EAA conference - this time in Barcelona - which for me was characterised by two main strands of activity. The first, following on from last year, was developing the very exciting new 'Urban Archaeology Community' with my colleague from the Netherlands, Jeroen Bouwmeester. The second, in the wake of our exciting season at Beacon Ring, was to immerse myself in the world of European hillfort studies.


A bit of sightseeing before the conference.

First we reported progress in the Urban Archaeology Community (UAC) to the pre-conference meeting of all the Communities, which was hosted by the EAA President Felipe Criado-Boado. Felipe has been very keen to promote new communities which reflect the diversity of European archaeology, and it is very interesting to see the Association develop in this way.

Our session (on the Saturday) was intended to discuss the major issues facing urban archaeology in Europe. We had some great presentations, as you can see...


Christiane gave an excellent overview of the situation in Luxembourg, emphasising the ways in which political issues affected the ways in which archaeologists undertook urban archaeology. This was followed by a very different perspective from Malta by Smaranda, who discussed the interconnections between marine conservation and urban archaeology, and the relationships between urban places and marine pollution. She concluded by noting the important role for archaeologists on the interface between culture, society and the environment. Next, Alicia talked about the management of urban heritage from a World Heritage perspective, using the city of Toledo as a case study. She argued that archaeological voices were largely absent from touristic understandings of places, and suggested that this was an issue for archaeologists to resolve through dialogue and participation - communication was a big issue for archaeology.

This was followed by Valeria's analysis of the role of data, an Italian perspective on a universal issue. There is, she argued, too much inconsistency in the recording, storage and presentation of data - moreover most of it is inaccessible except to specialists. As a result, although there is a lot of data much of which is of high quality, it is not being used in urban design to best advantage. The final presentation was from Gugliemo, who talked eloquently about the many issues around using geophysics in urban places - with a series of case studies from the Mediterranean.

Discussion was, as ever, lively. We debated the role of the group and added some new recruits to its development and promotion. We also committed to develop the group outside the EAA meetings, and provisionally agreed to hold an interim meeting in the spring (hopefully in Rome).


Delegates at the UAC session posing outside the EAA venue.

Most of the rest of the conference was spent listening to several sessions on hillfort studies. I won't report those in detail, but suffice to say I learned a great deal about all sorts of things that I wouldn't otherwise have done. I was particularly impressed by ongoing projects in Lithuania, Germany, Spain and Ireland.

As ever it was great to meet new colleagues and catch up with existing friends and contacts. We also made a lot of progress on discussions around the role of existing groups in enabling a pan-European network of archaeologists at grass-roots levels - and I am hoping to work with DGUF to develop a project around this in the coming months.

Many thanks as ever to the organisers and the student volunteers who made this such an excellent conference. I am already looking forward to next year in Bern!




31 August 2018

Beacon Ring hillfort excavations

We have just finished a season of fieldwork at Beacon Ring, a hillfort which has been owned by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust since 2008. The hillfort is covered in trees, which were planted in 1953, and the purpose of our excavations - in part at least - was to try and see what (if any) damage the trees had caused to the underlying archaeology.


Trench 1. Overhead view, with Richard adding the final touches for the photograph. The dark layer at the base of the trench is the buried soil horizon.

We excavated six trenches looking at three areas: the rampart on the eastern side of the hillfort (Trench 1, shown above), the area in the unusually wide southern entrance (Trenches 2 and 3, shown below) and three trenches in the woods.

Excavations at Trench 1 began with a sense of anticipation, knowing that colleagues elsewhere had found structures (whether stone walls or timber revetments) in other hillfort ramparts. However the excavation revealed that the structure had been entirely built of material removed from the ditch, tipped in a series of layers and then consolidated. A buried soil layer beneath the rampart seems to represent the ground surface at the time the ditch was cut and the bank built. We have taken some samples from this, so hopefully these can be dated.

Trenches 2 and 3 in the southern entrance explored some features shown up in the geophysical survey, as well as trying to understand the relationship between the entrance and the later (medieval?) parish boundary bank that runs all the way through the hillfort. Apart from a small cut feature beneath the parish boundary these - admittedly very small - trenches were not very informative.



Another view from the 'pole cam', this time looking south-east over the southern entrance and towards Corndon and Stiperstones with Trenches 2 and 3 in the foreground. This time Neil is adjusting the scale.

Excavations in the woods (Trenches 4, 5 and 6) investigated the impact of two phases of forestry on the interior of the monument. The first plantation appears to have been in existence from the late-nineteenth century until the early 1930s. The second is the current one, planted in 1953 (and famously commemorating the coronation with the EIIR monogram picked out in redwoods). In all three trenches we were pleased to see that the roots were generally very shallow, running along the interface between the topsoil and the underlying clay.

The project was very generously funded by Cadw, and we had lots of help from a very merry band of volunteers. These included many 'regulars' and locals, but we were also pleased to have the support of Mark Spanjer and some of his students from Saxion University in the Netherlands.

Hopefully we will be able to secure funding to return next year and answer some of the questions that this year's project has inevitably raised.

More news as soon as we have finished the report!



16 May 2018

A piece of paper in Munich (not that one)

It was a delightful honour to be able to represent CIfA at the annual conference of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte (the German Society for Pre- and Protohistory, more commonly known by its initials as DGUF). This august learned body, founded in 1969, is the largest archaeological association in Germany with over 700 members. More recently it has been closely involved with CIfA in setting up a German group of the Chartered Institute.


Signing the MoU between CIfA and DGUF.

Gerry Wait and I went to Munich last week to take part in the inaugural AGM of the new group. This was an opportunity for us to help explain the role of CIfA and what it could (and could not) do to help archaeologists in Germany. The AGM was remarkable for its enthusiasm and orderliness. Both of these characteristics are sometimes conspicuously absent from CIfA meetings in the UK, which can be cynical and chaotic affairs. However the passion and commitment of our German colleagues to the cause of professionalism and professional standards in archaeology was commendable and very refreshing.

This was also an opportunity to sign a draft Memorandum of Understanding between DGUF and CIfA, which - when finalised - will establish closer co-operation between the two organisations. Here are the signatories to that piece of paper. I am looking forward to seeing how the CIfA Deutschland group develops, and I really hope that the 'mother' CIfA can learn some much-needed lessons in administrative efficiency amongst other things.

I enjoyed Munich very much, and found time to see some of the sights as well as discussing archaeology, professionalism and of course Brexit with German colleagues. The keynote paper was given in Grünwald Castle, and was followed by a delightful early evening drinking some of the various local beers.

Hopefully there will be an opportunity to attend next year's DGUF meeting in Bonn.