Monthly Archives: September 2014

VM_365 Day 73 Roman Bakers Oven at Broadstairs

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 73

Today’s image is from the Roman cellared building described previously in our VM365 Day 44 post. The picture above shows the remains of an oven constructed from clay and tile. Elsewhere, in the floor, we found several ovens or kilns, one of which was constructed from fragments of millstones and on one of the corners of the building there was a quern stone set in the floor used for grinding grain.  From the soot collected in the clay and tile oven shown above charred Spelt, Emmer, Barley and Oat grains were recovered suggesting that this structure is likely to have been used as a bakers oven.

It would be interesting to know what type of bread can be made from grains like this.

VM_365 Day 72. Geological Phenomena

Archaeology, Geology, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Patterned Ground
Patterned Ground

Today’s image shows a common geological phenomena that we sometimes encounter on archaeological sites called patterned ground. It looks rather like the ripples you get in the clouds called a Mackerel sky. It is very visible in this picture, taken in 2002, at a site on the cliff top at Ramsgate. The ripples in the ground are actually masking a large Iron Age and Roman enclosure ditch on the left hand side of the picture and a middle Bronze Age mortuary structure comprising a small ring ditch surrounding a group of pits containing pottery vessels and cremated human bone in the north part of the site.

Around 21,000 years ago, large areas of patterned ground were formed as the land surface went through cycles of freezing and thawing. Fine clay and silts percolated into the fractures in the chalk producing the linear stripes and polygons that you can see here.

VM_365 Day 71. Results of the Workshop flotation.

Archaeology, Education, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 71

Following on from Saturday’s Environmental Archaeology Workshop, where we processed some samples from a Roman cremation burial, today’s image shows the cremation vessel under excavation alongside an image of the human bone that was extracted from the heavy residue.

The cremation vessel is a large copy of a globular amphora vessel in a local, pink, sandy fabric dating between c. 170-200 AD. The tiny slivers of burnt  human bone shown in the right hand side of the image are all that remain of this heavily truncated cremation. The fragments measure between 2 and 10 mm in length and were painstakingly picked out from the heavy residue by hand by the team who took part in the workshop.

 

 

VM_365 Day 70. Can’t take a class to a site? Take the site to the class!

Archaeology, Education, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Learning to record a site with our mini-excavation in a box
Learning to record a site with our mini-excavation in a box

On VM_365 Day 70 we have an image of aother of our resources for teaching the principles of archaeological recording. Understanding the recording process is essential for grasping how archaeologists build up the story of the past from finds and paperwork. Another dimension is added to the finds and images from our Virtual Museum when the archaeological excavation process behind the discoveries is familiar to the audience.

It can be useful to take people to an excavation so they can spend time learning how an archive is built up for a site by planning, drawing sections and recording contexts. But, many of the excavations that archaeologists carry out now are in locations like building sites that are not easily accessible, especially to very young, elderly or disabled people.  When we want to explain the processes of recording, it is not always possible to take a class on to a site or hold an extended workshop on a busy excavation.

So the Trust solved the problem by creating a Site in a Box which can be used indoors to teach archaeological methods with plenty of time to practise. Using our experience of the archaeology of the area, and a certain creative flair, we have reproduced an authentic slice of prehistoric Thanet  to work on at our leisure

While our Dig and Discover activities that featured in VM_365 Day 68 are useful for teaching the principles of finds recovery and the materials that are commonly investigated by archaeologists, the Site in a Box can be used more effectively to gain an understanding of how the recording of archaeological excavations creates the information that is needed to understand the context of the material that is recovered.

We hope that our Site in Box will help as many people of possible understand the background to the finds and images that we post in the VM_365 project.

VM_365 Day 69 Environmental Archaeology Workshop Day – September 6th 2014

Antoinette Centre garden, Archaeology, Education, Thanet archaeology, Training excavation at Lord of the Manor 2013, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
A medley of images from our environmental archaeology workshop with IOTAS
A medley of images from our environmental archaeology workshop with IOTAS

Following a successful community archaeological excavation at Lord of the Manor Ramsgate in 2013, the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society have been keen to learn more about the post excavation process so that they can progress with writing up and publishing their results.

The Trust has been able to help out with planning a series of workshops, sharing our professional expertise and our resources to introduce the next steps that follow beyond the field work of an archaeological dig.

Today we organised a workshop on environmental archaeology with a practical session in processing samples using our flotation tank. We took the opportunity to run through some stored samples from some interesting contexts from earlier sites which had been put into storage.

One sample processed was the contents of a 3rd century cremation vessel found at a site in Westgate where fine slivers of burnt bone were recovered from the residue, proving that at least a small amount of the cremated remains had survived the heavy disturbance that the site had suffered in later years. More will be learnt form the fine organic material that was floated from the sample, which was hung up to dry in the September sun and will be processed in a few days time.

The day proved to be both educational and sociable with the unexpected provision of cakes and snacks to supplement the flow of tea and conversation on archaeology and the environment.

VM_365 Day 68. Dig Boxes!

Archaeology, Education, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 68

Our Dig and Discover boxes went on a journey to Lympne, near Hythe today. They will be used on Sunday 7th September by the newly formed Studying History and Archaeology in Lympne group, SHAL for short, at their stall at the Lympne Village Fair and Dog Show to interest people in archaeology and, hopefully, gain new members for their group.

We took the opportunity of being able to set up the Dig and Discover resources to record the process of setting it out and listing the equipment that we use, with a view to producing a How to Guide for other people who may want to borrow the equipment, or set up their own Dig and Discover package.

VM_365 Day 67 17th century Malthouse, King Street, Margate

Archaeology, Margate, Post Medieval, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 67

Today’s journal entry is inspired by Margate Brewery’s recent blog post about their future new premises at the High Street, Margate where they have established a 17th origin for their building which has been associated with beer, wine and spirits for most, if not, all of its lifetime.

While we are no experts in these kinds of structures, this made us think of other buildings in Margate connected with brewing and probably one of the least know standing buildings is a structure known as The Barn which is located to the rear of the Tudor House on King Street. This flint structure, shown on the right hand side of the picture, partly rebuilt in modern brick and heavily altered over the years, has been identified as a purpose built Malthouse constructed in the 17th century and used to malt barley to be used in the brewing of ale.

The Reverend John Lewis published an interesting passage in 1736 about malting and brewing in Margate:

‘…Malting is another Branch of the Trade of this Place, which was formerly so large, that there about 40 Malt-houses in this parish. But this trade also is now gone much to decay; tho’ certainly here might be the best Malt in England, the barley which grows here being so very good, and the Land naturally so kind for it. The Malt, it seems, here made, having formerly been very coarse for the Use of the Distillers, it has so much lost its Credit, that the present Maltsters find little Encouragement to make their Malt fine for a London Market, where they are almost sure to be out-sold by the Hertfordshire and North Country Malt-men, whose Malt bears a better name

About 40 Years ago, one ____Prince of this Place drove a great Trade here in brewing a particular Sort of Ale, which, from its being first brewed at a Place called North-down in this Parish, went by the Name of North-down Ale, and afterwards was called Mergate Ale. But whether it is owing to the Art of brewing this Liquor dying with the inventor of it, or the Humour of the Gentry and People altering to the liking [of] the Pale North Country Ale better, the present Brewers vend little or none of what they call by the Name of Mergate Ale, which is a great Disadvantage to their Trade ‘

(Lewis 1736, 134)

The breweries being established in Margate are not so much a new phenomenon, more a return to an old local tradition of brewing fine beer.

References

Austin, R.  2014. Tudor House, Margate. In Canterbury’s Archaeology 2012-2013. Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 21-22

Lewis, J. 1736. The History and Antiquities as well Ecclesiastical as Civil, of the Isle of Tenet, in Kent. Second Edition (Reprinted by Michaels Bookshop, Ramsgate)

 

 

VM_365 Day 66 What’s in a dish?

Archaeology, Ramsgate, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 66

Today’s image shows a handmade, straight sided dish that was found in a Roman grave at Ramsgate. The dish, made from grog and quartz sand tempered fabric with a few shell inclusions, had been heavily used before it was placed in the grave at the feet of a young woman aged between 18-25 years along with two other vessels.

There are many questions we would like to ask when we find objects in these circumstances:

Did this vessel belong to the occupant of the grave or to a family member? What did she use the dish for? Did she use it for eating from or did she use it in cooking, perhaps to make pies* or other meals? Were the knife marks in the base made by her?

Despite all our efforts archaeology may not be able to answer these questions from the evidence that remains.

*Pies are mentioned in a collection of cookery recipes, Apicius, believed to date from the late 4th to 5th centuries.

VM_365 Day 65 When is a coast not a coast? Beware of the changing landscape.

Archaeology, Bronze Age, Landscape, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Bronze Age pit lined with woven timbers
Bronze Age pit lined with woven timbers

For Day 65 of VM_365 the image shows one of the most important sites in Thanet for understanding how the changing landscape can throw up problems for archaeologists when they are interpreting features and finds in the landscape.

In the centre of the picture is a pit under excavation on the foreshore at St. Mildred’s Bay on the north coast of Thanet. Against the back edge  of the pit can be seen the thin  horizontal and vertical timber rods that form a woven lining to the pit, similar to a woven basket closely fitting the size of the pit.

In the dry chalk landscape of Thanet, pits and other features of this age are generally filled with sequences of chalky soils or clay and silt deposits, with no hint that any organic deposits ever existed. In other parts of the country where archaeological features have been found in waterlogged conditions, many examples of the use of organic materials and even complicated carpentry from sites of the same date have been recovered. Because the conditions in Thanet are not good for preserving organic material, all trace of this part of the record has been erased.

If recording is carried out with care and attention, archaeologists can deduce that such material may once have been present, lining pits and forming structures that are now undetectable apart from the holes that were dug for them or the material that eventually replaced the organic deposits. The positive aspect of the discovery of sites on the foreshore in waterlogged conditions has demonstrated that the absence of this material elsewhere is due to the conditions of preservation not the absence of this material in the period.

The negative aspect is the interpretation of the location of these sites at the time they were created. Thanet’s land mass has been diminishing year after year as rising sea levels have covered land and the sea  has eaten away the chalk to form the cliff line and the flat platforms of the foreshore. Sites like the one in today’s image were not on the coast when they were created, they may even have been some distance away from the coast and we must be careful not to give an undue significance to the present coastal location of the sites when they had no bearing on the settlement at the time.

It was a matter of good luck that some archaeological features were preserved  in the platform cut by the waves around the coast, leaving remnants behind in waterlogged conditions to give us an idea of what life was like on dry land four or five thousand years ago. It is clear from evidence like this that the study of the dynamic landscape and attempts to understand and represent the changes on maps are an important part of the archaeologists tools for interpreting past societies.

 

 

VM_365 Day 64 How landscape affects everyday objects

Archaeology, Bronze Age, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Flint tempering in Late Bronze Age pottery fabric
Flint tempering in Late Bronze Age pottery fabric

If you look carfeully at this close up of the fabric of a  Middle Bronze Age pottery urn from Ramsgate you can see two aspects of human interaction with the landscape which are preserved at a relatively small scale in an everyday object.

In the centre of the picture the finger prints of the potter have decorated the surface of the vessel, but the fabric of the clay that was shaped by the maker was made from a combination of the local clay, stiffened with inclusions of fragments of crushed burnt flint which was also taken by the potter from the local landscape.

The material was worked by the potters into the common forms that were part of their culture but the feel of the material was a direct reflection of the immediate landscape of the potter. Each region may have shared common vessel types, which could be transmitted through examples and ideas, but the materials the vessels were made from were gathered locally and were usually distinctive in their fabric which were rooted in the  local landscape.