Part 1 – (Pictures 1-10 left to right) Lesley & Geoff will continue to support Operation Nightingale over the next six weeks working as the detectorists on the latest project at Barrow Clump in Wiltshire. Operation Nightingale is the code name for the project to use archaeology to assist with the rehabilitation of soldiers injured both mentally and physically, primarily in operations in Afghanistan. This is the second project we have been involved with and is taking place on Ministry of Defence land and the site is once again a scheduled ancient monument, a Bronze Age barrow with Anglo-Saxon graves. This project is a co-operative effort between Operation Nightingale, Wessex Archaeology, Leicester University and Channel Four’s ‘Time Team’. The site had been partially archaeologically examined by English Heritage a few years ago because of damage to the barrow by badgers and several graves had been found and excavated. However, the damage is continuing and hence the need for further exploratory work as spears and bones have turned up in the soil being produced by the badgers from their setts.
Earlier in June, Lesley & Geoff met up with Phil A., the site director from Wessex Archaeology, for a weekend’s initial detecting survey of the site to see if any further objects were to be found in the badger spoil and other areas of the site before the main operation commences. The weather wasn’t promising but with only a few rain showers a fairly comprehensive initial site survey was possible. However, all that was found was a huge quantity of rubbish mainly empty and full army ration packs, tin cans and a variety of live and empty pieces of ammunition. Even Geoff was caught off guard when digging a signal and a large quantity of live ammunition tumbled down into a badger hole!
After Phil A. had cleared some of the cut nettles with a rake it was possible to see the ground and we noticed a few struck flints. Geoff recovered what could be the rings from an Anglo-Saxon cosmetics set but other than that there were no items of antiquity found. Although, knowing there is nothing in the surface soil is helpful to the project as they intend to use a JCB to remove the first layers before commencing archaeological examination of the area.
There will be more reports to come over the next few weeks so watch this space!
[If you left mouse click on any picture it will form on it’s own on a separate page, if you then left click this image it will enlarge to fill your screen.]
Part 2 – (Pictures 11-26 Left to right) The weekend of the 22nd-24th June saw our first active weekend on site at Barrow Clump. We arrived on Friday and spent most of the morning and half the afternoon erecting our tent in what seemed to us to be a gale! Rifleman Renzo (aka Sav) and Tash came to our rescue at the critical time and thus prevented the tent and us arriving like a hot air balloon in Salisbury! The site had been set up the previous weekend with three sleeping tents, a kitchen and adjoining mess hall, a tool tent, a row of porta loos, a water bowser and a generator. There was also a tent pitched on the edge of the archaeological site.
Two very large trenches had been started by the JCB and the spoil heaps were already of a considerable size! We searched the spoil heaps on and off during the weekend finding the usual ammunition live and fired, tin cans, silver paper and empty ration packs. Geoff also searched the trenches and marked signals with firstly pegs and then with yellow spray paint so the archaeologists would know that there were metal objects at certain places in the trench. We were preceded on site by Lt. Col. Paul, our metal detecting colleague, who had assisted by locating the first major metal find in the trench, an Anglo-Saxon copper alloy, decorated, disc brooch which can be seen in the photos in its uncleaned state. The other metal item of interest is an iron spear head that you can see in the pictures which was found in amongst the badger spoil by Alex, one of the soldiers, prior to the dig commencing.
The grave that was uncovered in the first week (note the ‘Coke’ can in the photo!) is of a female and contained no actual grave goods (although Geoff did get a small iron signal from the skull) but as you can see from the picture it is quite deep, in a chalk lined grave cut and it would have been impossible for a metal detector to have located anything from the surface. These remains were very carefully lifted while we were on site. Another grave has been identified, you will notice Geoff in one of the pictures locating a signal in the top of it that turned out to be a cartridge case but it was quite exciting for a while!
We were actually to be seen carrying out some archaeology on Saturday afternoon and Sunday towards the top of the barrow in Trench 2, when everyone else was having their time off and have found probably the first two pieces of pottery – yet to be dated and some pot boilers and struck flint. The joke was that we were having some time off from detecting!
Barrow Clump had a guest on Sunday morning, Phil H. (Time Team) turned up unexpectedly to take a look at the progress on the site and we entertained him for a while over a cup of coffee in the mess tent.
We are now actively drying out all our bedding etc. before returning to Barrow Clump next weekend – we got extremely wet in the tent during the gale and pouring rain on Saturday night!
Part 3 – (Pictures 27-56 Left to right) The weekend of 29th June – 2nd July saw our third trip to Barrow Clump. The Saturday weather was reasonable but it deteriorated towards the afternoon on Sunday and we had to run for cover on one occasion which happily coincided with a coffee break! Monday was sadly really miserable and it drizzled all day.
When we arrived on Friday night we discovered that a large amount of soil had been removed from the two trenches, mainly from the barrow’s ring ditch. On Saturday, we set about detecting on the new spoil and Lesley found a Medieval flower shaped mount and a musket ball. In the pictures you can see the amount of ordnance that has been recovered from the spoil heap by the detectorists and from the trenches by the archaeologists and the riflemen.
Happily, the pottery we had discovered the previous weekend was dated as prehistoric and Phil H. was due to come to the site to look at all the struck flint found so far. While mentioning pottery, with some consternation from all involved except, of course, Sgt. Diarmaid who was highly delighted, Roman pottery had been turning up. Some interesting pieces, including a piece of Samian which incidentally was found by Phil A., and some other pieces of Black Burnished Ware. For a while, it had people suggesting the burials might be Roman, however, that idea was soon quashed as the deposition of Roman pot was in the barrow ditch fill.
Ten burials had been identified by the weekend and a couple of them had been excavated in trench 2, both of which proved to be incomplete and without metal artefacts, although Sam managed to recover three rather nice amber beads from under one skeleton. Trench 1, until this time, had proved hard going with little reward.
On Saturday afternoon Cpl. Steve (aka Winno) and Sam decided to investigate an area in Trench 1 that had been previously identified as containing metal. Steve went at it with great gusto and removed several buried tin cans but in doing so he noticed what appeared to be the edge of a grave cut. Proceeding down, Steve was sure he had a grave cut and with Lesley, Geoff and Sam removing and sieving the soil coming out and finding bits of human bone he was sure he was onto something. Finally, he came down onto a pelvis and the leg bones complete with knee caps, ankle bones and a bit of a mixture of toe bones together with a piece of collar bone and a vertebra probably from another skeleton that had arrived courtesy of the badgers (the grave had been ‘badgered’ – this being the term in use at Barrow Clump!). Steve had revealed half of a virtually complete skeleton (‘skelly’ being the Barrow Clump terminology!). All the skellies are given names and Sam decided on Alison, as all the previous skellies had been given male names but had turned out to be female, but given the size and length of the leg bones it was more likely to be renamed ‘Big Al’! On Sunday, Sam continued to supervise Lesley and Geoff’s efforts in the grave trench and we dug carefully down until Geoff exposed the top of the skull when we prudently ceased work to await more experienced hands! Geoff actually ran his detector over the grave at this level but sadly there were no metal signals! On Monday, Richard took over the burial together with Rifleman Lewis. Richard gradually and very carefully exposed the rest of the skull which still had intact nose bone and jaw with teeth, although two of them had fallen out post-mortem and were found loose in the soil, while Lewis continued working on the legs and pelvic area. A lot of information can be gathered from the teeth and Geoff was able to determine that the person was of some age, had a prominent lower jaw (male feature), the teeth were worn indicating an unrefined diet and the individual was likely to have not had very good oral hygiene! Unfortunately, we had to leave before the entire skeleton had been uncovered but it did look like it would be virtually complete – the first one!
Meanwhile, working in Tench 1, Rifleman Sav and Tash uncovered part of what could possibly be a Bronze Age crouch burial, an oval rather than long grave cut. Most of the crouch burial was under the chalk cap to the mound and so it was likely to be slow progress getting down through the chalk to examine it.
On Monday work started on a third trench branching out near trench 2 but nothing had been found by the time we left the site so we will see what is to be revealed there.
A final quick detect of Trench 1, in the barrow ditch, revealed a good signal which we marked. That part of the ditch was excavated on Tuesday, in our absence and the signal turned out to be coming from a grave containing an iron shield boss! There are now other signals in the vicinity which could turn out to be other burials containing grave goods so things are definitely looking up in Trench 1. A number of other graves, mostly in Trench 2, have continued to be excavated this week and we are told have revealed some rather nice glass and amber beads.
Running along side Operation Nightingale is Operation Florence. Operation Florence (http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/project-florence/blog) run by Wessex Archaeology is a lottery funded project involving the local community in the dig at Barrow Clump. In one of the pictures you can see Lesley being interviewed for a video being prepared by some of the young people that will eventually be edited by them and appear as a DVD.
Unfortunately, Lesley and Geoff are not available to go to Barrow Clump for two weeks so its likely that amazing progress will have been made the next time we see it!
Part 4 – (Pictures 57 to end – left to right) The week of Saturday 14th July to Friday 20th July saw Lesley & Geoff’s final week at Barrow Clump for this season. The weather during the week was mixed but predominantly wet! Update: The grave count was now up to 20! The prize excavated find so far being an unusual, rare drinking bucket complete with wooden staves and copper alloy ring bands. The Riflemen had visited the local brewery and had been involved in producing a new ‘Saxon’ ale.
John (WKAS) slithered his car (the access road to the site was becoming almost impassible for normal cars due to the rain) on to site and pitched his tent. On Saturday evening Lesley & Geoff assisted by John, spent about an hour detecting on the spoil heaps as there had been two weeks spoil added to them and Geoff found a lovely Anglo-Saxon button brooch on the mound adjacent to trench 3. Lesley also found a Roman coin (Gloria Exercitus 335-337AD) in the spoil running along side Trench 1 which presumably came out of the barrow ditch that had been producing some Roman pottery.
Sunday: More people started arriving in advance of the filming of ‘Time Team’ which was happening on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Lesley and Geoff detected the strip of land that was going to be the 4th (final) and ‘Time Team’ trench. The ground, as usual was full of cartridge cases (some still in their machine gun clipped belts), empty ration packs and tin cans but it was better not to have to find these on the spoil heap at a later date! On wandering around the spoil heaps for a second time Geoff found an Anglo-Saxon disc brooch in the spoil right on the top of the heap probably in the machine removed soil, again next to trench 3. The brooch is very similar to the one found by Lt. Col. Paul at the very beginning of the dig and was found on spoil in close proximity and may well be the lost partner of his find! The evening was spent in the company of the ‘Time Team’ director and staff with a site brief and slide show of the filming plan.
Monday: The otherwise calm and peaceful Barrow Clump was then turned into a film set! Cameras sprung up everywhere, directors, producers, sound men and Time Team ‘stars’. Moving around the site became a nightmare trying to keep your voice down and not get into shot! Lesley was shocked to find she was being filmed through the trees while detecting on a spoil heap and tried in vain not to look too surprised right into the lens of the camera! Late on Monday morning, the 4th trench was started with the JCB removing the top soil from the outer part of the barrow right through to almost the top of the mound, a huge trench! Lesley and Geoff both marvelled at the skill of the JCB driver Ian, it was amazing to watch! When questioned afterwards about his skill, he claimed that he had been named the ‘Best JCB driver in the World’ and could peel bananas and take corks out of champagne bottles without damaging them using the JCB! However, on one occasion when Geoff wasn’t paying attention he nearly lost his head when the JCB bucket was only inches from him and we all had to shout to tell him to look out! Andy P. (WKDC & WKAS), feeling better had arrived on site unexpectedly, he had been going to come but had unfortunately slipped a disc in his back the week before! While searching the new spoil from Trench 4 Geoff recovered a tiny coin (4-5mm diameter) which turned out to be a Roman radiate (270-273AD). Lesley, Geoff and John took turns in the Trench 1 barrow ditch, excavating (archaeologically) what turned out to be a badger run which terminated in a large nesting hole. This, we only found out when John accidentally put his foot through into it when returning having emptied a bucket! After a few minutes of hysterical laughter and extracting John who was only slightly bruised, embarrassed but otherwise unhurt and was buried up to his knee in the hole, were we able to continue with the trowelling! Andy P. managed to join a team and help excavate a complicated mixture of two skellies in Trench 2. The day ended with a ‘Pub Quiz’ in the mess tent conducted by Diarmaid, under red lighting! Helen G. (Time Team), Phil A. and Andy P. joined Lesley & Geoff to form a team, John couldn’t keep his eyes open so had retired early. The questions were on a variety of subjects such as Military, Sex and Animals (you can imagine the questions relating to this topic!), Archaeology, Time Team, Music and Film etc.! As you might imagine we didn’t do that well but still didn’t manage to come last, thanks primarily to the rest of our team!
Tuesday: Lesley, Geoff and John continued to excavate the badger run and alternated this with trips around the spoil heap with the detectors. Lesley detected over a skelly that was only beginning to appear (only one rib obvious) in Trench 1 Barrow ditch and was able to confirm the presence of metal (iron) in two places which enthused the excavators, Kerry, Archie and Rifleman Rhys (aka M-Link). The metal signals turned out, after further careful excavation, to be a shield boss and two spears. This grave was adjacent to the first one with a shield boss discovered in Trench 1 previously that was still being recorded prior to lifting. ‘Time Team’ decided to bring back the JCB to widen their trench over the barrow ditch creating more spoil. The TT helicopter overflew the site taking the usual aerial shots. Commodore Peter B. had arranged for a portable x-ray machine to be brought to site and the radiographers spent all day x-raying the finds (both current and from the previous English Heritage dig in 2003-4) and we were able to view the results on a monitor. While viewing the results, with our backs to the ‘Time Team Incident Room’ tent, John G. (Time Team Geophysics) was, without our knowledge, attempting to photograph our backs as our ‘Operation Nightingale’ polo shirts and hoddies read ‘Detectorist’ on the back. We caught him out when we both turned around before he had had time to click the shutter and we had to turn back so he could complete taking the picture – hope that picture doesn’t end up anywhere it shouldn’t! John (WKAS) obtained the last of the signatures he wanted in his ‘Time Team’ book and decided he was wet, tired and dirty enough to return home to celebrate his daughter’s birthday.
Wednesday: Geoff was specifically asked to search trench 4 spoil heap while filming was taking place. Everything was calm until Rifleman Michael (aka Laser) strode onto the site dressed as Phil H. (Time Team) in cut off denim shorts (very short) and hat with feathers, under which was a mass of grass looking like Phil H.’s hair. Michael also managed a great imitation of Phil H.’s laugh! The whole dig fell about laughing and the entire scene was captured on camera! As nothing much was appearing in Trench 4 (Time Team trench), a decision was made to extend trench 3 to one side to expose an already partly visible grave for Phil H. to excavate on camera. This created more spoil which unfortunately only contained further supplies of rubbish! This grave, of a woman, was later to produce an amazing array of grave goods including a cosmetics implement, a bronze and a silver ring (with finger bones in situ), several small possibly Roman beads and many of the larger Saxon ones, a small square-headed brooch and another circular copper alloy object which could have been the necklace catch. In the afternoon both Lesley & Geoff were about to have a tea break (hot water in mugs) when they were recalled to site to pretend to be searching the spoil heap by Trench 4 again while filming took place. Work was continuing in Trench 4 with Riflemen digging out the Barrow ditch and a great heap of chalk was appearing. While searching this new spoil Geoff spotted a small, obviously worked, chalk bowl which turned out to have come from the Barrow ditch and was therefore of a likely Bronze Age date (quite an important find). The ‘Saxon’ beer arrived on site and was hit fairly hard in the tasting session, even John G. (TT Geophysics) swooped in on his TT buggy with Rifleman Sav and Tash riding shotgun, trailing the GPR machine and grabbed a pint in passing although he did point out that he wasn’t driving! Several small side shows were taking place, creating a ‘Saxon’ brooch by casting the molten copper alloy into moulds (the kiln was constructed on site) and a fight scene between one of the Riflemen in full battle dress (although his body armour was one of the kitchen cutting boards!) and a Saxon warrior – not sure what the conclusion of that was except it was noisy! The Time Team final scene was filmed in a torrential downpour of rain and we all got extremely wet including the Buglers from the Rifles who played the Last Post.
Thursday: Peace returned to Barrow Clump. Lesley and Geoff took the morning off and went to look at the exhibits at the Devizes Museum which included a well put together display by one of the local detecting clubs (Trowbridge Metal Detecting Club). The museum array of finds from Neolithic to Roman was very impressive. Geoff spotted a couple of chalk bowls a bit like the one he found on the spoil heap and these were referred to as lamps. The Saxon display showed a number of items similar to the finds made on Barrow Clump including the drinking bucket, saucer and button brooches, shield bosses and spears. Returning to site for the afternoon, Lesley continued detecting on the spoil heaps and Geoff excavating in the Barrow ditch in Trench 1 which was begining to yield many pieces of struck flint and some mostly animal bone (cow, horse etc.) together with a couple of pieces of human bone. After a while, Lesley produced what looked not unlike a strap-end from the same spoil heap adjacent to Trench 3 which might be a joining piece found between the rings on a Saxon drinking vessel. In the evening the gang adjourned to the local ‘Harvester’ for a well deserved meal and a few drinks.
Friday: The weather was kind to us and after a dry day on Thursday the tent was dry enough to pack up. Lesley & Geoff completed striking the pitch and then joined a group receiving a talk from two ladies from English Heritage on identifying animal bones and on plants found on Saxon sites. Lesley & Geoff left the site about lunch time to journey home.
Lesley & Geoff would like to thank Diarmaid for inviting them to Barrow Clump, Richard and Phil A. for putting up with them on site, Steve for coping with what must have been a logistical nightmare and Danny, the chef, what would we have done without you? They would also like to thank the Riflemen, the real heroes, for risking their lives for us – keep smiling and laughing lads – it was a real pleasure and a privilege to get to know you all over the last five weeks.
