Sunday, 28 February 2016

Fieldwalking Report 2015

Here is the report on the field walking. We looked for pottery and other finds in the area where the crop mark of a possible enclosure was identified.

Download the report.

The enclosure probably survives as a series of filled-in ditches below ground. There is no evidence for it on the ground surface.

Fieldwalking was conduced over two days in February 2015. Four volunteers under the supervision of Bill Bevan walked over part of the geophysics transect laid out by GSB Prospection to investigate a cropmark identified on aerial photographs in this area (see illustration 1).

The archaeological aim of fieldwalking was to look for artefacts that may date and interpret the features identified by the geophysics survey. The community training aim was to train and give practical experience in fieldwalking and recording techniues to Hands on History volunteers.

The overwhelming majority of the pottery was 19th to 20th century in date. There were some sherds of 18th and early 19th century pottery along with very small quantities of medieval and early post-medieval wares. These are described in the following pottery report. The quantities and distribution of earlier pottery does not help interpret the identified sub-soil features. The vast amounts of late 19th/early 20th century pottery suggests a specific series of events such as dumping or manuring from middens during this short period.