Department of
Archaeology
Newsletter #5
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/arch
aeology
Alex Langlands joins to champion Archaeology
Alex Langlands, the presenter of BBC
Two’s
Victorian,
Edwardian
and
Wartime Farm who recently gained his
PhD at the University of Winchester,
joins the department to work with
community
groups
and
Further
Education college students on a range
of departmental projects.
Alex Langlands working with Stewart Ainsworth on Time Team’s
investigation into the true battle site of 1066’s Battle of Hastings:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-teamspecials/4od#3618762
“Over the last 20 years archaeology as
a discipline has evolved to encompass
a vast range of technical skills and
theoretical
approaches.
Studying
archaeology can prepare students for
a hugely broad spectrum of work
environments. Whether it is working in
the field of commercial archaeological
excavation, heritage management,
planning and development or the media, a degree in archaeology has an almost
unparalleled range of transferable skills. It has taken me to excavations across Europe, seen
me working on some of the most important archaeological sites in southern England and has
been a huge influence in my broadcasting career. I feel it is important to let A Levels students
know that there are very few limits as to where archaeology can take you.”
If you are interested in Alex coming to talk to your college or community group then
please contact him on [email protected]
Head’s Office
The Department was represented at a
University of Leicester inter-disciplinary
conference on ‘European Perspectives
on Cultures of Violence’. Departmental
head Nick Thorpe spoke on ‘The Origins
of Violence: Archaeological Evidence
from Prehistoric Europe’, while Katie
Tucker, who has recently completed her
PhD, talked about ‘Violence in Roman
Britain: the evidence from decapitation
burials’.
!
Nick Thorpe presented a paper on ‘The
Palaeolithic Compassion Debate’ at a
Durham workshop meeting on ‘Care In
The
Past:
Archaeological
and
Interdisciplinary Perspectives’.
!
Nick Thorpe discussed the discovery of
Richard III and our work at the Leper
Hospital as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s
‘Broadcasting House’ programme.
Hayling Island Pop-Up Museum a Great Success
At the end of July, Professor Tony King and four 2nd-year
Archaeology students set up a pop-up museum in a barn on
Hayling Island, as part of the CBA Festival of Archaeology 2013.
Excavations on the internationally important Iron Age and Roman
temple had taken place many years earlier, but the
development of a café and exhibition space at the farm on
which the temple once stood gave us the opportunity to share
the results of the excavation with the people of Hayling Island
and SE Hampshire.
A weekend of events was set up, with the pop-up museum as a
focus, together with lectures, site tours, a web site and blog
http://www.lparchaeology.com/hipum/. The museum display
was designed by Guy Hunt of L-P Archaeology as part of their
outreach programme, and was a very fruitful collaboration
between commercial archaeology, the university and the site
land-owner. Zoe Emery, Paul Firman, Tom Rowley, Maisie Marshall
acted as assistants at the exhibition, and expertly explained the
finds and site plans and photos on display. Some of the finds were
available for handling by visitors, which proved a great draw to
the hundreds of visitors that came into the museum over the
weekend. In addition, a new booklet on the site was written by
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/arch
aeology
Hayling Island Pop-Up Museum: Concept sketch by Carsten Jungfer, zectorarchitects
Tony and Grahame Soffe (Association for Roman Archaeology), which
has now sold several hundred copies, both locally and nationally.
In all, the pop-up museum was a great success, and showed how a
high-quality interactive event can be staged at low cost and high
impact. Many thanks are due to Grahame Soffe, Guy Hunt, Tim Pike
(Northney Farm and Tea Barn), Lisa Thomas, and University of
Winchester for so generously giving their time and hard work for
HIPUM.
Dates for the diary
26th-27th April 2014
Winchester: Archaeology and Memory
The University is holding a major two-day conference on 26th and 27th April under the
auspices of Winchester Excavations Committee, Winchester College and the University
of Winchester. Winchester is the most thoroughly excavated city in Britain, and its
excavations among the most fully recorded. It is also a City that has played a central
role in the drama of English history as well and British myth and legend. Much of the
last 50 years of archaeological work in the City has been published in the ‘Winchester
Studies’ series, written and edited under the direction of Professor Martin Biddle. In
addition the material presented within them has wider implications for the study of
Winchester, its people, landscape, topography and history. The aim of this two-day
multidisciplinary conference is to make a wider reading of the archaeology, and one
which also connects the material past with modern memory. Themes covered
will include memory and identity, myth, legend and history, power, space, place,
architecture and fabric, communications, landscape, art, literature and piety, charity
and devotion.
Specific papers will range from Iron Age Winchester, The Cult of the Saints, Winchester
and the First World War and King Alfred in Myth and History.
The conference is designed to be accessible to everyone with an interest in
Winchester’s past
Contact Simon Roffey ([email protected]) for more details or you can
register your interest at [email protected]
Finds Room
The new finds room is up and running
with finds processing on Tuesdays for
second years, Wednesdays for all
years and Thursdays for first years.
Current projects include creating a
database of previous dissertation
projects and marking pottery from the
2013 St Mary Magdalen excavation.
Find us on Facebook @Medecroft
Finds Room for more information and
updates or to contact us with any
queries.
The first FitAPot session at Winchester
University
archaeology
finds
laboratory. Undergraduates from the
Archaeology Department finds group
had
a
successful
afternoon
reconstructing pot forms from a group
of 4,000 high to late medieval sherds.
The sherds were from a substantial
layer of pottery in an unusually deep
midden pit at St Mary Magdalen at ST
Mary Magdalen medieval leprosy
hospital.
10th June 2014 @ 5.30pm
Winchester Great War Pilgrimage
This year the Winchester
Pilgrimage
will
be
processing from the old
Chesil Street Station
(Chesil Street Car Park)
up to the Morn Hill Rest
Camp
outside
Winchester.
Pilgrims will follow the
route soldiers from the
Great War would have
taken
once
they
disembarked from their
trains and marched up
St Giles Hill and out
towards Winnall Down
and Morn Hill. The walk
will conclude with a
service
of
remembrance for the
some 2 million soldiers
that passed through
Winchester during the
war.
The walk will take
approx. 40-60 mins and
will
be
led
by
US#soldiers#marching#down#St#Giles#Hill#from#the#Morn#Hill#Camp
researchers from the University of Winchester and local
expert Tony Dowland. There will be short talks on aspects
of the camp and its impact on the city of Winchester
during the walk.
Dr Phil Marter says, “The Morn Hill Camp was one of the
largest military transit camps of the First World War and
was the temporary home of thousands of men on the
way to the Western front. The camp was thought to
house some 50,000 men, which was more than double
the entire population of Winchester at the time”.
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/arch
aeology
Senior lecturer Christina Grande is
investigating the interesting & varied
collection of Greek pottery in the
collection of Winchester College. This
includes
fine
examples
of
Mycenaean ware & Attic Black & red
figure painted vases, including a late
6th century BC drinking cup painted
by the “Winchester Painter”. Christina
plans to take students to see the
collection.
Currently
Winchester
College can arrange visits by
appointment & intends to open to
the public in 2015.
Leper Hospital has Global Significance
Caption Competition
Alex Langlands turned up on BBC One’s
Pies and Puds to help his old mucker Paul
Hollywood out. Paul’s latest series was a
look back over some of the nation’s
favourite pies and puddings and one
particular recipe was giving Paul and his
team a few problems. In stepped Alex
with an open fire and a medieval
cauldron and after a day’s cooking with
some experimental ingredients, the
secrets of Sussex’s famous ‘Pond
Pudding’ were revealed. . .
[email protected]
Dr Simon Roffey has recently been
awarded £4,392 from the Wellcome
Trust, the largest provider of non governmental funding for scientific
research and one of the world’s largest
charitable funding bodies for medical
research. Dr Roffey’s research will
examine the origins of early leprosy
hospitals in medieval Europe
Further excavations at St Mary Magdalen Hill are planned for
2014.
Working
in
collaboration
with
archaeologists from the University of
Winchester, Molecular microbiologists
from the University of Surrey have
broken new ground to advance the
understanding of leprosy.
The team has used DNA extracted from skeletal samples buried at the medieval leprosy
hospital of St Mary Magdalen Hill, Winchester, (the department training excavation)
to reconstruct the entire genome of the ancient leprosy bacterium, shedding light on the
history of the disfiguring disease - once endemic in Europe but which largely disappeared
during the Middle Ages.
The research was published in the journal Science, as part of an international project to
reconstruct genome sequences of bacteria from five medieval skeletons excavated in
Denmark and Sweden, as well as the Winchester examples. The research compared the
ancient genomes with those of 11 modern strains of leprosy from around the world and
revealed that leprosy in the Americas has a European origin, and that particular leprosy
strains now found exclusively in the Middle East were at one time also present in Europe.
Enigmatic features in the New Forest one step closer to elucidation
Professor Tony King is the Excavation Director for the New Forest History and
Archaeology Group, which is dedicated to surveying and investigating the
vast number of surviving archaeological monuments in the New Forest
National Park and surrounding areas. In the summer of 2013, the group’s
annual excavation was at Ashurst Lodge on the eastern side of the open
forest area. It was part of a project to understand and interpret the
enigmatic ‘pit-and-mound’ features that exist in their hundreds across the
national park.
Pit-and-mound (P&M) features are probably Bronze Age earthworks, of
unknown purpose, but perhaps funerary/commemorative or alternatively for
materials processing or industrial activity. Two previous excavations, at Gorley
Bushes, 2008-9, and Latchmore Bottom, 2011, had been inconclusive in
clearly establishing what purpose they served. Therefore, Ashurst Lodge was
a third attempt, in a different part of the Forest, and in easier soil conditions,
to solve the problem.
We dug for ten days at the end of August, and successfully investigated two
P&M features, as well as a third smaller mound and part of a linear (probably
Iron Age) earthwork. As expected, the P&Ms were of the form seen in the
earlier excavations, and once again it was entirely unclear at the end of the
dig exactly what purpose they served! A number of Neolithic/Bronze Age
flints were found, and one tiny piece of prehistoric pottery. We took charcoal
samples for radiocarbon dating, and a column sample through one of the
mounds, for pollen analysis. At present, we do not have results back from
these samples, so it remains to be seen if they can reveal the secret of the
P&Ms.
A trench throuhg a ‘pit-and-Mound’ feature of likely Bronze Age
Thanks are due to the many volunteers from NFHAG that came out to dig,
including three members of the group who are MA or PhD students at the
university. Frank Green, the National Park archaeologist, and his team, also
greatly assisted the setting up of the excavation, and David Ashby of our
Department of Archaeology kindly carried out a resistivity survey before
digging started.
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/arch
aeology
Publications
Barbados: The Speightstown Community Archaeology Project
A
Sacred Island: Iron Age,
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/arch
This year Niall Finneran undertook a two-week
Roman and Saxon Temples
research season commencing on Sunday August
aeology
and Ritual on Hayling Island
th
th
25 and finishing on Sunday September 8 2013.
The team was based between Palms Resort and
the Bellairs Institute (both at Holetown, Barbados).
Anthony King & Grahame Soffe
Excavations from 1976-81, as well as
continuing work into the new Millennium,
have revealed the importance of Hayling
Island as a major Iron Age and Roman
religious site, with two successive Iron
Age timber shrines discovered beneath a
Roman temple. Published in advance of
the final publication, this booklet
synthesises the results of the excavations
for a general audience. It analyses the
Iron Age and Roman remains and finds in
terms of their cross-channel links, as well
as their dynastic connections to Commius
and Togidubnus. Finally, the most recent
work is presented - rare evidence for the
island's continuing role as a Pagan ritual
site in the early Anglo-Saxon period.
ISBN: 9781906113148
Price: £5.00
(student discount price £3.50)
In spite of rather rainy weather, they were able,
as ever, to undertake a wide range of activities.
Team members worked on a variety of smaller
sub-projects, and they were able to engage with
students from the University of the West Indies, as
well as local people and personnel from the
Barbados Museum.
This year University of Winchester undergraduates
and staff were also able to undertake extensive
magnetometry survey thanks to the good offices
of Mr Malcolm Wright. Without positive
relationships with the local community our work
would be immensely difficult and less rewarding;
thank you to all involved this year. As ever we
have placed a key emphasis on training and skills
exchange, and as such this project is more than
a pure ‘research’ exercise.
Images: Winchester students on site in Speightstown (above); Paul
Wragg undertaking sea-bed survey (below)
Maintaining strong links in
Georgia . . .
Coins and Samian Ware
Anthony King
This book reviews samian ware
chronology, c. AD 150-275. A dating
scheme is proposed, based upon the
stratigraphic association of Samian ware
with coins, and using the statistical
strength of association between potters
or styles with each other and with dated
deposits. A new model is also presented
for estimating time-lapses between
minting and loss for coins of the period.
The results extend Central Gaulish
samian ware later than hitherto
supposed, and revise the relative
sequence of potters. The average period
of use of samian vessels is often quite
long, and therefore, close dating of
samian ware is questioned. A concluding
discussion looks at the socio-economic
significance of samian ware decline.
ISBN 9781407311944. £46.00. vi+322
pages.
This year, the University of
Winchester
continues
its
commitment to one of the
most important sites in the west
Caucasus as part of the multidisciplinary
Anglo-Georgian
Expedition
to
Nokalakevi
(AGEN)
of
which
the
department’s Paul Everill is codirector
and
lead
archaeologist.
There are presently two areas
within the lower town under
excavation. Of interest in both
areas are the remains of
Hellenistic period clay and
timber
structures
over
a
foundation
of
undressed
limestone blocks. A total of 60
human burials have also been
excavated from both areas
ranging from Byzantine to early
Hellenistic periods. Finds from
both
trenches
include
associated burial artefacts
(beaded paste and glass
necklaces, silver and copper
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/arch
aeology
alloy bracelets, etc) arrows and knives of the 4th
through 6th century AD, fragments of painted
wall plaster, a great deal of glass, ceramics and
building materials, a fragment of cross with Greek
inscription (dated to the 6th century AD), and a
small gold enamel object. The expedition is a
professional research excavation, which provides
archaeological training for both international
and
Georgian
archaeology
students.
AGEN is a not for profit organisation that
administers the British end of the annual fieldwork
at Nokalakevi. All our staff are volunteers who
give their time for free. Its directors work closely
with staff of the Georgian National Museum in
Tbilisi to organise and help fund the ongoing,
annual fieldwork at the site and related pre- and
post-excavation work.