Newmarket Hill (under construction)

Category: Time Team

  • Excavation Routine

    Time Team get a lot done in just 3 days – but they are professionals, and they know what they are doing. Their routines are just that – routine. What we see is really just the tip of a very efficient iceberg.

    I found a guide to this archaeological routine in a publication by the Museum of London Archaeology, which they summarised (with a little simplification from myself):

    1. Clean Area
    2. Identify limits of trench [context] on the ground
    3. Photograph if required
    4. Identify location of trench on site grid
    5. Draw plan of feature (at 1:20)
    6. Use relevant type of ‘context sheet’ to record archaeology (depends on what is being excavated)
    7. Give the trench [context] a unique number (from site context register)
    8. Record this number on the plan(s)
    9. Take relative levels; mark spot heights on plan (record technical surveying details on reverse of context sheet)
    10. Convert relative levels to absolute [Ordnance Datum] levels
    11. Describe context
    12. Prepare ‘finds bag’ and enter site code and context number on label(s?)
    13. Determine suitable method of excavation, need for sampling and method of finds collection
    14. Excavate context, amending and adjusting description as necessary
    15. Take finds to an appropriate place
    16. Determine relationships of newly-recorded context to previously excavated [by overlaying plans]
    17. Cross-reference relationships on context sheet and fill in matrix
    18. Enter date and initials on context sheet
    19. Place plan and context sheet in with relevant ‘to be checked’ files
    20. All plans, context sheets and relationships should be checked before leaving site

    Once the context (trench) has been recorded, and the finds have all been fully described and recorded, the trench needs to be put to bed, and then it must *all* be written up, including their interpretation. Only then is it advisable to open the next trench, based on what has been learnt from the previous trenches.

    This is all new to me, so it may take days, or even weeks to complete all the paperwork. This is not a full time project. So I am proposing that volunteer days should be planned for one day per month, at least to begin with.

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  • New Team Member Helps Confirm Site Plan

    Sunday 13th January, 2013

    My (nearly) 13 year old niece and my mother, braved the cold to help me find out whether a plan of Newmarket Farm which we had was an accurate representation of the archaeology on the ground. The plan was a copy of the one that was found in documents held in East Sussex Record Office, and was probably drawn in 1921 when Oscar Selbach bought Newmarket Farm.

    1921 Selbach plan of Newmarket Farm. From ESRO
    1921 Selbach plan of Newmarket Farm. From ESRO

    The overall aim of the day’s work was to perform (some of) the tasks required to be done before being able to mark the area of the archaeological dig site, approximately 3m beyond the boundaries of the Newmarket Farm site. The extra 3m is to provide public access as well room to place the spoil from the trenches.

    The area of the site needs to be marked out before the next date which has been planned for the clearance of the rest of the site.

    Based on the dimensions given for the water tank, the scale of the plan has been estimated, and has therefore enabled the lengths of the wall lines to be meassured. My measurements were independently confirmed by my niece.

    The next objective was to identify two fixed points of archaeology on the ground to check the accuracy of Selbach’s plan. Previous to the site clearance work of the 9th January, only the SE corner (bottom right on the plan) was visible and some isolated portions of the south and east boundary walls. During site clearance a small portion of the wall which divided the garden from the farm-yard was revealed. Therefore our next task was to uncover enough of this wall to be able to estimate where it met the southern boundary wall, somewhere near a small elder bush.

    Looking E at my niece & myself finding the wall-line between garden and farm-yard; 13th January 2013.
    Looking E at my niece & myself finding the wall-line between garden and farm-yard; 13th January 2013.

    Did I say that it was cold! Also, almost all of the existing line of the wall was buried under a thick mat of bramble and stinging nettle roots. No wonder Time Team makes it look so easy – they have a mechanical digger to do this part!

    Looking SE at my niece & myself finding the wall-line between garden and farm-yard; 13th January 2013.
    Looking SE at my niece & myself finding the wall-line between garden and farm-yard; 13th January 2013.

    But with hard work and perseverance we managed to expose enough of the wall to estimate that it met the southern boundary wall immediately to the east (left) of the elder bush.

    Next, Selbach’s plan indicated that the distance from this point to the SE corner of the garden boundary wall was about 52.5 feet. When we meassured this on the ground it was found to be about 52 feet. Therefore we felt able to (provisionally) conclude that Selbach’s plan could be used as a guide to estimating the lengths of the other walls.

    Just before we left I quickly measured the distance between the elder and the SW corner of the house, and marked it with a peg. There was no sign of any change in ground level in the vicinity of this point. Selbach’s plan will therefore be very importantant for any future attempts to locate archaeological targets on the ground.