| 19/8/2016 |
It is nice to get a thank-you for the community work we do. The folk at St Mary's Church in Hardwick sent us the following message after our excavations there:
"Everyone at St Mary's Church in Hardwick says a huge thank you to the team at Cambridge Field Archaeology Group for their efficient, professional and educational labours with us. We really enjoyed being with you lovely people as you volunteered your time and expertise to look for any history that could have been hiding under our feet"
In return we would like to thank them for the supply of delicious cakes and multiple cups of tea and coffee that sustained us.
| |  |
|
 |
| Paul Spoerry book published |
| Paul Spoerry, the CAFG President, has just had an important study of Medieval pottery in Cambridgeshire published. With copious photographs and line drawings, this work will help make our identification of medieval pottery found while field walking that much easier. Congratulations to Paul for a welcome addition and an up-to-date view of our local pottery. | |  |
|
| Fieldwork completed at Hardwick Church |
| 28/6/2016 |
Last weekend members of CAFG and the PCC carried out the excavations in the Hardwick Church car park area. The purpose was to see whether there was any significant archaeology on the site that would interrupt their plans to build a new hall there.
It was a strange excavation as, once the hard core surface was removed, we came straight down on what appeared to be the natural surface. Olive/brown clay then gave way to lighter clays and within a short distance onto the blue/grey Gault clay. There were virtually no finds apart from a few pieces of tile and what looked like a flowerpot, all in the upper layer. Augering at a number of points across the site gave the same general stratigraphy. We then drew the section, as shown in the photo, before closing the site down and re-instating the carpark surface.
The net result is positive for the PCC as there are no signs of any archaeology to hold up their development plans. A report will be written for Shire Hall.
| |  |
|
| Read the report here |
|
| How far does a field walker walk? |
| 20/3/2016 |
It's a question we have often asked ourselves - well now we know. Thanks to Tim's magic watch we know exactly how far he walked on Sunday. The GPS plot of his path, shown here, reveals that he walked 1.93 miles on Sunday morning. Assuming we all walked about the same amount that means a group total of almost 14 miles!!
This is a useful device as it shows, when superimposed over an aerial photo of the field in question, we were a little short in the middle stints. For the people who pick up the bags after the walking the distance ids even more - the week of 6th March Tim's watch revealed the field walking plus bag collection distance was just under 3 miles. So for a bit of healthy exercise come field walking!! | |  |
|
|
| Our Haslingfield Project Report makes it into the 2015 PCAS Volume CIV |
Congratulations to all the members involved in this write up, especially to Rob Atkins who did a major part in getting it into print. Pages 71 - 87 in the journal cover all our work over the years at Haslingfield which has led to a re-interpretation of the history of the village and the changes that took place there over the Bronze Age to late medieval period.
Let us hope that the Wimpole article being worked on at present also makes it into the next PCAS edition in 2016. A link to a summary of all the articles in this edition can be found here. | |  |
|
 |
| Members' Interests |
| 7 April 2016 |
| Members are encouraged to share their archaeological interests with the rest of the Group and Robert Skeen is starting the ball rolling with his interest in Bronze and Iron Age hoards. To see his note click here |
|
|
| Find made while checking out field status |
| 25/9/2016 |
| As part of the Autumn season field walking preliminary work we need to check out potential fields to be walked and whether they are ploughed/harrowed and suitable to walk. While checking out the state of a field at Arrington, the eye was caught by a bright orange/red piece of pottery (shown in the photo). After washing it proved to be a piece of decorated Samian pottery which is quite unusual for us to find. Most of the Samian sherds we have collected over recent years seem to be plain. What is interesting is that is hardly worn and does not appear to have been churned around in the plough soil for any length of time. | |  |
|
|
| Field walking at Childerley Autumn 2016 |
| 4/9/2016 |
This weekend saw the completion of the field walking at Belham Hill. The north of the field produced very little pottery, although there were a couple of stray Roman pieces. The majority of the pottery was glazed post medieval redwares, as shown in the photo. There were some worked flints, a salt glazed pot but the star find was a piece of lava quern stone. This can't be dated because lava quern stone from Niedermendig in Germany continued in use from Roman times to the medieval period.
This has been another successful trip to Childerley, with another Roman site to add to our collection on this estate. Many thanks go to Martin Jenkins for his continued support of out work there.
We now have a break until the first week in October when we hope to have another exciting venue to walk. | |  |
|
|
| A mysterious find identified |
| One of the items recovered from Belham Hill was a mysterious bronze/brass tube, shown here. It was tubular but with a varying diameter and with a series of striations around the circumference and along its length. Our first hope was that it looked somewhat like a leg, perhaps from a statue, which might be Roman in origin. However, investigations subsequently proved otherwise. | |  |
|
| The truth emerged when similar objects were found on the web. It is a brass 18th C beer barrel tap!!! Designed to be hammered into the hole in the barrel, items like this are still in use today. A complete version is seen in the photo. Quite what it was doing sat in the middle of a field miles from the nearest pub remains a mystery. | |  |
|
| Field walking at Childerley |
| 27/8/2016 |
| This Saturday we carried on our field walking at Belham Hill. We concentrated on the area north of the footpath, and especially on the region where aerial data suggested human activity. We certainly found enough pottery to confirm that, and the selection was similar to the previous finds. As this photo shows, we had more grey and red coarsewares, more Nene Valley but also lots of flint tempered rims. The star find was the very small piece of Samian (middle right near the large Nene Valley bowl rim). More modern striped creamware and an embossed porcelain type were also recovered. Next Sunday we will go further north and on another area picked out on the aerial data, who knows what awaits us there. | |  |
|
|
| 20/8/2016 |
This weekend we carried out some activities at Childerley on the Belham Hill site. Of the area walked, quite a lot of field drain and modern brick and tile were seen. However in one smallish area there was quite a bit of Roman or possibly medieval pottery, as shown in this photograph. It included grey wares, Nene Valley ware and several large pieces of red sandy ware.
In addition there was some post medieval material including a nice pie-crust rim of Staffordshire ware and some salt glazed ware. A flint core took the date range even further back. | |  |
|
This tiny sherd was particularly interesting. Although the red sandy ware is quite abraded, you can still see the presence of a series of ring-and-dot decorations infilled with a darker fabric. This may well be Iron Age as the ring-and-dot motif is used on all sorts of Iron Age material, including bone combs and metal work. More investigation is needed.
NOW BELIEVED TO BE MEDIEVAL, POSSIBLY FROM ESSEX. | |  |
|
|
| Start of the Autumn 2016 field walking |
It's that time of year again. Combines are combining, tractors are shifting and this year's crop is coming in. Some fields have even been rough ploughed and harrowed already - just needs a little rain to wash things down and we are in business.
We have a tentative programme of field walking arranged but are waiting for the fields to be in the right condition. If anyone has an interesting field or fields in the South Cambs area and can get permission for us to walk them, please let us know - all we would need is the site, the farmer's name and contact details.
Hope to see our members out in the fields again this year. | |  |
|
|
| Test pitting excavations in the villages |
| 6/8/2016 |
Another weekend of test pitting has just taken place at Histon and CAFG members were involved in a number of them. This photograph shows what must be one of the stickiest pits ever excavated. Situated close to an old pond (dry at this time but always full in the winter) the clay was impossible to sieve and just very hard to hand sort. After 70cms of hard labour a burnt tree stump and unburnt roots were reached which appeared to lay on the dark grey natural - time to call a halt!!
Interestingly no more than 5m away another test pit was eminently sievable and bottomed out on gravel - just shows the difference even close pits can reveal. | |  |
|
|
| 14/5/2016 |
| Although the field walking season is over, archaeology carries on. Last weekend members of CAFG were organising and supporting a series of community test pit excavations in Stapleford and in Histon. These community exercises not only raise interest iin the villagers but also perform a useful function in filling in the archaeological map of Cambridgeshire. As this Histon photo shows, not only are they serious excavations but social events as well - lots of tea and cakes. | |  |
|
| The finds can say an awful lot about the age and continuity of occupation in these places. The finds from Stapleford included some Roman and Medieval pottery but one pit had some small pieces of Neolithic pottery and struck flints. There were also the usual masses of post medieval finds, such as the 19th century button | |  |
|
|
| Spring field walking 2016 |
| 22/4/2016 |
After the excitement last week, Friday was back to the normal Lodge Farm fare, as the photograph shows. Instead of nice pieces of Samian it was the small abraded pieces of coarseware to the fore. The flints keep coming, including some nice cores, together with the post-medieval collection. It will be interesting to plot the flint finds because the appearance is of a scatter over the whole field.
The season is now finished but we have a number of fields at Fulbourn and Great Eversden which we can hopefully return to in the Autumn. For the field walkers, enjoy the summer break, after a record number of Sunday's out you deserve it. See you in September. | |  |
|