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Cate Davies

Roman London West of the Walbrook

By News

Ireneo Grosso will be giving an online lecture to The City of London Archaeological Society on Friday, 19th May at 7pm. This is a hybrid event; if you are joining online, your link to join the lecture will be in your email confirmation. Use this form to register:

Between May and September 2022 an archaeological investigation was caried out on land at 35-39 Moorgate & 62-64 Coleman Street, City of London in advance of redevelopment of the site. Although truncated by modern basements, the archaeological works produced evidence for occupation during the Roman and post-medieval period. The site, on the western side of the Walbrook Valley, was probably occupied from the early Roman period as suggested by two early Roman boundary ditches and a substantial east-west orientated Roman road located alongside the southern boundary of the site.

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Another smaller north-south orientated road, located in the west-central part of the site, was bounded by clay and timber buildings, whilst in the north-west part of the site evidence for part of an in situ opus signinum floor was recorded. A later Roman shaft, also recorded in this area, produced a large assemblage of Roman painted plaster confirming the presence of a Roman masonry building in this part of the site.

The east-west orientated Roman road was later truncated by a series of large pits possibly during the late Roman period. Here evidence of industrial activity, in the form of glass production, was suggested by the substantial amount of Roman glass recovered, together with fragments of crucibles and of at least one structure which was interpreted as a furnace.

During the late 16th/early 17th century the western part of the site was developed with when at least two basemented buildings which truncated the upper part of the Roman horizon.

Mental Health Awareness Week 15-21 May 2023

By News No Comments

Anxiety is a natural emotion, and one that we all experience, but sometimes it can spiral out of control and become a mental health problem.

Numerous factors can trigger feelings of anxiety, such as the pressure of deadlines, relationship dynamics, embarking on a new job (or losing one), and significant life events. Financial concerns and the inability to meet basic needs, like heating or food, can also induce anxiety.

However, effective strategies exist for managing anxiety.

If you would like to discuss these with our qualified staff get in touch.

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Your mental health first aiders are:

Alistair Douglas: 07958 547 143 ADouglas@pre-construct.com

Caroline Edwards: 07718 492 321 CEdwards@pre-construct.com

Sian O’Neill: 07810 860 013 SO’Neill@pre-construct.com

Vicki Ridgeway: 07824 636 635 VRidgeway@pre-construct.com

Richard Krason: 07855 877 939 RKrason@pre-construct.com

Dave Havard: 07821 049 827 DHavard@pre-construct.com

Tom Learmonth: 07960 667 124 TLearmonth@pre-construct.com

Anxiety UK is a charity providing support if you have been diagnosed with an anxiety condition

Phone: 03444 775 774 (Monday to Friday, 09.30 to 22.00hrs; Saturday to Sunday, 10.00 – 18.00hrs)

The NHS provides a list of other useful helplines.

Spring London Archaeological Forum

By Conferences, News No Comments

The Spring London Archaeological Forum will take place in person and online at UCL Institute of Archaeology’s lecture theatre in Gordon Square on Monday 22nd May 2023 following the CBA London Annual General Meeting.

If you plan to come along in person, registration is required via Eventbrite here:

or contact Becky Wallower (becky.wallower@dial.pipex.com) by 12 noon on the 22nd May.

You can also sign up to attend online via Zoom on the Eventbrite site.

There will be an excellent line-up of presenters with interesting topics:

Kathy Davidson, supervisor at PCA, will discuss recent excavations at Newgate Street, an important Roman to post-medieval site largely excavated during the 1970s by the Department of Urban Archaeology that has been subject of further recent excavations. How has our understanding and analysis developed?

Ian Hogg is a Senior Archaeologist at Archaeology South-East within UCL. In his talk ‘Waste and Wasters: Industrial and domestic deposition at the Priory of St John, Clerkenwell’  he will discuss the findings from Benjamin Street which once lay within the outer precinct of the Hospitaller Priory. The high level of preservation allows a glimpse of both daily life at the Priory and industries taking place around it.

Roy Stephenson, well known in senior roles at Museum of London, will be talking on Netflix’s ‘The Dig’ and Rebecca Stott’s novel ‘Dark Earth’. His overview will concentrate on advice he’s provided to film producers and an author about archaeology and artefacts, and he’ll consider insights into how film companies operate that might be useful to museums.

It’s all free, of course, and we hope to see you at 6pm on the 22nd May – if you come along, you’ll be able to catch up with others when we adjourn to the pub afterwards.

North Kent Trainees to Supervisors

By Jobs No Comments

Pre-Construct Archaeology is one of UK’s largest archaeological companies, with seven regional offices across the country. We have been delivering professional heritage services for more than 25 years, working on some of the largest and most complex sites in Britain.

We are looking to recruit staff at Trainee, Field Archaeologist, Assistant Supervisor and Supervisor levels for our London office for various projects based in and around North Kent.
 
PCA offers a competitive salary and a range of attractive employee benefits, including a pay banding structure that allows for career progression. All successful candidates will undergo a probationary 3-month period (6months for trainees), after which, given satisfactory performance, they will be offered a further contract, work permitting.

About the job:
Location: Various sites in North Kent
Working week: Monday to Friday 37.5 hours per week, usually 8am – 4 pm

Salary range:

  • Trainees- £24,574.32
  • Archaeologists – starting at £27,581.06
  • Assistant Supervisors – starting at £29,918.20
  • Supervisors – starting at £32,187.35

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General requirements for all of the following positions:

  • Degree in Archaeology or related subject (e.g. History, Classics, Geology etc.)
  • Ability and willingness to work on site in all kinds of weather
  • Excellent oral and written English, basic maths skills are essential
  • Willingness to learn new skills
  • Good teamwork
  • Excellent punctuality and timekeeping
  • Attention to detail
  • Commitment to PCA’s health and safety policies at all times
  • Eligible to live and work in the UK
  • Full clean UK driving licence would be preferred

Trainees
Responsibilities (you will receive training in the following) – 6 months :

  • Excavation of archaeological features and deposits
  • Collection and labelling of artefacts
  • Writing context sheets for archaeological features and deposits, drawing plans and sections to scale, on site photography and basic survey using a GPS unit
  • Collection and processing of environmental samples
  • Post-ex office work (occasionally required) including washing, marking and labelling finds and archiving site records

Field Archaeologists
Responsibilities:

  • Excavation of archaeological features and deposits
  • Collection and labelling of artefacts
  • Writing context sheets for archaeological features and deposits, drawing plans and sections to scale, on site photography and basic survey using a GPS unit
  • Collection and processing of environmental samples
  • Post-excavation office work (occasionally required) including washing, marking and labelling finds, archiving site records

Minimum requirements:

  • 3 months of commercial fieldwork experience from the UK
  • CSCS card

Assistant Supervisors and Supervisors
Responsibilities:

  • Excavation and recording of archaeological features and deposits to a high quality
  • Supervision of small teams
  • Machine watching
  • Site survey
  • On site liaison with clients and contractors
  • Preparing written account of undertaken field work (grey literature reports)

Minimum requirements:

  • Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining excellent quality of work, mindfulness of project budget
  • Computer literacy (MS Office package, databases, knowledge of graphic programs such as Auto Cad, QGIS, Illustrator etc. will be advantageous)
  • Minimum two years of fieldwork experience in the UK
  • Experience in report writing is desirable but not essential
  • Experience in GPS surveying is desirable but not essential
  • Full clean UK driving license and willingness to drive company vehicles (if applying for a Supervisor)


Our benefits:

  • Friendly and supportive work environment
  • 28 days of annual leave (including bank holidays and 3 days for Christmas, if employed over the Christmas period), rising on service length
  • £15 per night subsistence when working away from home (and high-quality accommodation provided)
  • High quality PPE and site welfare provision– the safety of our staff always comes first
  • Mental Health First Aiders
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • Flexible working
  • Childcare vouchers, Christmas vouchers
  • H&S training relevant for your role will be provided and paid in full (CSCS, SSSTS, First Aid, Asbestos Awareness, CAT and Genny etc.)
  • Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (Cifa) subscriptions paid in full
  • Paid mileage if using own vehicle (subject to eligibility)
  • Annual appraisal and progression opportunity
  • Company pension scheme

 
How to apply:
Please email your CV and covering letter to Caroline Edwards, HR Manager: CEdwards@pre-construct.com 

Please state on your application which role you are applying for and describe your suitability by referring to the requirements listed above. If successful you will be asked to attend an interview.
 
PCA is committed to a comprehensive equal opportunities policy in which individuals are selected and treated on the basis of their relevant merits and abilities without regard to race, religion or belief, colour, sex, age, national origin, disability or sexual orientation. All applicants with the relevant qualifications and experience are welcome to apply for this opportunity. Please be advised that you must hold the right to work and live in the UK in order to apply for this job.
 
PCA follow all current guidelines regarding SOP and take the safety of our staff as paramount – advice is up to date with government guidance and site-specific RAMS are available.
 
Please be advised we are expecting a high volume of applications, and therefore cannot commit to responding to all emails. In accordance with our GDPR policy, we will not keep unsuccessful applicants’ details or CVs on our system, unless you expressly request that we do.
 

TRAC 2023

By News No Comments

Of pots and people: Approaching skill, settlement, and early Roman rural society through pottery-making in the Lower Ouse Valley, Cambridgeshire, UK 

Eniko Hudak (PCA) and Adam Sutton (MOLA) will be speaking at this year’s TRAC at Exeter University on 28 April on their research into 40 early Roman (1st and 2nd century) kilns and tonnes of domestic Roman pottery. This nationally significant discovery was made ahead of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme, close to Brampton and Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire near the River Great Ouse, where a number of Roman routes converged.

Photos courtesy of MOLA-Headland Infrastructure

A long and highly complex series of technological interactions characterises pottery-making in later Iron Age and early Roman southern Britain. Following the introduction of the potter’s wheel technology was used in diverse and highly socialised ways, becoming entangled with various novel styles of potting, and with other emerging technologies. Conventional narratives of early production sites of the decades after the Roman conquest of AD 43 tended to lean on economic factors and the direct impact of Roman conquest as interpretative frameworks, neglecting the study of social agency. This paper argues that we can do better.  The authors will present analysis of the ‘Lower Ouse Valley’ potting complex (Cambridgeshire, UK), characterising pottery-making through typological and archaeometric analyses. We will contextualise the ceramic chaîne opèratoire revealed by these analyses through a study of the structural remains of these first- and second-century AD pottery production sites, which were excavated as part of a single landscape-scale scheme of works. The result, we argue, is a rich understanding of how potting technology and technique continued to change several generations after the initial introduction of wheel technology, and even within communities who enthusiastically engaged with technological novelty. Key outcomes include the revelation of the heterogenous ways in which wheel technology was used even in the production of a ‘standardised’ repertoire; the identification of different forms of technical knowledge, exchanged on multiple scales; and a consideration of how social and economic narratives may be more fruitfully interwoven in the study of ancient technology.

Click here for the conference programme

Fine dining, quarrying, and manufacturing. Medieval & later landuse

By News No Comments

Dougie Killock will be giving a talk to COLAS this evening, April 21st at 7pm, about our excavation of a site in Aldgate, where we found archaeology dating from the Roman period, when the site was located close to the main road to Colchester, through to the late 19th century. The excavation recorded extensive evidence of gravel quarrying dating to the Roman and medieval periods. The finds recovered included high status imported ceramics and artefacts associated local manufacturing notably glass-making, sugar production and bell founding.

Click here to register

This photograph shows the base of a Valencian lustreware dish dated 1425–1475. The IHS monogram is a common Christian motif derived from the Greek spelling of Christ.

Dove Valley Park

By News No Comments

Staff from our Newark office have unearthed some exciting archaeology at a new industrial development at Dove Valley Park in Derbyshire, working on behalf of Orion Heritage and Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd.

Cropmarks on aerial photographs hinted at the presence of several ring ditches and linear ditches on and close to the site. Our team confirmed the existence of these features through trial trench evaluation. We then conducted a strip, map and sample excavation to fully reveal and investigate the remains, leading to the discovery of a complete ring ditch and a substantial linear ditch.

The ring ditch during excavation, with a possible entrance visible in the foreground. There was at least one re-cutting of the ring ditch, suggesting maintenance and possible longevity of use.

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The ring ditch is thought to be prehistoric, one nearby was excavated in the 1990s and found to be Bronze Age. The feature may have been a stock enclosure since no artefacts were found within it. However, soil samples were retained for potential radiocarbon dating and to recover small artefacts and environmental evidence and we’re looking forward to the results of our post-excavation work.

The long linear ditch is thought to be a post-medieval boundary. These discoveries add to our understanding of the area’s rich history and provides fascinating insights into the way our ancestors lived and worked.

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Orthophoto showing the post-medieval boundary ditch running west–east to the north of the ring ditch.

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