For #FindsFriday, here’s Luci with a lovely cosmetic grinder in the shape of a bird from a pit on a late Iron Age settlement!
Mark and Conor provided an update on the amazing archaeology revealed by PCA’s recent work at Milton Keynes to a full house of over 100 delegates at the Central Library on Saturday.
Mark and Conor received glowing praise from the organiser who said the event was:
‘a very successful day all round. An audience of 110 for the talks (the biggest crowd since we started the event in 2007) which were all well-presented and well received with plenty of questions. Many thanks Mark and Conor for attending (and helping with chairs!) and also Judy for providing an excellent script’
Clockwise from top left: Mark and Connor’s presentation; an early Bronze Age barrow monument; a late Iron Age cremation cemetery; excavation of an early Roman log ladder found in a watering hole at a Roman farmstead; aerial photo of a middle to late Iron Age settlement consisting of 80 roundhouses with evidence of continuous human occupation from c. 350BC until at least 1st or 2nd century.
The Open Day at Jubilee House, Stratford, was a huge success. Visitors crowded in to explore the exciting, intense riverside and industrial activity revealed by our excavations here. With a series of revetments and docks, along with evidence for a long history of demolished buildings, contemporary and later industrial activity and a plethora of finds, there was plenty to discover!
Save the date! 📅
Our next CWR site open day is on 11th November, from 10am-1pm. Guided tours will run every 15 minutes from the PCA gazebo in Abbey Gardens, where there will be a display of the artefacts recovered so far.
The floor surfaces pictured here, 2m below ground level, are associated with large wooden piles driven into the river silts, that may have supported walls. Is this a Roman building or perhaps a Saxon building? With its rudimentary flooring, what was this building and what was it used for?
Today, budding archaeologist Bertie celebrated his birthday at our Winchester office! Bertie is building his own little museum at home and loves metal-detecting, mudlarking and archeological digs. His birthday wish was simple – to learn more about archaeology and see some fascinating finds. We were happy to help! Maisie and Meagan in the Winchester office showed him some finds from the Central Winchester Regeneration Site; he also did a bit of finds washing, pottery drawing and learned how we store finds. He was especially interested the waterlogged ones as they have found leather when mudlarking.
Happy birthday, Bertie, and may your love for archaeology continue to grow!
On Saturday 4th November Mark Hinman and Conor Roycroft will be presenting some of the fantastic archaeology revealed by our Milton Keynes excavations. The event, MK Archaeology Day, is free and open to all. There will also be a display of finds.
Join us for an Archaeological Open Day this Saturday, from 10am-3pm, at Jubilee House, Stratford, to discover both intense riverside and industrial activity dating from the medieval to post-medieval periods. Our excavations here have revealed a series of timber revetments lining the riverbanks and two docks cut through them for landing boats. The rubbish used to build up the riverbanks behind the revetments includes the evidence for a long history of demolished buildings. Contemporary and later industrial activity was seen in the form of tanning pits and lime mixing pits, some of which contained organic remains, such as fragments of decorated leather, evoking a vivid connection to the past. The large numbers of animal bones point to animals being butchered on site and skins and horns used for manufacturing a wide range of goods. Mark your calendars and get ready to step back in time with us; it’s a journey through history you won’t want to miss! See you there!
In Trench 1, beneath two phases of medieval buildings which once stood along Lower Brook Street, excavation was terminated at 2m below ground where we encountered the water table. The deepest deposit in this trench was a black, organically rich layer containing medieval finds. We’ve taken both bulk and column samples from this layer, expecting to uncover a range of organic remains. What lies beneath this deposit? Could it be a long-forgotten river channel, an ancient ‘Brook’?
Meanwhile, in Trench 3, we have floor surfaces at 2m below ground level! These are cut by pits containing medieval finds, including pottery that could potentially be late Saxon. The surfaces are also associated with substantial wooden piles driven into the river silts, that may have supported walls. So are we looking at a Roman building or perhaps a Saxon building? With its rudimentary flooring, what was this building and what was it used for? We’ll keep you posted!
The next in our portfolio of fantastic sites to celebrate PCA’s 30 year anniversary features Pirates’ booty! Excavations on Narrow Street in 1999 revealed the former 17th-century houses of people deeply immersed in piracy, with exotic pottery and glass from all over the world. Many of the examples recovered have otherwise rarely, if ever, been found in Britain.
Read more about when Limehouse was the stomping ground of pirates here
This battered but fascinating find is a heavily rolled and mineral-stained biface, probably a handaxe, dating back to the Lower-Middle Palaeolithic period. It measures 87mm long, 82mm wide, and 44mm thick, and is of lenticular/cordiform shape. One side displays centripetal working with opposed removals on the other. Its well-worn condition indicates long periods spent within active burial environments, such as glacial tills or river terrace deposits. The natural deposits beneath the site are Lowestoft Formation glacial till, dated to the Anglian glaciation, around 400,00–500,00 years ago. Though its exact origin isn’t certain, if it’s from these glacial tills its rolled state indicates that it pre-dates them, making it an exceptionally old and rare discovery. However, as it was found close to the surface, such an attribution is far from certain. No other Palaeolithic artefacts have been recorded in the vicinity.
