Viking and Norse Heritage Project Diary - Week 5

Saturday August 9th and Sunday August 10th, 2008
by Paul Humphreys

This weekend saw us preparing to undertake the first small excavation of the project.

Andy was up again and we spent the Saturday workshop learning the essentials of excavation, in particular the process of recording. After a session of ‘talk and chalk’ we split into three teams, each with its ‘director’. This was the practical session in which we indulged in the delights of the Harris matrix, a systematic method of recording the stratigraphic relationships of individual contexts, where each ‘context’ represents a single action or event in time.

In our case the ‘archaeology’ to be recorded consisted of tables with things on them paper, cups, biscuits etc. To conclude the workshop we used the matrix to explain the physical and chronological relationships of the objects and attempted to use the relationships and the nature of the objects to explain what had been going on at the table.

The subject of the Saturday evening talk by Andy was an update on the results of the project so far, followed by a short talk by Morris Pottinger on his investigation into the extent of the blown sand in the Dunnet Bay hinterland and his theories relating to Earl Thorfinn II.

On Sunday the team moved into the field to begin excavating in earnest, opening up a 4 by 3 metre trench over a low sub-rectangular mound that may be the site of a Norse building. We knew that there had been dumping on the site over the last 150 years; the hope is that this deposit is masking a much earlier deposit. Rather bizarrely though, several sherds of Iron Age pottery were unearthed intermixed with pottery of the 19th and 20th centuries.

    

Starting young - THINKS – ‘If that’s not white gritty wear I’ll eat my hat!’

Saturday August 9th, 2008
by Sharon Pottinger

How Archaeologists Look at the Chicken and Egg Question

How you look at the which came first, the proverbial chicken or the egg conundrum, depends on your discipline. This post reveals the mysteries of how archaeologists look at the problem of which came first. This issue is important for archaeologists because often where something is relative to something else may be the best (perhaps the only) clue to when it was. Knowing when, in turn, may reveal a lot about what it is and the other things people really want to know after spending hours digging in the dirt. So the where and the when--the chickens and the eggs-- are very important to archaeologists.

Last Saturday's workshop was designed to teach us how to properly sort the chicken and egg question in an archaeological way because the handful of amateurs gathered in Castlehill Heritage Centre are supposed to be able to do a proper job of archaeology after the real archaeologists leave.

First Andy Heald, terrified us with such home truths as "archaeology is destructive." Once something is removed from a site without properly designating where it was or drawing the site correctly or any of the other careful steps, then we have destroyed it forever. Then he encouraged us with brave words about how we could save our heritage and it was ours to preserve. Caught somewhere between numb terror and glowing enthusiasm, I tried to follow his lecture about how to do it.

Here's what the white board looked like after his lecture:



My nerves were rapidly overwhelming my enthusiasm. He assured us that it would become clear after we did it ourselves and he would show us the magic tool to make it all sensible. We broke for a cup of tea. We were a very quiet group. Even in Britain there are limits to just how much wisdom or comfort you can get from a cuppa.

He introduced us to the Harris Matrix. I have seen Gantt charts and PERT maps and mind maps and the old fashioned maps of the things you can see. A Harris Matrix is a map and an index rolled into one. The first tricky bit of understanding the matrix for me--the index bit--is that the numbers on the matrix are assigned as you delve through the layers in the dig, so the number does not mean much relative to the other numbers, except 000, which means turf or the bit on top that you pull off to get to the mysteries below.

The other tricky bit about the numbers is that they have to mean something across the entire site. Everyone knows that 000 is turf. That is good for starters, but then if someone in trench A gets into a layer of clay, they need a number for that because it is something different. They cannot call their clay layer Fred, which was personally what I wanted to call ours, because Fred may show up in other trenches (or may not) and so it has to have a number that will ultimately make sense not only of my own personal trench but also for the site as a whole.

OK, so the numbers have to be assigned by someone with more than a one trench perspective and delvers need to remember to get a number assigned. How does a digger know when to jump up and say I need another number, please because I just moved into something different?

Context. A context represents some action or interaction that invites more looking into. The Harris matrix is the device for recording those contexts. The virtue of the Harris matrix is that it identifies contexts (if done right, occurring across the site), and it shows the relative position of those contexts. It's that relative position that gets us back to the chicken and egg conundrum.

After lunch, we came back to practice what we had learned about in the morning. This is what our "site" looked like. To the untrained eye, this is stuff sitting on a shelf made up of a countertop. But with some discussion, my teammates and I discovered that we had several contexts--wall, counter top, photo. Within all these contexts were important clues about chronology: the wall had to come before the picture, for example.

    

So thanks to the knowledge from the morning and a little help, we resolved the chickens and eggs for one countertop using our shiny new toy and constructed our very first Harris matrix.



Andy took a photo of all of us proudly clutching our Harris matrices to mark the rite of passage along the way to becoming proper archaeologists.

Now, in addition to remembering all we have been told about soils, pottery, and coring, we just have to master small finds register, data structure reports, context sheets, and photographic register--black and white and colour.

Tuesday August 12th, 2008
by Paul Humphreys

Today we split into two teams, one coring and the other continuing with the evaluation trench over the modern dump. The coring team completed six cores on the Marymas market site; two of which were placed within the interior of a possible building that will be investigated by trial trenching tomorrow. The building cores failed to provide any evidence of possible floor material; however this is not entirely unexpected as abandoned sand floors might be expected to erode very rapidly. Other cores in the vicinity of probable buildings were more productive yielding a number of buried ‘A’ horizons.

The coring team took time off (for good behaviour) to join the excavating team for training in recording. The rubble deposit had been cleaned back for photography and context recording. The training exercise involved the description of the deposit in terms of discrete contexts; each one representing an event in time, a tipping event, for example.

This done, the coring team left the excavators to fill out 18 context sheets (lucky …..).

Once again our youngest recruit took time off from his busy schedule (paddling) to offer his wise counsel.

    

Tuesday August 12th, 2008 (part 2)
by Andy Heald

Another great turn out – around 13 people – on a very warm day. Today half of the team continued the survey and coring programme, returning to an area in the north of the study area, across the road from where we started some weeks ago. This has always been an appealing field – over the last ten years Paul has been walking the land and picking up various objects ranging from the Iron Age to Medieval. Various topographic surveys carried out by Paul and by the present team have suggested that the field may have various archaeological structures hidden within the sand dunes. In other areas with less visible sand dunes various structures appear as low lying mounds.

Coring on various mounds revealed a series of anthropogenic deposits, some of which included shell, bone, fish bone, and possibly slag. The various dunes are riddled with rabbit burrows, the rabbit activity often revealing tantalising structural details. Combined, the coring and survey programme is suggesting that the area is of some note.

Previous surveys by Paul and Graeme in the field have highlighted a structure which appears to be long and rectilinear. Such structures, of course, could range in date from the Viking through to the post-medieval period. It is the team’s feeling that this structure is worthy of evaluation.

Over the road in the adjacent field the other half of the team continued in the training trench- a trench aimed at training individuals with no previous excavation experience. The area was targeted as survey suggested some form of structural shape to the mound, although we had been told that the area may have been used as a convenient dump over the last century. This was confirmed today by yet more modern material being found on top of structural debris. These deposits are ideal for training purposes, having numerous finds and clear context boundaries. In the afternoon the team had to turn their attention to the ‘dreaded recording’ scheme – and we spent a few hours discussing what we had found, filling out context sheets, and photographing. Everyone grasped the concepts no problem and this training trench sets us up nicely for beginning the excavations proper. Another great day and everyone seems to be really enjoying themselves and learning a great deal.

Tuesday August 12th, 2008 (part 3)
by M Murray

On Tuesday I joined the team for the afternoon.. The first hour involved listening to Andy explaining the importance of logging the lay-out of the exposed surface of pits one and two. Donald and George were charged with the practicalities of completing the fifteen context sheets. Braving approaching cattle, part of the team left to continue coring the next site to confirm the wisdom of digging a trench there.

Once Juha had photographed the exposed pits from various angles, the growing band of diggers were given clearance to collect trowels, buckets and shovels, and work began.

My area of operation was the sloping edge of a fairly recent accumulation of dumped material. I discovered that there is an interesting sliding scale of emotional reaction to other people’s rubbish. The more modern and personal the item the more distasteful it seems. The discovery of pieces of an Iron Age container is followed by shrieks of joy, but the sight of a disintegrating rubber glove or a jam-jar filled with unidentified substance produces groans of disgust.

Have I been put off? No I am preparing to leave for another session right now. All in the pursuit of knowledge!

Wednesday August 13th, 2008
by Andy Heald

Whilst most parts of Scotland are hit by torrential rain Costa Del Dunnet Bay remains a micro-climate of beautiful, warm weather, which was enjoyed by yet another great turnout of people. We continued working in the two fields at the northern end of Dunnet Bay. Coring on various mounds revealed more anthropogenic deposits, some of which included shell and bone. Excavations in the training trench continued with sterling work by George, Donald and Katrina. Work is progressing well and it is now clear that the area has been a dump for many centuries and the chance of us finding anything pre-18th century is limited. We will clarify this tomorrow.

Over the road, and with the generous support of the landowner, the team were allowed to begin excavations of an area of land where topographic survey suggested, perhaps, a series of walls creating a building – shown by lumps and bumps within the sand dune system. Such features are common across the whole bay and it was felt by the team that putting a few evaluation trenches across such features would allow us to characterise the nature, character and hopefully date, of said anomalies. From this we could perhaps extrapolate the information from these trenches to other similar features across the whole bay. In order to begin work we had to fence off the area to protect the archaeology from the nearby cattle. With great excitement, the team discussed the best place to set-up the trench and, once agreed, began deturfing the area. By the end of the day all that we had encountered were a series of sand levels. Hopefully, tomorrow we will find some hints of anthropogenic material.

This was another great day and you can see how everyone is gaining in confidence, particularly those individuals who have never excavated before. The team is bonding really well, discussing where to set-up trenches and excavate. One of the highlights for me was something said by one of the core team – although he thought the training of the community and the hunt for archaeology was the principal excitement, what he also took from the archaeological project was the opportunity to get to know people from his community better. There can be no better legacy of a community project.