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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Administration]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/7kY4qWI_7zE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/7kY4qWI_7zE</a>
A short video on our progress to date.

[Bart]

   Excellent clip! Great narration, and I really enjoyed the music too.

   Ever the curious Bart... Is there ever any frost in the ground here, and if so, what effect does it have on such burials?

   Around here, we have fields that yield two crops each year. Frost tends to heave up a new crop of granite rock each year, from fist to fair sized boulder. These must be removed by hand before tilling and planting can commence. The reason for the granite here is glacial moraine deposits. There is no market for the first crop of granite, unfortunately.

- Bart

[Solomon]

Thanks, Bart! Much appreciated, as I really struggled to get my video and audio editors to produce as needed. I think we need to find somebody adept at production.

The music is as close to an actual Saxon sound as is possible. The track is Fritton Frolic and uses repro instruments of the period. I would have liked to have balanced the music better with the voiceover.

I am now using a camera from Doc to record everything in video and stills. It is higher quality than the cameras I have and easy to use, too.

We need to add a full credits list, also.

We have a lot of work still to do on this site and it would be nice to eventiually produce a 10-minute summary of our conclusions.

Frost:
Yes, we get snow and frost. The geology is chalk, with lots of flint embedded. The effect of the frost is to splinter the flint. This increases the difficulty in identifying worked flints. My method is to examine the edges very carefully for knapping, not trusting the shapes.

What effect the weather has depends a lot on the depth of the archaeology. Here, the soil depth is usually 4 inches. The burial was cut into the chalk. We have not yet cut through the mound, but the soil was getting deeper as we approached.

The only remains we found were the bones and knife, with small shards and some flints. All wood, leather and cloth had decomposed entirely. In Saxon burials elsewhere, in deeper soil, wooden artefacts survived - the remains of a woman were found with a leather-covered wooden shield across her.

Ice sheets did reach the south of England, but only just. They ground the top off the Highlands and Pennines, and  deposited the good soils in the south, leaving the north largely stripped clean - which is why the Highlands are not much good for agriculture.

 ewe and lamb.mpg (1322.58 KB - downloaded 23 times.)
These hills are used for grazing sheep. Vince and I rescued one which had become enmeshed in strong brambles. Lambing had just started when we were there last. Vince had to carry a new-born off our grid.

Cheers!
Solomon

[Bart]

Ewe weren't kidding about the sheep. I know, that was baaaa d.

   Death and birth, a full cycle achaeological site, how cool. Perhaps you could incorporate a bit of that into the video production, it would give it a unique touch.

- Bart

[Solomon]

After the downpours of yesterday, we had a glorious day getting suntanned.

The exploratory trench across the tumulus found, at its centre, a burial tentatively dated to the Bronze Age, 1,800 - 1,600 BCE.

Above, you may discern parts of the skull and teeth.

The bones were disturbed. How this came about we are now investigating. I cannot say more at this point, because it is a political matter of some delicacy.



We were very fortunate to have with us the Finds Liaison Officer for Kent (above, centre). Not only was he an exceptionally able pair of hands, but, of course, we are working in his area of special expertise.

Our trench now reaches right across the mound, in an attempt to find if there was an encircling ditch.



I have marked with dotted red lines, above, a dark area in the trench in the northern end, the opposite side from 'Chilton Charlie', the first (Saxon) burial we found. The chalk on either side is natural. In the marked area, it is not, but refilled and compacted.

This could have been the ditch we were looking for, or another burial. We therefore placed a small trench to the northern side and found no trace of a ditch. The obvious implication is that we have found a third burial.

Here is a short video of the two trenches.

Burial - not a ditch

We have yet to decide what to do with this.

I will compile a video using the clips and stills, for posting to YouTube, later.

Today, it was a marvellous time for us all.

[Bart]

Very interesting, it appears that you had a great day. I think your recording of this project will be around for a long time, and something you can all be proud of.

Bart

[Solomon]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/o9GGS_qKqsQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/o9GGS_qKqsQ</a>

I have a high-quality version if anyone has an educational purpose for it: some 500 MB and I can mail out a CD. The limit for YouTube is 100 MB and the conversion has introduced some errors and lowered the visual content considerably.

Solomon

[Bart]

Very nice clip, well done, and great music! The white text was a bit challenging to read, perhaps a darker color? It was the next best thing to being there, I got a good idea of what it was all about. I don't know about others, but I have never seen a dig recorded before, so the whole scenario was unique and fascinating for me. It seems you have produced an educational tool here, I have passed the link on to a teacher friend who will use it in her classroom.

Bart

[Solomon]

Thanks Bart and good points.

I went through the titles and changed them to red. There is a basic set of errors resulting from the conversion process: some of the clips start late. I have tried to amend many times without success.

I cannot help the educational approach. My trying to tell a coherent story is built into me. It's why I have never attempted fiction.

Glad you liked that Celtic music: that's a mandolin you can hear carrying the tune.

I must congratulate Vince on a very fine job directing this dig. He has been masterful in setting it up and managing each aspect. He and Justin are also full of fire and vitality.

As you can see, a number of volunteers helped out. A couple are mature students at university. One is the niece of a very famous South African archaeologist and I enjoyed learning from her about early mankind.

Solomon

[Vince Burrows]

Dear All,
            Alkham is a very interesting site concealing much more than we have uncovered to date. It would appear, we have three burials directly or just off the centre of this mound with two disturbed or dug burials and one at depth which seems untouched (currently excavating). As for dates of interment's, its looking like all three will be 6th century Saxon inhumations. To date, we have excavated or recorded 5 burials at this site.

The project design was to locate Bronze Age barrow rings and hopefully establish a previously unknown barrow cemetery but, unfortunately this still eludes us! We have evidence for Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age activity across the land surface in the form of struck flints and small sherd's of pot. Jim Walker (metal detectorist from the White Cliffs MD Club) has searched the entire area over a number of days. Apart from copious amounts of junk and bullet cartridge's, Jim found a copper alloy belt mount dating to the 6th / 7th centuries close by our main trench.

I will keep you informed of developments.

Regards

Vince

[Vince Burrows]

Alkham Excavations Update 5th July 2007

In recent weeks, with the help from Kent & Canterbury's University students we are currently training, a total of fourteen trenches have now been opened by hand and reduced in running sections. These trenches range in size from 3 x 1 metres to 14 x 1 metres in length.

We have now recorded six Saxon 6th century inhumation burials, of which three have been fully excavated due to their shallow disposition and threat from ploughing activities. Grave goods have been sparse with:

�   one 7" iron knife with traces of the wooden handle attached;

�   eight iron nails (6cm in length),  three with wood attached;

�   one shoe-shaped copper alloy belt mount stud.

In trenches 106, 112 and 114, we are currently excavating and delimiting two ditches cut into the natural chalk bedrock which we have found.

Ditch 1 - the smaller of the two - appears to represent an enclosure of yet, unknown origins.

Ditch 2., revelled on our geophysical survey images, is believed to be a Bronze Age barrow ringditch measuring approximately 2.60 metres in width. The circumference of the ring itself will probably be around 13 to 16 metres.

So far, we have not recovered any datable evidence from the ditch sections examined. Both ditches are almost certain to have been cut in the prehistory period BCE.

Trench 107, revelled 8 small stakeholes bored into the natural chalk and probably used as dividing partitions, or fencing for livestock. Evidence From the stake context fills suggest that the stakes were removed from the site as apposed to being left to rot.

Our project is expanding rapidly and will eventually move to the wooded area at the top of this ridge above this site. We estimate this work to take around 2 years to complete.

Further details and pictures will be posted periodically.


Regards

Vince Burrows
Site director.

[Diving Doc]

Vince,

Thanks for your concise reports. It certainly would seem that there is a great deal more than we ever imagined when we set  about this project on that cold wet day in December. Great Going! I am sorry not to be there sharing in the work and fun. I am very much looking forward to your next report.

Cheers,
Doc

[Vince Burrows]

Dear Doc,
              You would not recognise the ridge since you were here in December. The site has changed from being cold, wet and windy to warm, sunny and inviting. What a contrast! As this ridge is very narrow,for the first few weeks of the project, I decided to go with the good old fashion method of sinking trenches across the most prominant low mound seen on the skyline. This failed and although we discovered Saxon burials there was no sign of the barrow ring-ditches. I am now using our geophysical surveys data to guide us to the archaeological targets. As you can read, we have now located a number of archaeological features which are currently being sectioned. Over the next month or so, we will be examining the full extent of the two main ditch features and hopefully delimit the areas they enclose.

I have just arrived home from Kent and Canterbury University after spending a day training on a Bartington 601 (twin) Magnetic Gradiometer and software with Dr Gabor Thomas. Exceptional equipment and extremely useful on most types of sites and soils. This Sunday, I will be using this system with the Uni students at Lyminge in Kent, to resurvey the areas I have already completed with resistance equipment. Looking forward to hopefully, complimentary data sets.

Hope the diving operations are going well and don't breath-in too many bubbles!!

Best regards

Vince 

[Diving Doc]

Vince,

The more closely I read your report the more certain I feel that the "disturbed burials" would not record as they should on some of our instruments. Their design being for virgin soil application, not something disturbed in recent times. I presume that this must have taken place prior to Simon buying the farm.  Hopefully the new GPR should prove useful in your work. You have really done marvelously, my congratulations to you and your team.

Cheers,
Doc

[Vince Burrows]

Dear All,
            Here is a selection from our site potographic record.



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