next »

TRAILBLAZERS
for students

ArchaeoFind
Archaeology News
Articles
Browse Attachments
Calendar
Downloads
Forum
Gallery
Links
Member Map
Our News Feeds
Submit Article
Tag Cloud
Video Channel

Trailblazers
Play Phaos
Chat
Trailblazers: Virtual Tours
History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Vince Burrows]

Some of our site team

[Vince Burrows]

Trench 107 showing the stakeholes bored into the chalk.

[Vince Burrows]

Trench 103 exposing the mound core to the natural chalk. The mottled brown area is Saxon burial no6 unexcavated. Not in danger of the plough.

[Vince Burrows]

Two of our University students. Andy and Caromin finally finished excavating graves 4 and 5. Caromins father is an eminent archaeologist in South Africa.

[Vince Burrows]

Grave no 05

[Vince Burrows]

Grave no 05 Skull in situ.

[Vince Burrows]

Grave no 05 was cut through grave 04. This picture shows grave 04 cutting 05 at the eastern end.

[Vince Burrows]

Trench 114, The eastern section cut through the smaller of the two ditches.

Trench 111, The larger ditch believed to be the barrow mound ring-ditch.

Trench 111, Ditch.

My daughter Elissia (15 yrs of age) excavating

[Vince Burrows]

Trench 114, the small ditch looking east.

[Diving Doc]

Vince,

Thanks greatly for those excellent quality pictures.

Cheers,
Doc

[Vince Burrows]

Dear Doc,
              With regards to our instruments. The US mag equipment is a very well made piece of hardware. It is much easier to use in terms of keeping the head level and thus sensors in there optimum vertical postion. The design also makes for betterment over other handheld instruments especially on rough terrain. The only downside is the program software as we have discussed. If the manufactures were prepaired to adopt a similar program to that of British and European systems, the Magnum would be a best seller over here and in Europe!

As I have previously mentioned, Dr Gabor and myself recently undertook training with a British designed Fluxgate magnetometer. This equipment provides fast coverage and excellent images results on most types of sites. The Geoplot software costs around �650.00 (from Geoscan.com.UK) and the instrument �12,000 - �13,000. The Magnum hardware is more user friendly giving realtime information on a laptop in front of the operator, but lacks badly in the software department. In my opinion, the Magnum would become one of the top sellers if the software modifications were met. I would certainly back the systems commercial promotion here in the UK through History Hunters in this event.

Regards

Vince

[Vince Burrows]

Dear All readers,
                       Looking at the story board with nearly 4500 hits, our site at Alkham seems to be the most visited. Alkham as a place-name drives from Old English ealh + ham meaning "Homestead in a sheltered place, or by a heathen temple" Charlie and his family were still pagan Saxons at this period from whence the village probably got its name? The spelling Ealhham was recorded in 1100 AD.  Work is still continuing at the site despite delays due to the poor weather we have experienced this summer.

Unfortunately, the site lies at the top of a sloping ridge which, is difficult to get to after more than one day of rain. The landowners Simon and Barbara have been fantastic with their support of this very long and protracted project and show great interest in the site as a whole.

The valley has a much wider story yet to be told having missed the gaze of archaeologists with limited financial resources available however, Simon and Barbara's kind support during the course of our research to date, has afforded us the opportunity to undertake the first major steps of work in this very important valley.  John, Justin and myself have experienced some added none archaeological times. Freeing a sheep on its back that got tangled in brambles with a penknife, watching two lambs born in front of us on our geophysical survey net (both repatriated with mum) away from the survey, cows with attitude and the farm dogs bringing us offerings of a small baby rabbit they caught! This small unfortunate fellow, was interred in Charlies now vacant grave in a cairn of stones.

This site is currently funded by myself and expensive to run, If any readers would like to contribute and help with this project, we would be very gratefull for any contributions you are willing to support us with. We are now focussing on the main Bronze Age burial mounds but running very low on financial resources.

If you can help with this project and its continuation, please contact me at: Vince Burrows. 258 Anzio Crescent, Burgoyne Heights, Guston. Kent. England. CT15 5LZ.

HHI will shortly be adding a paypal system directly linked to our site funding programme.

Regards

Vince

I will be posting our latest update with pictures for this site within the next seven days.

[Bart]

Very nice report Vince, I really enjoy the photos, they give a great sense of connection. It appears that is has turned out to be quite a large and important project.

 You wrote "Trench 107 showing the stakeholes bored into the chalk." Is it known what these stakeholes were used for?

Bart

[Vince Burrows]

Hi Bart,
           The term I used "bored into the chalk" loosely. These holes are the footprints left from stakes having probably been hammered in! This action compresses the chalk leaving a feature which seems hand cut however, some are hand cut. As for the purpose, this particular arrangement on this ridge was probably some kind of animal enclosure or pen. We have discovered a singular stakehole nearby which is much larger. We still need to delimit the area but my thought's are for a larger fence having been erected.

We started-out looking for at least four barrow ring-ditches, two or three being the norm in this area of Kent. After a brief survey of the wood above this site, I now believe there might be at least ten if not more? If my theory is correct, our Alkham site may slot in under the famous Ringlemere barrow site approximately 10 miles northeast of this site. Its possible the periods of these burials may turn out the same? Over the next few days, we will expose one of the mounds ring-ditches and post to HHI. Unlike that of Ringlemere, we have yet to come across another famous Gold Cup!!!!!

Hope alls well with you.

Regards

Vince

[Diving Doc]

Vince,

What are the latest reports?

Have you made any more discoveries or recoveries?

Congratualtions on everything done to date.

Regards,
Doc