Archaeology Tid Bits ( Llanmelin Iron Age Hillfort )

A site that promises to yield further secrets with future dating evidence is the Iron Age Hill fort known as Llanmelin near Newport, traditionally associated with the capitol  of the local tribe, the Silures.

Artist  Alan Sorrels impression of Llanmelin Iron Age Hillfort dating from 300BC- lst century AD

Originally constructed in c,300 BC, Llanmelin is thought to have been occupied into the 1st century AD, but it was last excavated in the 1930s  before radio carbon-dating was available.

The site is in the care of the Welsh Government through Cadw, who led the three- week project  with the assistance from Archaeology Wales, aiming to increase understanding of the site using modern excavation techniques. Investigations confirmed that the inner bank was revetted on its outside with roughly coursed stone, and the ditches were cut down into the limestone bedrock, ‘ said project leader and Cadw Community Archaeologist Dr Caroline Pudney. ‘Within the main enclosure we revealed smaller gullies likely delineating activity areas, possible storage pits, and post holes, together with layers of earth formed over many years of occupation. These were full of artifacts, and at the bottom of each feature there was pottery and bone which will provide crucial dating evidence.’

A key aspect of the project was to extend archaeological opportunities to groups who might otherwise never have the chance to dig including volunteers from local-history societies and schools, as well as wounded servicemen under the MOD archaeological recovery project, Operation Nightingale, and offenders from HMP and YO1 Parc , Bridgend, on temporary licence as part of their reintroduction in society and work.

The team unearthed a wealth of clues about life at Llanmelin, with evidence of copper smelting and antler carving, as well as pieces of quernstones and spindlewhorls. Also large quantaties of animal bone revealed the presence of cattle, sheep, and red deer in the inhabitants’ diet , while important finds included a copper- alloy nail – cleaner whose incised patterns suggest it was made in the Gloucestershire- Severn Estuary region, and a tiny fragment of  lorica  squamata, or Roman fish-scale armour .

Llanmelin Excavation.

Lifting the Quernstone at Llanmelin Excavation.

Part of a Spindle Whorl found at Lanmelin Hillfort.

Photo’s courtesy of  Cadw Community Archaeology

Initial analysis seems to confirm occupation at the site into the 1st century AD,’ but this will become clearer as post excavation work continues.

 

The Archers that crewed The Mary Rose.

When the Mary Rose was raised from the Solent  in 1982  the skeletons of 92 men were recovered. Historical sources record that a company of longbowmen were on board when the vessel sank, but until now it has not been possible to isolate which of the skeletons might have belonged to this group.

Now Sports scientists, osteologists and modern technology have joined forces to help identify the archers that crewed the Mary Rose., Henry Vlll’s flagship sank in l545.

Nick Owen, a Sport and Exersize  Biomechanist from Swansea University, has been examining bones from the wreck to see if any show signs of the repetitive, strenuous actions associated with archery.. The Mary Rose Trust contacted Nick to help with this research because he works with modern elete athletes’,  Nick said that the Longbow archers were the elete athletes of their day. They used very powerful bows, some of which required a lifetime of training and immense strength as the archers had to pull weights of up to 200lbs’.

The Mary Rose Longbows. Courtesy of Murray Sanders.

In order to determine which bones might show the effect of regularly firing heavy bows, Nick set out to establish where the greatest bilateral difference in forces acting on the muscles would occur. Modern- day longbow archers were brought into the lab and marked up with motion-capture equipment to see exactly which parts of the body were used when firing the bows. This helped to establish the radius needed.

Nine pairs of arms and shoulders  were analysed, carefully matched by an osteologist, of which three had both radii. When these were examined the heads of the bones showed differences in surface area of up to 46%

The next stage of the project will see the analysis of DNA from the skeletal material, to help match the bones more exactly, and to shed light on the individuals who made up the ill-fated flagships crew.

Watch this space for more about the Archers of the Mary Rose.

 

Learning About Life From Death in Akhenaten's Egypt

Reblogged from Bones Don't Lie:

The city of Amarna was a 17 year period of change and drama in Egypt's ancient history. It was established as the capital city of Egypt in 1353 BC during the late 18th dynasty by Pharaoh Akhenaten. He founded the city on virgin land in order to be "seat of the First Occasion, which he had made for himself that he might rest in it." His goal was the creation of a site dedicated to the worship to the Aten.

Read more… 739 more words

 

Herculaneum: the unknown city

Reblogged from British Museum blog:

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Vanessa Baldwin, exhibition project curator, British Museum

For many people visiting the exhibition, Life and Death Pompeii and Herculaneum, it may be the first time they have encountered the smaller city which lay west of Mount Vesuvius.

While Pompeii became a household name, immortalised in books, television and cinema, Herculaneum has remained relatively unknown in popular culture. In the exhibition we felt it was important to show why Herculaneum is just as important as its famous neighbour.

Read more… 604 more words

 

Solved: Riddle of ancient Nile kingdom's longevity

Reblogged from Ancientfoods:

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Topic:Water

(Phys.org) —Researchers have solved the riddle of how one of Africa's greatest civilisations survived a catastrophic drought which wiped out other famous dynasties. Geomorphologists and dating specialists from The Universities of Aberystwyth, Manchester, and Adelaide say that it was the River Nile which made life viable for the renowned Kerma kingdom, in what is now northern Sudan.

Kerma was the first Bronze Age kingdom in Africa outside Egypt.

Read more… 558 more words

 

Pottery in Archaeology (Medieval period)

This post as previously stated in my other posts about pottery, is intended for the beginner interested in Medieval pottery. It is a basic outline to pottery forms and fabrics and distribution around Britain during these times.

INTRODUCTION

The raw materials necessary for the production of pottery are clay, water, fuel and filler (inclusions) to strengthen the vessel when firing. The properties of the clay. derive from the parent rock. There are two types of clay: primary clay comes directly from the parent rock and is found in the place of origin; secondary clay is decomposed rock which is weathered and deposited elsewhere.

Earthenware clays are secondary clays, and are many and various. This is the most common clay type used in the pottery recovered from archaeological excavations from the Neolithic to the late Medieval period.

The potter would choose the best clays and adapt it for his work . Some vessels would need to be fireproof, others non-porous. Inclusions are added to “open” the  clay or to improve the firing of a vessel.The manufacturing processes where vessels were thrown on a wheel have the potential to be more symmetrical than if hand made. Handles and spouts sometimes were a personal technique of an individual potter.

Early Medieval Pots

At the end of the Roman period the potters wheel was reintroduced from the 8h century onwards, enabling the potters to cope with the needs of the growing urban communities. Glazes in the Medieval period were mainly  lead-based forming a yellowish – green vitreous surface. Mottled green and bright green color was achieved by adding copper to the glaze.The potters of the Brill / Boarstall  production center , marketing leaders in the 13th century, showed great freedom in their artistic work.

During this time incomes were rapidly rising and demand for packaged foods such as butter was being observed.  On seeing the consumer demand certain pottery workshops succeeded in meeting these demands.One such production center was Brill/ Boarstall who dominated the ceramic market for many years.

Below is a guide to some of the main Medieval Green Glazed Wares.

HEDINGHAM WARE

(Medieval mid 12th-13th centuries AD) Production center  was based in Sible  Hedingham Essex. This ware is relatively  common in other parts of East Anglia and often found in Bury St Edmunds occasionally in Norwich.  Fabric is fine, often soft , orange to buff and micaceous. The kilns also produced grey and brown medium and fine sandy coursewares which occur frequently in South Suffolk and Essex. The glazed wares consisted largely of jugs with green lead glaze. Some have applied decoration such as the picture below.

 Hedingham Ware Shards.

A selection of Medieval pot shards

GRIMSTON WARE ( Late 12th – 14th centuries AD )

Grimston Ware glazed Face jug found at Cambridge. Early 14th century.

Grimston ware is a dark blue-grey, medium sandy fabric, occasionally oxidized on one or both surfaces, with occasional course ferrous inclusions. Most of the products which travelled some distance from the source, in north-west Norfolk,were green- glazed but unglazed wares were also produced for local consumption. Grimston is well known for its face jugs a very popular form in Medieval Britain. These jugs were decorated with applied pellets and strips on the body, also applied bearded faces and arms on the neck and rim.Most are dated from the 13th and 14th centuries.

HOLLESLEY Type WARE ( Late 13th – 14th centuries AD

Hollesley  produced large quantities of glazed and unglazed wares.The main products consisted of jugs bowls and jars. Jugs were decorated with painted white slip lines and green glaze also applied pellets, pads and other motifs were also used. similar to Ipswich glazed wares  which was being produced at the same time.

BRILL / BOARSTALL WARE Buckinghamshire. 13th Century.Pale orange throughout external glaze with moderate copper green blotches Well sorted quartz occasionally iron rich inclusions.

Brill / Boarstall produced  Baluster jugs,  jars , bottles, lamps, storage vessels and the famous face jug .Most were green glazed.

 Drinking Jugs Green glazed. 1340-1450 AD

  Medieval Small earthenware Jar 13th century AD

 

Baluster Jug mid 13th century AD For Wine or Ale

Found at Oxford with other vessels.

Later Green Glazed Wares..

LATER MEDIEVAL WARES 14th and 15th Centuries.

MEDIEVAL MIDLANDS PURPLE WARE

This ware known as Midlands Purple was made locally at Chilvers Coton and Ticknall in Derbyshire.Plain utilitarian pots were produced ranging in color from purple to dark red or greyish black with a metallic  glaze. New vessel forms reflecting changes in cooking and eating habits also became more common. These include lids and cups, pipkins -cooking pots with the addition of a handle and a pouring lip ,dripping dishes-shallow vessels placed under a spit in order to catch the juices from the meats being cooked. Cisterns- large handles jugs with a bung hole near the base used for the brewing and storage of ale or beer.

Photo courtesy of The University of Leicester   Midlands Purple Ware.

LATE MEDIEVAL CISTERCIAN & early POST MEDIEVAL BLACKWARE

Cistercian ware first discovered on monastic sites inhabited by Cistercian monks before the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century. These brown glazed pots were made at centers throughout England ,including  Chilver Coton and Ticknall,  The origins of these fine wheel thrown dark brown glazed pots often decorated with applied motifs in white clay, is a mystery. The pottery seems well advanced and occurs in a range of table ware forms such as cups , other vessels included posset pots and chafing dishes; chafing dishes were used for holding hot embers of charcoal to heat the posset or rich spiced potage or curdled milk which was placed in the posset pot.

     

Cistercian wares    Courtesy of the British Museum

I couldn’t resist the Green glazed 14th century pot below in the form of a Ram. It is called an  Aquamanile  used in medieval times for the washing of the hands .It is not certain where these were made. Some were made on the East coast of Scarborough

And below is my replica “ Aquamanile “ I bought at Cosmeston Medieval Village

There are several other Medieval Potters for you to explore but I have chosen ones that are mostly well known. If you are a beginner which is what my posts on “ Pottery in Archaeology “ are all about, you may wish to join an Archaeological or Historical Society who organize field walks searching for pottery. There are many books to refer to, and of course the Internet is a valuable source.  However field walking is great fun especially when you find your first pottery shard and begin your Investigations. Good Luck.

 

Archaeology and Tintagel.

Most people know of Tintagel in Cornwall and the Legend of King Arthur. The Medieval historian Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed Arthur was conceived at Tintagel, a myth that has helped make it one of the most visited archaeological sites in Britain. A major excavation project begun in the 1990′s has since published its conclusions.

TINTAGEL.

Tintagel is a craggy mound of splintered grey rock and rough grasses constantly pounded by Atlantic waves. Only a narrow neck of land connects it to the North Cornish mainland. The site is dominated by the remains of a castle built in the 13th century by, Richard, Duke of Cornwall.

Tintagel Castle Ruins Photo Courtesy of English Heritage.

The outer defences lie on the landward side of the neck, the main bastion immediately opposite on the southern edge of the “ island”. These ruins draw the attention visitors who believe that it must be Arthur’s castle.

The true greatness of Tintagel is represented not by its medieval castle, but by the reconstructed slate dwarf walls that mark the site of modest rectangular buildings excavated on the eastern terraces of the island. It was here that Raleigh Radford uncovered the building foundations and scatters of imported pottery that identified Tintagel as a major site of the 5th-7th centuries AD.

Radford had worked on Tintagel in the 1930′s and again in the 1950′s. He was amazed by the pattern of small scale structures, built on terraces distributed across the mound . Who would choose to live in such a place, perched on crags lashed by such strong winds and rain.

The Rough Seas of Cornwall.

In 1990 a new phase of work began at  Tintagel commissioned by English Heritage to carry out fresh investigations on the island and attempt to resolve a debate of the nature of early Dark Age Tintagel, the Glasgow Research Team  conducted a series of short survey and excavation seasons between 1990 and 1999.

Radford’s work was re evaluated both on site and in the archives and the project finally concluded with the publication of a grand monograph that summarises the results. The overall picture of Tintagel now looks very different. It has come closer to imagining a place where a King might have been sired. Instead of a little community of Celtic monks.

Radford had discovered a number of small scattered structures which he had taken to be individual “ cells ” characteristic of an early Dark Age monastic community but the impression was deceptive. The island is subject to erosion and slippage, many of the slopes are covered by scree. In some cases evidence had been lost entirely, and in others, lay too deeply buried to be discovered.

The site had been intensively worked on and where buildings were found some were rectangular some square ones others with stone footings only, perhaps for turf walls or timber-framed superstructures, others were curvilenear  or irregular shaped. When the Glasgow team re excavated they found evidence of various other structures which Radford had missed and the impression was  that many stone- built and less substancial stone and turf constructions had once rested on the terraces.

The Glasgow Team Excavation at Tintagel. Photo courtesy of English Heritage.

Excavating on the lower terrace of site C, the Glasgow team discovered several phases of stone and turf structures  associated with, floor deposits, and stoke holes, The phases were separated by layers of tiny flakes of slate in sandy clay soil. Rich assemblages of domestic debris in the form of pottery and samples of charcoal for radio carbon determination were found. This revealed three distinct periods of building work: cal AD395-460 for an early phase of hearths ,floors, and stoke- holes pre-dating the first appearance of imported pottery; cal AD 415-535 for a later phase in which Romano-British and imported pottery were both present in significant quantity and cal AD 560-670 for the latest and best- preserved  structure and the  largest assemblage of imported pottery.

A small group of 21 Romano-British pot shards Gabbroic(5), Granite (l Shard) and local (  l5 shards)- was swamped by a huge assemblage of imported ( 5th – 7th century ) pottery. In total there were 1,821 shards in this category. The assemblage included four types of amphorae from Greece (bi)  Turkey ( b ii and  probably B iv), and possibly North Africa BV.

There were also course wares from the eastern Mediterranean ( Red ware and sandy cream ware, and fine wares for the table, mainly Phocaean  Red slipped ware (PRSW) and African Red slipped ware (ARSW) also a single shard of Bordeaux- region D. ware.

The African and possibly the course wares record the import of luxury communities such as wine. The fine wares may indicate Mediterranean- style eating and drinking as a mark of Elite status. At least nineteen separate vessels are represented in all, of which sixteen are 5th to 7th century imports.

Some of the Pottery Shards found at Tintagel  Photo Courtesy of English Heritage

A thin slate plaque was found which apparently had had two inscriptions incised upon it and had been trimmed and re-used as a drain cover. The earlier inscription- on the evidence of the forms of letters- dates from AD 400. It seems to be inscribed HAVG- Honorius Augustus- The Emperor Honorius. If the reading is correct, this is a very important discovery. Honorius was the Western Roman Emperor from AD 395 to 423. The second inscription appears to compromise a series of names from the 6th century AD but we have no way of knowing who these men were. There names are Roman (Paternus / Paterninus) or British (Late British, or Neo-Brittonic, a kind of proto-Cornish It seems interesting that these men chose to inscribe their names on a slab which appears to have worn the imprint of a Roman Emperor. This may have been a lineage of ruling men, maybe lords of Tintagel.

Tintagel like the Cadbury sites are of extreme “ high status” in Western Britain in the post Roman period .archaeologically the site is at the top of the social hierarchy in this period, so it is difficult to envisage Tintagel as anything other than a site of the  Dummonian  rulers. It was an enclosed settlement on a hilltop promontory, from which control could be maintained of passing shipping and of maritime-based trading activities, whether local, regional or long distance. However this is not to imply year-round residency of the Dummonian ruler. It is likely to have been one of a  few such centers, comparable with the village regales mentioned by Bede in relation to early Northumbria.

At times when the ruler was not present a  ‘caretaking’  group must still have been in residence. Susan Pearce elaborates on the seasonal aspect: , this suggests that Tintagel was visited occasionally and that it functioned as the summer meeting place of which the local ruler met lesser men, transacted business, and fostered the important personal relationships upon which, in part, his power depended.

Perhaps we as Arthur enthusiasts have captured a little truth about Tintagel; It seems likely that it was a seat of power of the very type of Dark Age war lord from which the whole Arthur legend derives.

Archaeology Magazine