celebrating 21 years of the ifaautumn 2003 number 50 this issue: celebrating 21 years of the ifa the...

Autumn 2003Number 50

This issue:

CELEBRATING21 YEARS OF THE IFA

The (Field)Archaeologist at 21p10

21 years ofChairing IFAp12 – 21

Looking forwardp22

21 years ofscience inarchaeologyp34

Institute of Field ArchaeologistsSHES, University of Reading, Whiteknights,

PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6ABtel 0118 378 6446fax 0118 378 6448

email [email protected] www.archaeologists.net

The ARCHAEOLOGIST

Theoretical Archaeology Group

Wednesday 17th - Friday 19th December

2003

University of Wales Lampeter

www.lamp.ac.uk/archaeology/tag/index.htm

Registration forms available from our website

Contact: [email protected]

1A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0

Contents

Editorial

View from the (director’s) Chair Peter Hinton

IFA on the move Alison Taylor

From the Finds Tray

Archaeology in Parliament: responding to the APPAG report

Archaeology and the Party Wall Act Mike Dawson

The (Field) Archaeologist at 21 Alison Taylor

Memories: Peter Addyman

Memories: Brian Davison

Memories: Richard Hall

Memories: Tim Darvill

Memories: Ian Ralston

Memories: David Start

Memories: Diana Murray

Memories: Jez Reeve

Memories: Sue Davies

Memories: Deborah Porter

Looking forward: Peter Hinton

Health and safety: construction skills certificate scheme Mike Dawson

The Archaeology Data Service Julian D Richards

Oxford Archdigital

Herefordshire online Miranda Greene

Training for practitioners in landscape survey: an English Heritage initiative

Bringing old timbers back to life Douglas McElvogue

Subterranean secrets below the Isle of Wight Garry Momber

Science pages: The Centre for Archaeological Science: 21 years of science in archaeology

Justine Bayley

Science pages: Archaeomagnetic dating: glass-making sites at Bagot’s Park, Staffordshire

Paul Linford and Christopher Welch

The archaeology of buildings Robina McNeil

Archaeology on the Web Mark Bell

New members / Members news

More members news

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2 3T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0

View from the (director’s) ChairBirthdays bring on nostalgia so readers must forgivethe backward-looking slant of a large chunk of thisTA.

Talking to past Chairs of IFA I was struck by howrecurrent were the themes – sorting out internalorganisational matters, broadening our appeal tothe whole archaeological profession, taking on anexpanding range of issues and challenges, not tomention trying to cut through the meshes ofbureaucracy that can sometimes bore us to astandstill. Nor of course ever having enough moneyfor half the things we want to do. None of theseproblems look like going to go away, so we justhave to take some comfort from realising that therenever was a Golden Age, and that our short life hasactually seen quite a lot of progress.

I was struck too, by the positive can-do attitude ofso many of our fresh-faced Chairs. They were allsure they could actually make some big differences– could even create a united profession ofarchaeologists. We could also run a publicationprogramme, though the roll-call and turnover ofeditors shows this is not a job with great life-expectancy. Going back over TAs, most of whichcame out under purely voluntary editorship, it isthe familiar refrain throughout – please sendinteresting articles, please meet deadlines, and please

few weeks ago IFA was tipped off that therewere two days left to make a submission to theLabour Party National Policy Forum on itsEnhancing the Quality of Life draft. On this occasion,the response had to be short, focused on a few keypoints, and very quick. It also had to react to adocument that showed more concern with thenatural environment than the historic, and inform apolicy making process in which one of our Time Teamfriends, Tony Robinson, has considerable influence.

Did we get it right? Is this what IFA members wantus to say? Feedback on this, and Alison’s summaryof what we should be saying to the All-PartyParliamentary Group (p6), will help us with ournext submission.

‘We tend to think of the environments of Britainin terms of separate ‘natural’ and ‘built’elements. In fact our entire landscape, urban andrural, has been shaped by people interactingwith nature over many centuries. We have ahistoric environment – the physical evidence forpast human activity that we see, understand andfeel. It includes sites, monuments, landscapes,buildings and settlements, as well as ourappreciation and perception of them.

But too few people understand that theenvironment must be managed in a joined-upway. As Lord McIntosh has said Great progresshas been made over the past 20 years in recognisingthe important public interest in taking firm action to protect the natural environment. We now want tomake similar progress to protect the historicenvironment, which has significance for all of us.

We understand and explain this historicenvironment through archaeology – and weprotect it through conservation. We need to dothese things because the past is important, andbecause archaeology and conservation are useful– they have very significant potential for social,cultural and economic regeneration.

Please can you all make a note of the new address:IFA, SHES, University of Reading, Whitenights, PO Box 227, READING RG6 6AB?

By encouraging a feeling of connectedness withthe past we can help to promote pride in ourneighbourhoods, community sustainability andcitizenship. By showing that all our familieswere at one stage or another immigrants, we canrealise that we have roots and experiences incommon. Through conserving the past we canretain and develop traditional rural industriesand craft skills such as thatching, and we canrevitalise our cities with a blend of old and newbuildings. By promoting access to the historicenvironment we can enhance tourism by visitorsform Britain and overseas. And we can enricheducation: by encouraging learning about thepast, we develop understanding of the presentand improve our planning for the future.

But to realise these goals we need to makechanges. • We need to streamline and simplify – but not

weaken – the legislation that protects ourhistoric environment, bringing it into line withour international obligations, and making itclear where it is obscure, open where it issecretive, and strong where there are loopholes

• We must require all national governmentdepartments to ensure that they trulyunderstand the needs and potential benefits of the historic environment, and to beresponsible for assessing and reporting howtheir policies may affect it

• We should give local authorities a statutoryresponsibility for providing historicenvironment services that maintain a record of heritage assets, inform sustainable planningdecisions and make the past accessible toresidents and visitors alike, through museums,galleries, schools and practical opportunitiesto get involved

• And we need to ensure that those practisingarchaeology and conservation are adequatelytrained and resourced for the work they areentrusted with – so that the citizens of Britaininherit the historic environment they deserve.

find some pictures! Does nothing change? But animpressive publication output was neverthelessmaintained, even though we have not yet achievedthe Journal that we still confidently plan.

But how can I really complain? In this issue, ourhyperactive Maritime Group, always reliable for agood story and good pictures (photography isobviously much easier underwater) sent in twopieces I could not resist, and our IT-mindedcolleagues responded nobly to the plea forexplanations of their work even I could understand.To keep us fully rounded (note the eternal pleas forus to appeal to an ever-widening circle of ourprofession) our Buildings Group shows just howbroad and fascinating their interests are. Finally, 21years is a long time in the world of archaeologicalscience, so I asked the Centre for Archaeology (whoare just a bit younger than us) what they reckonedtheir major advances had been.

Alison

[email protected]

Ed

it

or

ia

l

Contributions and letter/emails are always welcome. Short

articles are preferred, and must be less than 1000 words. They

should be sent as an email attachment, which must include

captions and credits for illustrations. The editor will edit and

shorten if necessary. Illustrations are very important. These are

best supplied as originals. If sent digitally they must be on CD,

as TIFFs or EPS, not JPGs, scanned at a minimum of 300dpi at

the size they are expected to appear. More detailed Notes for

Contributors for each issue are available from the editor.

EDITED by Alison Taylor, IFA,

SHES, University of Reading,

Whitenights, PO Box 227,

READING RG6 6AB

DESIGNED and TYPESET by

Sue Cawood

PRINTED by Charlesworth

Notes to contributors

P e t e r H i n t o n

IFA founders: Inaugural Meeting of Council, December 1982. L to R present: Tatton-Brown, Cleere, Carver, Wacher, Hobley, Barker, Fowler,

Musson, Davison, Mercer, Addyman, Reynolds, Bradley inset: Farley, Baker, Heighway not shown: Coles, Pryor (The Field Archaeologist No 1)

A


FROM THE FINDS TRAY

Gillian Phillips and Kenny

Aitchison settling into their

new desks in Reading

IFA’s office is now in the new

building of the Archaeology

Department, University of

Reading

Twentieth-century military sites: Currentapproaches to their recording and conservation

This is not your editor’s favourite subject but it is now exciting quite a lot of timely interest (timely in that wecan still go and ask what some of it meant). English Heritage’s recent booklet sets out out the range of sites thatare of special interest, (PoW camps (I like the beatifully-decorated Italian ones), anti-tank blocks, bombingdecoys, acoustic early warning systems, and coastal defences that have seen centuries of adaptation to the latestthreats). It is interesting too to see to see the routes of second world war stoplines, many of which we musthave inadvertently excavated. The aim is to ensure ‘the correct choices for management and recording’, andalso to strike some sort of balance on preservation of these very unaesthetic monuments.

Copies of this free 16pp booklet are available from English Heritage Customer Services Department ([email protected]).

Trade in illicit antiquities

Congratulations to Richard Allan MP (Lib Dem,Sheffield Hallam) who has finally securedlegislation as a Private Members Bill to make it acriminal offence to deal in ‘tainted cultural objects’.Once this receives the formality of royal assent theoffence will carry a penalty of up to seven yearsimprisonment and a fine in England and Wales.Scotland is still a worry (it might be tempting tomove trade there), but apparently the ScottishExecutive has recently recognised that equivalentlegislation will now be needed, so it should not befar behind.

‘Whose Find is it Anyway?’ Treasure, Metal detecting,Archaeology and Conservation – the life of detected findsafter recovery. 18 December 2003, British Museum

A UKIC Archaeology Section and British Museum jointconference which will review the work of the PortableAntiquities Scheme and address the difficulties still facingarchaeologists, conservators and metal detectorists inworking together to gather information and safeguard findsfor the future. The aim is to find out what conservationadvice detectorists need and how best to achieve this.Different procedures for their investigation, cleaning and careused by amateurs and professionals will be discussed. Therewill be displays of finds by metal detecting clubs andconservators. Cost: Members of UKIC, metal detecting clubs orprofessional archaeological groups £35; non-members £50;UKIC students £25. Fee includes entry to Buried Treasure:Finding Our Past, interval refreshments and evening winereception. For more details, or to book your place, contactKirsten Suenson-Taylor, 01295 720350 [email protected] Claire Heywood [email protected].

Of course, what has really engaged our energiesover the last few weeks is not responding togovernments etc, but the horrors of moving house.At long last we have left the ‘temporary’ wartimeaccommodation, where we have been based since1997, and have moved across Reading’s prettycampus to share the rather newer premises of theirArchaeology Department. This gives us slightlymore space, is considerably more watertight, warmand comfortable, has food and drink within reachand even facilities for decent tea and coffee (so wecan offer guests and committees a little morecivilisation than was our custom). The best thingthough is that we are now in touch with a livelydepartment full of budding and actualarchaeologists, company we are all starting to enjoy.

The move itself mostly fell to the effort of GillianPhillips and Paula Smith, who sorted, packed andreorganised six years’ worth of clutter (ie valuablearchives), and even painted the offices. They alsocoped with computers that died for a week,telephone problems and post in different locations. If you tried to contact the office in mid-October, ourapologies. One task that suffered was Paula’s workfor Validation Committee, for which she normallydoes a huge amount of chasing. As a result, of 78

applicants for membership only 17 could beapproved, mostly because references had notarrived and she had not been able to use hernormal gentle persuasion. Two lessons from this:please do try to get in references when asked (it’svery simple now on email) and, if applying, check your referee is willing (and then make sure it gets done).

Glass in London

The Abacus House site in Gutter Lane,excavated in 1987 by MoLAS, included a large,brick-lined cesspit containing high qualitysixteenth-century glass tableware, and morebasic bottles and urinals, on the site of theEmbroiderers’ guildhall. One piece of cristalloglass goblet seems to be unique in Britain, and isprobably Venetian. Rose Clark has analysed theassemblage in her MA dissertation, availablefrom both the LAARC (where the glass isstored), and the Institute of Archaeology (UCL).

Decoy representing

Hull Docks

IFA ON THE MOVE (but not far)

Alison Taylor

R E S P O N D I N G TO T H EA P PAG R E P O R T

Last spring, the All-Party Parliamentary ArchaeologyGroup (APPAG) published the results of a hard lookat the present state of British archaeology. It includedten headline recommendations, varying fromimproving archaeologists’ pay and conditions toprevention of damage to monuments by ploughing.Some of these recommendations need governmentaction, but others are the responsibility of thearchaeological profession – ie ours.

For our 21 anniversary AGM therefore we invitedkey figures in British archaeology to give theirviews on points where they had particularexpertise, and our members had the chance to helpinform official IFA responses. Chaired by DavidThackray, these presentations gave us a clearerpicture of actions already being taken.

Phil Carpenter, negotiating officer for Prospect,took us straight into the major concerns overarchaeological pay and conditions that had beentaken on board after innumerable representations to APPAG. He made us feel the usual shame –‘archaeologists are very good at complaining butwon’t do anything about it’ – and set out the

7A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t6

Geophysical equipment

aboard

problems clearly. These essentially relate to toofierce competition and too little regulation. The waysome trades and professions overcome this is bynational industry-wide pay bargaining, for whichwe needed two organisations to act for rival sides.A suggestion from the floor that employers couldact through SCAUM and employees throughProspect, with IFA negotiating ground rules,seemed a practical way forward that ought to gainwidespread support.

David Gaimster described the role of theDepartment of Culture, Media and Sport, (to whichhe is currently seconded). The department issupposed to have a lead-role in archaeology eventhough in reality this is spread over many

FROM THE FINDS TRAY

Marine aggregate dredging and thehistoric environment: assessing,evaluating, mitigating and monitoring thearchaeological effects of marine aggregatedredging

Another less-than-catchy title for anotherguidance note, this time produced byWessex Archaeology and published byEnglish Heritage and the British MarineAggregate Producers Association. It isaimed particularly at practitioners in the dredging industry, but itis also good for explanations of some of the equipment now beingused, and so is useful for curators and students needing tounderstand the technical possibilities for this aspect of heritagemanagement.

Verulamium

At long last the news from Verulamium is good.Herculean efforts (and we don’t know how muchcash from English Heritage), eventually persuadedthe Verulam Estate that damaging ploughing withinthis prime Roman town should not continue, and anarea of land would instead be used for permanentpasture. Unfortunately it is also clear that this sortof expenditure of time and money cannot berepeated elsewhere, and other solutions simplymust be found. We reported in the last TA on theRipping up History initiative, and on p8 Steve Trow’scontinuing programme to make protection of othersites in arable a reasonable reality. There are some inthe farming community (often not the richest ones)who will voluntarily look after their own sites, butfor others something more draconian is obviouslyneeded. If we can’t rely on CAP reforms to help,let’s hope that the current legislative reforms giveus something like the powers that planningguidance gives on development sites.

IFA and the Association of Archaeological Illustrators andSurveyors (AAI&S)

We have just agreed a Memorandum of understanding, recognisingthe roles of the two organisations, setting out areas of commoninterest and cooperation, agreeing to extend membership benefitsof each organisation to the members of the other, and setting up anIFA special interest group for Illustration and Survey, which anyIFA member can join at no cost.

Contact: Jo Bacon (Chair of AAI&S and Acting Chair of the Group)via the IFA office.

Management Strategies for Maritime Archaeology

A second professional development seminar, MaritimeArchaeology Case Studies, will be held in York on 3 Marchand London on 10 March 2004. Attendance is free but must bebooked in advance, through Ian Jones, Tees Archaeology, SirWm Gray House, Clarence Road, Hartlepool TS24 8BT. Tel 01429 523455, [email protected]

A R C H A E O L O G Y A N D PA R L I A M E N T

T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0 98

departments (Defra for example has many morearchaeologists than DCMS’s single one). DCMSitself is the smallest Whitehall department, easilypressured by the Treasury, and within theknowledge base and values of this ‘minnow’department archaeology barely registers. The word‘archaeology’ for example did not appear at all intheir Annual Report. However, outraged opinionsover the fiasco of damaged antiquities in Iraqprovided an unexpected impetus for two majorlegislative reforms: government support for RichardAllan’s bill on Illicit Antiquities, and for ratificationof the Hague Convention. This Convention, signedby many nations in 1954, gives statutory protectionto antiquities in times of war and would have mademany recent actions in Iraq and Afghanistancriminal offences if Britain and America had beensignatories. IFA has a valuable role here in keepingup pressure for reforms, and also for direct lobbyingof ministers – but we do have to be both street-wiseand politicised if we are to get anywhere.

Dai Morgan-Evans, general secretary of the Societyof Antiquaries, expanded this theme to explain aproposal for Parliamentary lobby training forarchaeologists. At present archaeologists are ‘prettypathetic’ at lobbying, and improving the flow ofinformation and advise in both directions through4-6 month placements, hopefully early in 2004,should be a valuable boost for the wholeprofession.

David Jennings, director of Oxford Archaeology,took up APPAG’s recommendations for franchisingversus competitive tendering by stating baldly thatfranchising was basically ‘dead in the water’ withinthe system we now have, and that competitivetendering is being blamed for what are really long-term problems in British archaeology. Statistics overthe last thirty years demonstrate that it is structuralproblems within the profession that lead to poorpay and conditions. One major problem is the non-existent barrier to entry, which has to be tackledquite separately to discussions of amateurinvolvement. Strengthening the RegisteredArchaeological Organisation (RAO) scheme (he isthe Chair of this, after all) was the only way to givea level playing field for competitors and higherstandards of both work and pay. This schemealready makes about 150 recommendations forimprovements every year and is now rising to thechallenge of becoming more relevant to the otherhalf of the equation – the curators.

Don Henson, CBA’s education officer, took up theproblems of teaching archaeology in schools.

Apparently archaeology has now all but fallen offthe syllabus. The situation is compounded becausearchaeology graduates are not normally acceptedfor teacher training – this also means that evenmuseum education officers will probably have nobackground in archaeology. At a time when wedesperately need a public that appreciates itshistoric environment we must provide rather morethan television programmes. Pressing forarchaeologists to be accepted for teacher trainingand to get archaeology back into the nationalcurriculum are urgent political needs.

Christopher Young, English Heritage’s head ofworld heritage and conservation, described theValletta Convention as ‘aspirational, settingbenchmarks against which to measure progress’,which we all have a duty to implement, even if wecan’t be perfect. It is inspiring current initiativesthat should at least improve the legislativeframework for archaeology. Implementation ofArticle 3, which requires archaeologists to beproperly qualified for the work they undertake, isbeing worked on by English Heritage, HistoricScotland and Cadw, with the likelihood they willdevelop a code of conduct based on the IFA one. At the same time bodies such as EH can influencework on their own behalf, for example insisting on RAO status and IFA membership for itscommissions and for work on scheduled sites.

Steve Trow, English Heritage’s head of countrysidepolicy, finished up with graphic illustrations of thelong-running problem of plough damage, usefullyhighlighted by APPAG. Publication and publicity of Ripping up History had brought much support,including an NFU pledge to work with EnglishHeritage, while research programmes such asCOSMIC (Conservation of scheduled monuments incultivation in the East Midlands) were establishingand illustrating effects of plough damage. TheDCMS review of heritage designation would also be used creatively to bring better management forrural sites.

After all this mental effort IFA held its obligatoryAGM (which for once was well attended) in therecord time of 20 minutes, and then moved into avery enjoyable (and rather longer) birthday party,part of the celebrations for reaching a mature 21years of age.

The current state of archaeology in the United Kingdom:First report of the All-Party Parliamentary ArchaeologyGroup 2003 Available (£3) from the Society ofAntiquaries of London

Planning an excavation, especially in built-up

areas, is fraught with problems. Bringing

down neighbouring buildings is one thing we

can do without. Mike Dawson, consultant for

CgMs and chair of IFA’s Committee for

Working Practices in Archaeology, explains

the working of the Party Wall Act, to ensure

we are all in the clear on this one.

The Party Wall Act 1996provides a framework for preventing and resolvingdisputes in relation to party walls, boundary wallsand excavations near buildings. It concerns anyowner, their agent or contractor proposing to carryout works or excavations that will affect a partywall. The Act specifies that if you plan to excavatewithin 3m of a building when that work will godeeper than the neighbour’s foundations, or within6m of a building where that work will cut a linedrawn downwards at 45° from the bottom of theneighbour’s foundations, you must inform theneighbouring owner.

The notice should include your name and address,the building address, a clear statement that yournotice is under the Party Wall Act, details of yourproposed works and plans and when you intend tostart. In archaeological terms the notice shouldinclude your project design.

If the neighbour doesn’t reply within 14 days adispute is deemed to have arisen. If they givecounter notice specifying conditions then you mustreply within 14 days, and if you don’t accept theirconditions (which must be reasonable), a dispute isalso considered to have arisen. The resolutionprocedure is the appointment of an agreed PartyWall surveyor – at your or your client’s expense.They will prepare an ‘Award’ which sets out the

work, when and how it is to be carried out, recordsthe condition of the adjacent property and makesprovision to inspect the works to ensure they arebeing carried as specified.

The Act specifies that it is the owner’s responsibilityto serve the initial notice, so if you are in any doubtdiscuss this with your client.

Further reading:The Party Wall etc. Act 1996: Explanatory booklet,ODPM, available from the ODPM Free Literature,PO Box No 236, Wetherby LS23 7NB Tel:0870 1226 236, [email protected]

Archaeology& the Par ty Wal l Act Mike Dawson

Excavations in St Ives,

Cambs, were so close to

the boundary of a pub that

the Party Wall Act was

invoked and agreement had

to be reached on how close

excavations could come to

the wall.

© Northamptonshire

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10 11A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t

The Field

Archaeologist No 1

Making archaeology

respectable?

(photograph: TJ Hurst)

No 22 new design

No 30 (part of the

social history of

archaeology!)

No 20

Britain ’87), held in Birmingham. By thencompetitive tendering, alongside the perennial callfor better communication with the public, was aleading topic. Sue Davies took over editorship in1988. Her opening Editorial, a plea for members tocontribute more articles, is another perennial – andso too is maritime archaeology, the main theme ofthe issue. No 9 contains another straw in the windahead of its time; a consultation paper on how toincrease the reporting of portable antiquities.

John Hunter became editor in 1990 and Ian Oxley in1993. Women’s studies in archaeology was a maintheme in no 14, including Roberta Gilchrist on Issuesof employment and education, noting how excavators(male dominated) usually got promoted rather thanfinds specialists (mostly female), with DeirdreO’Sullivan noting the ratio of 1:22 men:women

speaking at conferences. No 15 starts another long-lived thread, looking at the politics of excavatinghuman remains, including the results of JacquelineMcKinley’s first questionnaire.

No 20 contains an introduction to PPG 15, and alsothe sober issues of training, work experience, andthe end of Milton Keynes’ archaeological service.Equal opportunities surface again in a long papersetting out appropriate guidelines, and Mike Bishopdiscusses the relationship of research goals and fieldarchaeology.

Nicola King took over in 1995, giving No 22 a newstyle of cover and inside design, though still withlittle illustration. No 23 returned to burialarchaeology, with an article on crime scenearchaeology by Margaret Cox and Mike ParkerPearson on Ethics and the Dead, including a draftcode of ethics for dealing with human remains. No 25 has Robin Turner on the archaeological jobmarket at that time, which makes dismal reading,with fewer jobs than previous years, less pay andno more job security. Design was taken over byMoLAS at this time, and became cleaner and morestylish.

When Mark Bell became editor in 1996 the titlechanged to The Archaeologist, a deliberate attempt tohave a wider appeal. This became more achievablewhen it was realised the work is more than can beexpected voluntarily and, with issue No 29, JennyMoore is announced as ‘part-time editor’. By No 30Jenny’s influence can be seen in the increase inillustrations and more varied content, including thesocial history of archaeology. TA grew again in size(32pp) with No 31, and with No 32 (1998) theconcept of themed issues was developed: equityissues, (with a survey of PIFAs and a demand forIFA to use RAO scheme to improve both standardsand treatment of staff) and, (No 33), human remainsagain.

No 34 had Richard Bradley as the first Profilingarchaeologists piece, predecessor of our Opinions, andreports on an IFA debate on whether Britisharchaeology was in crisis –surprisingly, this was defeated. A major and very effective designrevamp came with No 39, thoughstill only black-and-whitereproduction was possible. MarkBell did his first Web Guide now.

I became editor in 2001 (No 41)with a broadened remit thatincluded four issues per year, full colour throughout, and a44pp format. The intention was to have one major theme per issue (historic landscapes,reconstructions, education, burial archaeology,archaeology and the public, the future ofarchaeological services, agriculture, and RomanBritain have been covered so far), plus regularfeatures on Groups, Archaeology on the Web,foreign issues, science, and archaeology in politics.

Copies of most of these back numbers are stillavailable. An index for all the past issues is beingprepared, making our magazine an important andfascinating research resource. This will cover thefirst fifty issues of The (Field) Archaeologist, and willbe included in our next issue, No 51.

The (Field) Archaeologistat 21

No 41: TA goes

into colour

1989

From early years a regular house magazine was

recognised as a vital plank in IFA’s structure.

It was needed as a public face, for opinion

forming, for publicising the activities of our

own members, and above all for keeping the

membership aware of what was going on within

IFA and in the wider archaeological world. As a

nostalgia-trip, I got out a heap of back numbers,

checking out the major concerns discussed, and

some of the changes in style and presentation.

No 1 of The Field Archaeologist (as it was then) cameout in February 1984, a slim 8 pages edited byDavid Baker. It included Martin Carver’simpressive vision of what IFA would be offering(quite a bit of it we eventually managed. Evenaspirations to present field archaeology to thepublic through films, TV and videos have been met

by some members). No 5 (June 1986),by then a serious 12 pages, standsout for the agonies over whether tosupport the notorious WAC held atBournemouth, which split so muchof archaeology over admission ofcolleagues from apartheid SouthAfrica (Council reluctantly agreed tocontinue its support, leading toresignations). Tucked away in thisissue is one small piece on Contractarchaeology: the view from the States, inwhich Henry Cleere broughtAmerican experiences to ‘thealarmed, and often ill-informed

discussions about the possibility of ‘contractarchaeology’’, probably the first intimation of thisnotion for most British archaeologists.

No 7 had increased to 24 pages and was able tocelebrate IFA’s first conference (Archaeology in

No 10 Underwater

archaeology was

already an IFA

concern in 1988

Alison Taylor


Presenting archaeology to

the public: Fishbourne as

the TFA cover, 1986

Peter Addyman in

1983 (TFA 1)

Health and safety:

an issue from our

earliest days.

Pinder’s light-

hearted cartoon,

from TFA 5

IFA’s first Chair and Member No1 was PeterAddyman, who was then running the YorkArchaeological Trust, itself an innovative venturethat he only relinquished in 2003. He claims hewas only chosen because he would cause lessantagonism than most in our argumentativeprofession, but his experience as Chair of SCUM(Standing Conference of Unit Managers, nowSCAUM), creator of York Archaeological Trust, andbroad knowledge of archaeological practice inBritain (and calm imperviousness to rants andcriticism) made him a pretty obvious candidate.

‘Through the 1970s there had been heated debate,mostly coming out of RESCUE, about the need for aplan for a proper archaeology service throughoutBritain. SCUM had been set up as a voice for thenew units, but English Heritage, Historic Scotlandand Cadw didn’t exist then, and of course there wasno hint of developer funding (at least outsideLondon). We needed a body to represent thenew breed of professional archaeologists – totackle poor working conditions, give them avoice and actually create a profession. CBAdecided, after much debate, that it didn’t want totake this on, the Antiquaries thought it all amistake, so we took the ball home and made up ourown game – and somehow got 500 like-mindedarchaeologists to form APIFA.

Then Henry Cleereand Peter Fowlerwent off to aconference in theStates and came backfilled with ideasinspired by SOPA(Society ofProfessionalArchaeologists) who

were then getting to grips with theprofessionalisation of archaeology there. It was fromSOPA that we derived much of our constitution,code of conduct and early procedures.

Philip Barker was very much our wise eminencegrise, insisting on working patiently behind thescenes. Brian Hobley, already responsible for a newbasis for working with developers, was treasurer,and Martin Carver our secretary and primeorganiser. It was he who set up our offices inBirmingham, with his protégé Steve Walls as firstsecretary. Julian Richards (of York) ran the firstconference (a huge event with parallel sessions,then a revolutionary idea) and we had the benefit ofJohn Coles international academic reputation.Council included enthusiastic youngsters such asRichard Bradley and Francis Pryor – these wereexciting times.

If pressed about mistakes, in my view we perhapsfollowed America too much in our procedures andconstitution – becoming very bureaucratic and attimes turning people off just by boredom. Ourdisciplinary procedures too are far too tortuous,even when the case is obvious. Otherwise I thinkwe served archaeology rather well.

Looking to the future one priority for IFA is to meetthe challenge set by the changes in heritagedesignation and management currently beingproposed by DCMS. As professionals we must havethe insights to make a success of these over the nextdecade, and we ought to be getting seminars etcunderway to see how to tackle this.

Brian Davison, now enjoying retirement after 37years as an Inspector of Ancient Monuments forEnglish Heritage and its predecessors, was anotherfounder and original Council member of IFA. Hetook over from John Coles, who had served asChair for just a few months before resigning overan issue which rent the archaeological world atthat time – whether South African archaeologistsshould be admitted to the World ArchaeologyCongress at Bournemouth.

‘At that time the whole concept of a professionalinstitute was still a strange and to some a ratherthreatening concept, and its structure andprocedures needed a lot of development. A previousattempt to form an Institute through what youmight call the ‘Big Bang’ approach had failed, so we spent a lot of time wrestling with problems ofconsensus building in APIFA. By 1986 the basicframework was in place, much of it the work ofChris Musson (IFA’s latest Hon MIFA), but weneeded to consolidate the systems that would makeit all work. I saw my main task as expandingfrom that base and creating a sound internalstructure which could be seen to work – and towork fairly. This meant consolidating theValidation and Disciplinary committees, startingwork on standards and on sorting out Areas ofCompetence. It all sounds very administrative andrather boring now, but at that juncture it was anecessary part of turning archaeology into aprofession, and we certainly felt we were creatingsomething very worthwhile.

Although the original impetus had been topersuade digging archaeologists to subscribe to aproper code of conduct, we all thought we shouldbring in as many different backgrounds as possible,ensuring that abilities in each field were roughlyequivalent. I was particularly keen to bring into thefold the curatorial field archaeologists – Inspectorsof Ancient Monuments, County Archaeologists, andso on. We were fairly successful in this, but I’m stillsorry we still have too few members fromuniversity teaching and the museum world.

Looking to the future, I think IFA will need to bevery aware of how archaeology is seen by thepublic and its elected representatives. Archaeologyis increasingly required to show itself as being‘useful’ in social and economic terms. More andmore people think that understanding andconserving the historic environment are no longeracceptable as ends in themselves: instead, they mustbe justified through contributing to tourism andentertainment. It is quite frightening the way

history is disappearing from our schools. Given thatit remains our responsibility to provide good,reliable accounts of the past for the public, we shallhave to be more adept at presenting those accountsin a variety of easily digestible forms. I have alwaysseen archaeology as a public service – and in futurewe shall have to be much clearer about the natureof the service we are providing and morepersuasive about the need to pay for it.’

M e m o r i e s . . .. . .P e t e r A d d y m a n C h a i r 1 9 8 2 - 1 9 8 5

B r i a n D a v i s o n C h a i r 1 9 8 6 - 1 9 8 7


When Richard Hall, Deputy Director of YorkArchaeological Trust, took over the Chair thedebate was still raging over what sort of anorganisation IFA ought to be. Was it to be a setterof standards and a fairly passive provider of usefulinformation, or should it start to be more proactivein assisting its members and in influencing theprofession? Could it even stay viable whenmembership was so low? There was still greatwariness amongst archaeologists in general, andproving the Institute could be sufficiently relevantto attract representative numbers was a majorchallenge. Archaeologists themselves were underterrible pressures as public funding dwindledevery year under Margaret Thatcher’s government,but developer funding (pre-PPG 16) was rarelypossible and had to be very hard fought-for.

‘We saw the need to provide guidance and todefend both archaeological standards andarchaeologists in an era of rapidly evolvingtransition. For example, we had to tackle issuesthrown up by the novel world of competitive

tendering and contract archaeology before anycuratorial controls were really in place. We had acommittee to monitor procedures, and guidelineswere drawn up. The Contract Archaeology SteeringGroup issued an important report, and the first useof disciplinary regulations was vigorously pursued.We were able to make a ruling against ‘volunteer’levels of pay, which had been the lot of so manyjunior archaeologists, and we set up the PIFA gradeso they would have better representation. MSC(Manpower Services Commission) projects wereboth a blessing and a curse at this time, so weissued a Guide to archaeology on communityprogrammes which I hope stopped some of theworse abuses.

The Institute was also concerned about the teachingof archaeology in universities. I remember visitingSCUPHA (Standing Committee of Professors andHeads of Archaeology Departments) with IanHodder, when he made strong arguments forteaching archaeology in a way that would equipstudents with skills they would need in the realworld. Another aspect of our efforts to getarchaeologists into jobs was the Jobs InformationService which we set up at this time. It was run byVal Turner, and became one of our most long-lastinginitiatives.

I think the best part of those years was the way IFAgrew to address many different issues: training,employment conditions, disciplinary problems,competitive tendering and practical help to members.It seems a long time ago now, but I think we did playa useful part at a formative time in the developmentof the archaeological profession in Britain’.

Timothy Darvill, now Professor of Archaeology atBournemouth University, lists the major challengesof his time in the Chair as the implications ofcompetitive tendering, equal opportunities, anddeveloping new approaches to quality assurance.Contract archaeology was very hotly debated atthis time, there were arguments over the name ofIFA, the need for post-qualification training wasrecognised, and the desirability of influencingpoliticians became clear. Archaeology wasdiversifying in many directions at once, and theIFA was trying to change to match.

‘The introduction of competitive tendering wasobviously something we had to get a grip on. At theAGM in September 1990 we adopted the Code ofapproved conduct for the regulation of contractualarrangements that had been prepared by a committeechaired by John Williams. Two months later PPG16was published by the Department of theEnvironment, at a stroke changing the whole basisof archaeological practice. At same time westarted to set down guidelines for minimumstandards appropriate to various commontasks, and floated the idea of RegisteredArchaeological Organisations. We also testedour disciplinary regulations to their full limit with acase that eventually led to one member beingsuspended.

Steve Walls was of course running the IFA fromoffices in Birmingham, and as the membership grewwe were able to get him some part-time assistance.We were also lucky in having a strong and activeCouncil. Our Secretary at this time was JonathanDrake who sadly died this September (see p44).Jonathan was especially interested in making thegovernment’s Community Programme work forarchaeology and together with Anne Fahyprepared IFA Occasional Paper 2 on the subject. Healso played a huge part in modernising the imageof IFA. At one Council meeting he staggeredmembers by his presentation of various options fora corporate image and a new logo – the result wassimilar to the one we still use.

The Annual Conferences in Birmingham wereamongst our great successes at this time. Theyreally were fora at which to discuss the issues of theday, and in consequence were big events. I alwaysmade a point of inviting the chairs and directors ofall the national agencies so that members couldmake direct contact with them. There were somebrilliant and memorable speeches at the conferencedinners, but these meetings were tremendouslyenjoyable occasions as well as being quiteinfluential.

Looking ahead, we must continue to help steerchanges within the archaeological profession, bemajor participants in the debates, and give voice tothe views of our members. I think we need to focuson making archaeology pay in three distinct ways:improving the quality of life for its practitioners;enhancing public appreciation of archaeologicalwork in giving value and meaning to everydayexistence; and increasing our knowledge of the past.Perhaps too we need to debate just where the limitsof our discipline should be – we do sometimes seemto take on roles that perhaps others can do better.Overall, I think the IFA can take much credit for theway we have grown to meet the needs of ourdeveloping profession in a responsive way. The IFAhas played a vital part in keeping us ahead of thegame in a rapidly changing environment, and longmay it be so.’

JIS, as first

advertised in 1988

(in TFA 9)

Richard Hall

in 1988

Ti m o t h y D a r v i l l C h a i r 1 9 8 9 - 1 9 9 1

Tim Darvill

Debating politics at ABC

1991. Tam Dalyell

explaining it to Alan

Beith and Richard (CBA)

Morris

. . .

M e m o r i e s . . .R i c h a r d H a l l C h a i r 1 9 8 7 - 1 9 8 9


Ian Ralston, now professor of Later EuropeanPrehistory at Edinburgh University and also non-executive director of CFA Archaeology Ltd, chairedIFA in the harsh financial climate of the early ’90s,when the Institute was still buzzing with all theinitiatives Tim Darvill had set in motion.

‘My main memory of the organisation at that timewas it being rather like a teenager – needing moneyall the time, going in too many directions. It wasoperating on a shoestring. Did Steve Walls neversleep? He ran everything himself, under awfulfinancial constraints. We had to sort out terriblybasic stuff, like office accommodation,computer equipment etc, and our bills fromBirmingham University were starting toclimb. That made the Conference more expensivefor example (you can imagine the complaints wegot), though it did have the good effect of makingus peripatetic thereafter.

At this time debates on equal opportunities movedforward (just gender imbalance at that time, I don’tthink we ever considered ethnic minorities ordisabilities at all). There were also passionatedebates on green issues. Dave Weldrake chaired aworking party which came up with such ambitiousrecommendations I don’t know if any wereimplemented, though I think much of this enteredour subconsciouses to an extent. We were alsostarting to look across the Channel to see whatcolleagues were doing there. The VallettaConvention, with its recommendation for the use ofproperly qualified archaeologists for professional

work throughout Europe was signed at this time. We are still waiting to see how it will beimplemented in Britain!

Good things at this time were reaching amembership of 1000, getting more involved withthe teaching of archaeology (we published a bookleton post-graduate courses in archaeology, edited byJohn Wood, that proved very useful), and JohnHunter and I edited Archaeological resourcemanagement in the UK on behalf of IFA. We alsoreformed the Council structure, so there was anExecutive to deal with routine matters and Councilcould concentrate more on policy debates. That atleast is something that has lasted. On the bad side,the proposal for RAOs was thrown out at the AGMfor the second time.

Looking to the future I think that two programmes I would like to see develop are firstly, for IFA tomove into some sort of validation for all the newMA and MSc courses we see springing up (whichones will really equip students for jobs?), andsecondly to improve links with professionalcolleagues in Europe, as is already beginning withprojects such as Mt Beuvray.’

David Start, now director of the Heritage Trust forLincolnshire, with a foot in both curatorial andcontractual archaeology, and a long-servingmember of IFA’s RAO committee, became Chair in1993, a time of upheaval and change at IFA inaddition to a worse-than usual financial crisis.

‘The first challenge was to stop going bust. We hada thousand members by then but an increasingdeficit, so belt-tightening had to come first. I amproud that we managed to do that (largely bycutting back on Council and other committeemeetings). It was also obvious that we neededclearer direction – and for that we needed a director.We got the process of that appointment started, andin the process set up the RAO (RegisteredArchaeological Organisation) scheme, anothermajor step.

These three achievements were in fact all linked. Itcame about because I asked Geoff Wainwright,newly appointed as Chief Archaeologist for EnglishHeritage, for sponsorship to appoint a director. Hisresponse was ‘fine, if you can deliver a scheme toimprove the standards of field units’. It was a longslog to create this, and members demanded muchmore monitoring than had originally beenenvisaged, but we got there and became a muchmore professional organisation in the process.

Another major advance was more painless. In fact, I think it was the result of one boozy session at theConference bar. We got into conversation withCathedral Communications and ended up withtheir taking over our annual directory – now theYearbook and directory. That year we had struggled toproduce our own first full directory so, althoughthere were a lot of misgivings at first, this was hugerelief, and Cathedral have made it one of the mostuseful things we produce.

Standards, and ContinuingProfessional Developmentwere two issues muchdiscussed at that time. Wedidn’t really get far withCPD, but there wasmovement on standards. Boththe Excavation and the BuildingRecording standards wereproduced, largely thanks to Pete Hinton who wasvery active on that committee before turning intoour first director.

The Secretariat was changing a lot in these years.Steve Walls, guardian of IFA from its beginning,resigned, and Kitty Sisson took on theadministrative role – for the first time we hadsomeone to do minutes etc for all those meetings. Itwas also time to leave our old home in Birminghamand move to Manchester.

Looking at where we go now, I think the crucialthing is that we become a chartered institute towhich all practicing archaeologists must belong.That’s the only way to ensure good archaeology forthe future’.

M e m o r i e s . . .I a n R a l s t o n C h a i r 1 9 9 1 - 1 9 9 2 Ian Ralston, 1992

(in TFA 16)

. . .D a v i d S t a r t C h a i r 1 9 9 3 - 1 9 9 5

David Start in 1995

(in TFA 20)

David’s Council in

1994 (in TFA 20)

(photograph:

Edmund Lee)


Diana Murray, now Head of the NationalMonuments Record of Scotland at RCAHMS, hadalready served for two years as Secretary when shesucceeded David Start, so had already hadconsiderable influence over IFA’s work. At thistime Kitty Sisson ran the secretariat, and the IFAoffice was one room in Manchester Universityshared with the archaeological unit. It was a timewhen commercial units were being rapidlycreated, and there were debates over the trainingand qualifications professional archaeologistsneeded.

‘The RAO scheme was very timely, and withHedley Swain as Chair of the newly formedcommittee I had the honour of presenting the firstbatch of certificates at the Conference in September1996. The scheme was one of the initiatives thatdelivered the IFA’s new mission statement – settingstandards in archaeology. RAOs have to sign up tothe IFA Standards and Guidance and we made surethe scheme as a whole was supportive rather thanpunitive. I believe that this scheme has helped tomonitor and significantly raise standards in thearchaeological profession.

We undertook a much needed review of thestructure and organisation of the IFA, focusing onpromoting and disseminating standards, makingCouncil more accountable to the membership byintroducing elections to all posts, and overhaulingthe constitution. I thought we needed a much‘quicker and slicker’ Council, so I was pleasedwhen the idea to drop the number of meetings andkeep them short was accepted, but I consider thebest achievement in my year in the Chair wasto finally reach the position where a directorcould be appointed. It is clear that the IFA hasgrown in strength, public profile and in serviceto members as a result.

I had been the secretary of the Scottish Group (thefirst to be established) from 1985-1992 so I waspleased to try to encourage development of otherGroups Forum. I am still of the view that thisnetwork is not used to its full capacity either by IFAor the membership.

We improved our communications and presentationin other ways too. Tracy Wellman did a magnificentredesign job on The Archaeologist, We knew we hadto be more political so, for example, Mark FisherMP (then Opposition spokesman for Culture) wasbrought along to the Annual Conference.

Looking at IFA now, one important thing is to getmore of the profession taking part in the work ofthe IFA Council and Committees. We have also gotto make the RAO scheme more widespread, andthis means tackling curatorial issues – we are stillweak on standards for cultural resourcemanagement and engagement with heritagemanagers. Rather more difficult will be findingways to set standards and measure the quality ofwork, beyond procedures. There’s a challenge forthe whole profession!’

Jez Reeve left English Heritage in 2003, where shewas head of social inclusion and diversity, for achange of direction (as Chief Executive ofCommunity Organisations Forum, Tower HamletsCVS). She started off her time with IFA in the ’80sin very critical mode. She reckoned it was tooinward looking, too involved in ‘talking incorners’, but she allowed herself to be dragged inby John Hunter and, after a year as vice-chair,when she worked with David Start and DianaMurray, found herself the Chair.

‘By this time developer funding was wellunderway, and our overall professionalism andtechnical abilities could be taken as read. I felt we needed maturity in two other directions:firstly in developing terms of reference forcuratorial archaeologists, and then (moreambitiously) to make archaeology animportant factor in society at large.

We certainly made progress on the first of these.There were many debates in Validation committeeover ‘what is an archaeologist?’, partly informed bythe research undertaken by the Equal OpportunitiesCommittee in comparison with the situation inAmerica and continental Europe, and we didexpand to bring in more of the curatorial side. Evenso, I still think we need to do more work on the roleof consultants in this same context, aiming at amore mature balance between encouraging healthycompetition and opportunism. I am not sure wemade much progress on the social role ofarchaeologists though. We should be making muchmore of a contribution to social cohesiveness (if weunderstand dead societies why can’t we do morefor our own?)

Within IFA these were important years because weat last appointed ourselves a director. I had used theanalogy of a busy but headless body to finallyjustify this step to Council, and we started a wholenew phase with Pete Hinton in post. Then we hadthe excitement of the move from Manchester toReading. At the same time we restructured theorganisation to focus on the two major platforms ofOutreach and Standards, much the pattern of todayand promoted the strap line Setting Standards inArchaeology.

Looking at where IFA should be going now, I wouldlike to go back to what I was saying about the roleof archaeologists in society, and our need for greatermaturity and confidence. In many ways weunderestimate the benefits of an archaeologicalbackground – life-skills and techniques (leadershipqualities, presentation, management, research anddeduction, report preparation); skills otherprofessions would die for – and just how much wehave to offer society, whether we choose to staywithin the profession or develop ourselves outsideof it. Another important direction for IFA is to movecloser to academic study. That’s where we comefrom, and we will lose much of our value if webecome further divorced’.

M e m o r i e s . . .D i a n a M u r r a y C h a i r 1 9 9 5 - 1 9 9 6

Diana Murray in her

RCAHMS office

. . .J e z R e e v e C h a i r 1 9 9 6 - 1 9 9 8

Jez Reeve, 1998

(in TA 29)

Conference 1997: Sara

Champion (Champion

Chunes), fondly

remembered for the

music she regularly

provided for the

Conference disco.

Photograph: David Webb

(in TA 30)

2120 T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0

Sue Davies, now director of Wessex Archaeology,was Chair at a time when archaeology in generalwas becoming somewhat better resourced andmore stable, and when IFA had a director in postwho was able to take initiatives forward. As aresult it proved possible to get a real structure andagreed objectives in place and to get working onraising the profile of both archaeology and IFA.

‘We had an excellent Executive and Council at thistime, who were always fun to work with and wereeffective as a team, which was fortunate becausethere was an enormous amount of work to getthrough – our own fault really as we had gotourselves invited onto so many organisations andlists of consultees. Within IFA the mainchallenge was to draw up and startimplementing the Business Plan, plus gettingresolutions through AGMs that freed upCouncil to act more like a proper Board ofDirectors.

One thing I am especially proud of was setting upthe Historic Environment Forum, which enabled usfor example to get representatives of the mainpolitical parties to address us and answer questionsat the Antiquaries and which led to the setting up ofAPPAG. I think we have only just started to seehow much further that sort of direct involvement inpolitics can take the whole profession.

I am also pleased at the way we spread ourinfluence into Europe. We facilitated the EuropeanArchaeological Association in setting up itsProfessional Associations Committee, chairing itsround tables, and Pete and I advised archaeologistsin the Netherlands on setting up their professionalinstitute. That again is an aspect of our work thathas only just started to prove its benefits.

Back home, it was excellent that we could make theappointments needed to expand the Institute.Rachel Boning and then Alex Llewellyn came asCompany Administrators, Alison Taylor as head ofoutreach and editor, and Kenny’s job as head oftraining and standards was set up.

Then too I think the PTC (Professional TrainingCommittee) made huge strides with its vision fortraining (launched at the Glasgow Conference in2000). With both John Collis and Mike Bishoppushing this forward and Kenny Aitchison steadilyworking this is something that will make a greatdifference to younger archaeologists.

I suppose my one real regret is that we didn’t getagreement for a name change. That would havesignalled the extent that we are relevant to thewhole profession and would have helped bringmore students and academics on board.

Looking ahead, it is important to work more closelywith partners, because we desperately need to bringin more resources. Otherwise I think we need toconcentrate on doing the same sorts of thing, but toget better at them’.

Deborah Porter is our current Chair (alongside theday job of Designation Team Leader East and WestMidlands and East of England), so has to talk fromthe middle of things rather than looking back withperspective. As such, she finds herself coping withendless committees, structural changes and policyissues both within and outside IFA at a time ofrapid change, and it is hard to disentangle themain threads of achievement. Even so, there is apattern that stands out, and achievements that canbe ticked off against the Business Plan.

‘One thing we had to do was to sort out theconstitution so that we were positioned to goforward to become a chartered institute ableto represent the whole profession. In the sameway we had to raise our political profile, to makearchaeology and the whole of the historicenvironment a serious issue within government.Engaging with APPAG and the legislative reviewthat is currently underway are crucial for this.

In the same way it is important that archaeologyshould be mainstream, not a side issue. Drafting aMemorandum of understanding with IHBC (Instituteof Historic Building Conservation) so we canbecome closer to those colleagues has been asignificant step, and so has all our work with like-minded colleagues in the Historic EnvironmentForum. We run the secretariat for that, and it has

become a force for the whole sector. It enables us totalk directly to ministers, to give united responsesto consultations when this is most effective, toaddress issues such as looting in Iraq at short noticeand to host events at the Society of Antiquarieswhere we can bring politicians face to face with theleading players in British archaeology.

At the same time our members’ concerns (pay andconditions have to be front stage here!) areparamount. The main strategy is to use the RAOscheme to create the level playing field that willenable us to raise standards overall. It has to be along process, and it needs the RAO scheme toexpand to take in curatorial organisations if we areto take things forward without penalising the good.Taking up an initiative emerging from the last AGMwe may have a role as a middleman betweenProspect (for employees) and SCAUM (foremployers) to create some sort of national pay-bargaining structure that should give diggersproper muscle at last.

Looking to the future I think we have to go onbuilding on our strengths to increase representationof the whole profession and to be seen as vital topeople’s careers. To do this means we have to bringin far more organisations as RAOs – and of coursehave to keep up the current rise in membership!’

M e m o r i e s . . .S u e D a v i e s C h a i r 1 9 9 8 - 2 0 0 1

. . .D e b o r a h P o r t e r C h a i r 2 0 0 1 - 2 0 0 4

RAO inspections: talking to

staff is an important part of

this process. Richard Hall

and David Start visiting the

Field Unit at Essex County

Council, 2002 (in TA 46)

Deborah Porter,

2001 (in TA 42)

Sue Davies as IFA

Hon Editor, 1988

(TFA 8)

&▼


In this, the 50th edition of The Archaeologist, ourformer chairs look back on their times in office overthe 21-year history of the IFA. Your editor has askedme to look into the future, presumably so that myinaccurate predictions can be reproduced in ahilarious article for some future birthday edition.I’m not falling for that one – I’d rather take my turnin a few years’ time for some reminiscences with thebenefit of the clarity of hindsight. It was allplanned, you know.

But if not predictions, I’m prepared to venture somehopes for the future. I won’t look 21 years ahead,but I’ll remind you what the ‘vision statement’ ofour strategic plan lays out for 2010

In 2010 the Institute will have made thepractice and impact of archaeology farmore relevant to everyday life. As aconsequence archaeologists will find theirwork more rewarding, intellectually,socially and financially.

Firstly, let’s consider whatarchaeologists think they’re doing.One change I’ve noticed during mysix years as director is the growingunderstanding that what we do is, orshould be, for public benefit, not forthe edification of professionalarchaeologists. It’s not surprising thatduring a period of rapidprofessionalisation we occasionallylost our way – and some publicsupport – but as TA has demonstratedon many occasions, our members areworking hard to re-engage with thepublic. It is true that public support

continues to grow in parallel with archaeologists’gradual domination of the airwaves, but it seemsthat only the more inspired of our commercialorganisations and smartest of our academics seemcomfortable engaging unapologetically with othersectors, so public engagement is something thatmust continue to improve.

Then, of course, we must tackle archaeological payand conditions. Something like 60% of fundingcomes from the private sector, and it is usuallyarchaeologists who decide how this is to be spent. Afledgling initiative by Prospect, IFA and SCAUM todevelop national collective pay bargaining is anencouraging step. Even coordinated action howeveris of limited value in a profession where there areno barriers to entry, so IFA continues to lobby forthe government to recognise that in order to complywith the Valletta Convention IFA membership andregistration must be the accreditation required forpotentially destructive archaeological work.

Recruitment is vital too. How can we speak for allarchaeologists when less than half are ourmembers? We need to make IFA work for allarchaeologists. We also need to work more closelywith sister bodies such as the Institute of HistoricBuilding Conservation, and I am looking forward tostrengthening that partnership in particular.

There’s still a long way to go before we are ready toapply for the Royal Charter of Incorporation. Butwe’ve achieved much in 21 years, thanks to thehard work, vision and pragmatic wisdom of all

those chairs, vice chairs, treasurers,secretaries, Council and committeemembers who have devoted so muchof their own (and even theiremployers’) time to making yourinstitute work for you. The 22ndCouncil is now in harness, and thereare great things to come.

From January 2004 members of The QuarryProducts Associates (QPA) and the MajorContractors Group (MCG) will exclude tendersfrom organisations that cannot show their staff areadequately trained in Health and Safety.

Members of the MCG, as a matter of self regulation,will require staff of sub-contracting organisations tobe trained and qualified under the ConstructionSkills Certification Scheme (CSCS). Unfortunatelydespite a long list of acceptable trades archaeologistdoes not qualify for entry to this scheme. Theproblem has been recognized by MCG and so eithertraining to an equivalent standard or an exemptionis required. An equivalent standard is the Healthand Safety Test (Construction Industry TrainingBoard - CITB) which comprises a multiple choicequestionnaire. A list of training organisations isavailable from CSCS, phone 01485 578777 and thetest itself costs £35. There are regional or mobile testcentres and information or test booking can bemade on 0870 6004020. Alternatively for thosewishing to seek an exemption Peter Roberts, ProjectManager at CSCS also on 01485 578777, can providea letter of non-availability for the CSCS scheme.

Quarry Products Association will require all theirsub-contractors to carry a Safety Passport. This ispart of the Hard Targets Initiative with the Health

and Safety Commission which, amongst otherobjectives, aims to halve the number of accidents onextraction sites by 2005. The scheme is run by theSafety Passport Alliance (SPA) on behalf of thesector. EPIC, the minerals and extraction industrytraining organisation (www.epicltd.com), not onlyprovides details of the scheme but test dates and alist of training organisations. Training takes twodays and certification is valid for three years. Aswith many other schemes there are exemptions forexisting certificate holders. If you should needfurther help or guidance your contact is Lyn McKillor Roseanne Hayward at EPIC on 01727 869008.’

Looking forward:Peter Hinton

Peter Hinton, when

appointed in 1996

(in TA 29)

Homes with History, an IFA

project on behalf of the Housing

Corporation an English Heritage,

is one example of the way

archaeologists are now engaging

with society

▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼

H E A L T H

S A F E T Y :

construction skillscertificate scheme

Potential for danger:

proving you know how

to work safely in all

environments has now

become a legal

requirement. © CgMs

Mike Dawson

A D S2524 T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) wasset up in 1996 with the mission to ‘supportresearch, learning and teaching with highquality and dependable digital resources’. It supports users of the data and providesguidance for people creating it. At the coreof our mission is long-term preservation ofdatasets from researchers and provision ofonline access to them. We also offer a safedigital archiving system for excavationrecords – or any archaeological data.Funded through the education fundingcouncils, the service is geared primarily foruniversity-based researchers, but this isgood news for archaeologists whether inuniversity or not – data are available for allresearchers, and the facilities exist for alldata to be preserved.

ADS was set up by a consortium of eight universitiesplus the CBA, and is based at the University of York.Julian D Richards is the Director, with WilliamKilbride in charge of User Services and Tony Austinof IT. Jo Clarke, Jen Mitcham, and Keith Westcott arecuratorial staff. Catherine Hardman, CollectionsDevelopment Manager, looks after relationships withdata depositors and manages OASIS.

Grey but availableOASIS is evolving into one of the most usefulservices for field archaeologists, for it seeks toovercome the problems associated with inaccessiblegrey literature resulting from developer-fundedprojects, the despair of so many researchers. The

project, originally a collaboration betweenADS, the English Heritage NMR and the AIPproject in Bournemouth University, aims tocreate a flexible but standard system forreporting archaeological fieldwork to SMRsand NMR, and ultimately to the public.Units in England are being asked to submitshort details about field projects online, in aformat which can be stored digitally andthen retrieved using catalogue records. Afterbeing validated by staff in SMRs and theNMR, the records can be downloaded foruse. As well as these outline summaries, OASIS candistribute the whole documents in electronic form.Though still in development, several field unitshave tried out the data gathering form, and trainingfor more units and SMRs is planned.

Hopefully, completion of an ‘OASIS record’ andelectronic submission of grey literature will becomea standard part of every archaeological brief. Thepotential reuse value for researchers has been shownby the archives the ADS currently makes available.

SMRs onlineMore familiar to fieldworkers is the capacity of ADSto offer free instant access to SMRs throughout theUK. We currently have some twenty SMRs online,combining local and national records. These can besearched for anything from basic records to sitesarchives or monographs. You can use the integratedaccess facility to look at them all at once, or by anyrelevant organisation or area.

ADS has played a major role in developingstandards for digital preservation, includingmetadata used to describe archives. It has publishedsix Guides to Good Practice, covering GIS, CAD, VR,geophysical data, air photos and remote sensing, andexcavation and fieldwork archiving. The Guides areavailable online or in hardcopy from Oxbow Books.

HEIRs and successorsADS also leads a number of projects of widerinterest. It maintains HEIRPORT, an experimentalportal that searches across different databasesremotely, and provides access to the HEIRNETRegister, a database of databases, with details ofwho maintains them, why and how to consult them.It also provides access to ARCHway, a list of thearchaeology journal holdings of 25 UK researchlibraries.

Individual projects and publications made availableonline by ADS include out-of-print CBA OccasionalPapers and Research Reports, Defence of Britainproject records and the whole run of the Proceedings

of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Other projectsinclude ARENA (Archaeological Records of EuropeNetwork Access) managed by Jon Kenny, andPATOIS (Publications and Archaeology in Teachingwith Online Information Sources), developed byKate Fernie.

Classic sites and PhDsIn April ARENA launched online archives of classicexcavations from sites such as Biskupin andVorbasse from partners in Denmark, Norway,Iceland, Romania and Poland. PATOIS released thelast of four tutorials aimed at encouraginguniversity students to make more use of onlineresources, including fieldwork archives, e-publications, and monument inventories. TheChristchurch Spitalfields tutorial for example showshow documentary and archaeological data canusefully be combined.

Our latest initiative, launched this October, is the E-thesis project, archiving PhD theses and makingthem available in electronic form. In the firstinstance, we will include PhD abstracts within theLibrary section of the ADS catalogue, with the fulltext available on request. Academic theses areamong the most exacting and innovative forms ofacademic endeavour, but are often very difficult toaccess, and seldom published in their original form.Most readers have to use a microfilmed transcriptwhich can only be read with dedicated specialistreaders in libraries. So, if you or your students haverecently completed a PhD thesis and would likeADS to preserve and distribute copies contactCatherine Hardman on [email protected].

Julian D RichardsThe Archaeology Data ServiceDepartment of ArchaeologyUniversity of YorkKing’s ManorYork YO1 7EP

Tel: 01904 433954 Fax: 01904 433939

The Archaeology Data Service

Excavations at Danebury, one

of the many fieldwork archives

available from the ADS. Picture

courtesy of the Danebury Trust

ADS catalogue

ArchSearch

(http://ads.ahds.

ac.uk)

Julian D Richards


Oxford ArchDigital was created in 2001 bya group of archaeologists from Oxford’sInstitute of Archaeology and privateinvestors to develop systems for theheritage and archaeology sectors. Hardenedby years of handling unwieldy dataproduced by archaeological research, theywanted to provide individual solutions forcontent management, digital archiving andimaging for different archaeologicalorganisations, based around core software.Their engine, christened ToadHMS (TheOxford ArchDigital Heritage ManagementSystem), allows storage of images and map-based data along with text. It is backed upby ToadView, which provides image storageand management, and ToadMap whichincorporates spatial data that can then beused to create distribution maps and plotexpedition routes, or for overlaying onmaps or aerial photographs. Whilst notintended as a replacement for the analyticalfunctions of GIS, ToadMap fulfils the needsof many projects that require spatialinformation online.

Some of the projects Oxford ArchDigital hasdesigned solutions for include

WORCESTERSHIRE CERAMICS

http://worcestershireceramics.org. The Worcestershire online fabric type series is the firstpart of an online database of all the pottery used andmade in Worcestershire from prehistory to c 1900 AD.

At present it contains Roman and medieval wares:prehistoric and post-medieval pottery will be addedover the next two years. ToadHMS is used as a datamanagement and presentation tool, allowing systemmanagers to input data online, link photographs,drawings and thin sections to the relevant fabricsand forms, and present the contents to researchersand the public. The system describes all the types ofpottery found on archaeological sites inWorcestershire and, for each type, containsinformation on fabric (clay type and inclusions),manufacture, forms, source, distribution and date.Each record includes photographs of cross sectionsof pottery plus bibliographic references for eachfabric and cross references to other fabric typeseries. The resource is initially aimed at researchersand students although, because it contains simpleas well as advanced navigational tools, it haspotential to appeal to a much wider community.

PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES SCHEME

ToadHMS also supports the Portable AntiquitiesScheme, making archaeological finds by the publicavailable on the Web. The system is unique in thatit allows users, Finds Liaison Officers as well asthe public, to enter data directly via their webbrowsers.

The system’s integrated Workflow and DataQuarantine facility ensures that all dataautomatically enters a quarantine area for checking

by a specialist before it appears on the internet. Thedatabase also integrates text, images and mappingdata in a single interface. Selecting any find willbring up the full record relating to that find,including any drawings and photographs. Onemore click will show on a map of Britain where itwas found. Security is provided by a hierarchicalsystem of user and group-level access control,useful feature for restricting access to sensitiveinformation such as precise map references.

‘ToadHMS has enabled us to create a living heritageresource on the Web. Instead of being mereobservers, members of the public will be helping tocreate the resource and so feel a sense of ownershipin it as it grows,’ says Roger Bland, the BritishMuseum’s Coordinator of the Portable AntiquitiesScheme. ‘The contents of the site will never be thesame two days in a row, and yet the data thatappears on it will be fully validated. As a result, wehave a valuable, evolving tool for the archaeologicalcommunity.’

DURHAM COUNTY COUNCIL

http://www.pastperfect.info

Durham County Council’s site, Past Perfect, is aninteractive, virtual tour around the archaeology andhistory of Durham and Northumberland. Visitorscan browse around seven very differentarchaeological sites and search the archive sectionsto find historical documents, archaeologists’records, photographs, objects and other archives.Oxford ArchDigital used ToadHMS to manage thesite contents during the development stage, and topublish the static results onto a CD.

To find out more about Oxford ArchDigital visithttp://oxarchdigital.com, call 01865 793043, or email [email protected].

OXFORD ArchDig i ta l

Roman Severn Valley

Ware

Severn Valley Ware

tankard

Eastry Kentish Disc Front –

the image used to design the

Portable Antiquities Scheme

logo


Sites and monuments records, for threedecades the backbone of informationstorage for British archaeology, have beengaining a reputation for cumbersomeinaccessibility from which digital access isat last rescuing them. Even with all theexpert help available however, the processis not straightforward. Herefordshire SMR,now celebrating its first year of using theinternet to widen access to archaeologicalrecords, is one success story. There, theCounty’s archaeologists recognised howimportant it was for SMRs to be part of the‘information superhighway’ and have hadtheir own website, ‘Historic Herefordshireon Line’ live since September 2002. Thewebsite is part of a Heritage Lottery project,designed to last for three years. MirandaGreene reports.

Before the website was up and running virtually noone knew Herefordshire’s SMR existed, we hadabout 100 enquiries a year and (with just onemember of staff) even this was too much. Since beingonline we have over 300 visitors a day and hardlyever send out data at all. In the first two weeks inSeptember this rose to a staggering 600 visits a day.Whether this is because schools have returned (as Ihope) or due to the BBC programme HiddenTreasure (as I fear) we don’t know. Curiously, visitsto the office are no higher, and although we have aform for enquiries we get very few.

We didn’t want to limit access or to just offerdigested information, so the website includes theentire database of 15,000 records, searchable by avariety of criteria. However, to complement this wehave added period summaries and pages onsubjects of particular interest (castles, railways, theCathedral etc). There is also a separate educationsection based on the National Curriculum for 11-16year olds, to encourage schools to use the locallandscape as a learning resource.

So what difference has it made? Firstly we areunquestionably more relevant than we ever were.Local historians use the SMR, which previouslythey never did. More school children are using thewebsite as they have been brought up using theinternet and know all the technical ins and outs. We now have a useful end for volunteer work, such as the field names project, and a place forguest authors. We are also able to link up with theMuseum and Record Office, and requests for talksfrom community groups have risen. Visits to the site increase steadily each month as people learnthat it is there and has got something to say.

It is very satisfying to know our SMR is nowavailable 24 hours a day, can be accessed across the world, and the information published can grow by the day.

The Herefordshire SMR website is designed and createdby Miranda Greene and Toria Forsyth-Moser. The SMROfficers are Rebecca Roseff and Melissa Seddon (jobshare). Alan Vince and Paul Tyers created the onlinedatabase.

Miranda GreeneNew Audiences Officer for SMRSMR OfficerHerefordshire CouncilPO Box 144Hereford HR1 2YH01432 [email protected]

Expertise in landscape archaeology was one ofthe principal skills shortages recognised inProfiling the profession (2003), and employershave long recognised how much this is thecase. It is not something that is easy to teach aclass of undergraduates and, with thetechnology that is now required, it is hardlypossible to take the old teach-yourself route.English Heritage does have this expertise in-house (part of its inheritance from the RoyalCommission) and, through its ArchaeologicalInvestigation team, has a tradition of outreachtraining, mostly through the OxfordContinuing Education scheme. This is useful,but cannot hope to turn out fully qualifiedprofessionals at the level needed. So, last Maythe first two ‘training placements’ began work,one in Cambridge and one in the Swindonoffice. The scheme is due to expand, hopefullywith four placements to be appointed inMarch 2004, so this was a good time to askNathalie Barrett and John Lord just what theyhad got from the experience, and if theywould recommend other young archaeologiststo apply.

Nathalie, a graduate of King Alfred College,Winchester, was drawn to landscape archaeologybecause it meant she could study all periods andcould immerse herself in the evolving history of thelandscape – even if concrete fortifications in easternEngland are a bit of a shock after her previous workon Exmoor. ‘Earthwork surveys are the best. It is sorewarding to work out all the detail and see thewhole picture unfold. We have been learningtraditional graphical methods as well as usingtheodolite EDMs and GPS – with analysis andinterpretation the results are hugely informative.’

John, who took a BSc at East London University,had already studied geophysics and surveying andwas keen to expand his understanding of howlandscapes developed. He too likes the multi-periodapproach and the challenge of walking onto anondescript area and working out what happenedthere. This includes research they are encouraged todo on documentary sources and aerial photography.Both feel their survey skills have benefited from

their training, not just technically but in how to usethe skills when approaching a site. Aspects such aswhat research is needed and who the audience ishave become second nature, and they now feel athome in the world of archives.

Both appreciate how much they have learned fromcontact with skilled people. ‘Just walking around alandscape with experts – even having tea breakswith them – can be a huge learning process.Working side by side with landscape archaeologists,buildings historians and aerial photographers hasbeen a great opening for us. We’ve still got someexciting projects before we leave, and we know thisis the work we really want to do after that, whetherback in English Heritage or out in a commercialunit’.

More professional placements in the ArchaeologicalInvestigation team will be advertised in January. Iflandscape archaeology is your ambition, watch outfor these.

Herefordshireonline

SMR 23292: Hampton

Meadow Bridge: a medieval

bridge raised in the

seventeenth century for

navigation purposes.

© Rebecca Roseff

SMR 35542: Dinmore-Canon

Pyon parish boundary: the

snaking form suggests a

woodland origin. © Rebecca

Roseff

TRAINING IN LANDSCAPE SURVEY: an English Heritage initiative

Nathalie Barrett and

John Lord set up

equipment at

English Heritage’s

Cambridge office


Britain has an impressive collection ofnautical archaeological finds but few haveundergone the rigours of conservation andeven fewer are on display. Notableexceptions are the Mary Rose (Portsmouth),the Dover boat (Dover), parts of the shipsand boats from London at the ShipwreckHeritage Centre (Hastings), and morerecently the Llyn Peris Boat now on displayat ‘Electric Mountain’ visitor centre,Llanberis, North Wales.

Boats of LlanberisEvidence for boats on the lakes of Llanberisincludes two boats and a log boat from Llyn Perisand Llyn Padarn, a log boat from Llyn Llydaw andanother log boat and a small clinker punt still be insitu. Each find is unique in date and form and wasdiscovered by accident. The Llyn Peris boat, whichdates to 1549, is clinker-built, 6.3 metres long and2.2 metres in the beam, a fine forward raking bowwith a bluff, straight and near vertical stern. Theplanks, in eleven strakes, are radially split from atleast two parent oaks. Each plank was fastened toits neighbour with wrought iron roved andclenched nails, the precursor of the rivet, whilst theframes are fastened to the planking, and the stem

and stern post to the keel, with treenails. Some ofthe treenails show evidence of coppicing, a once-forgotten industry in Llanberis. The planking waswaterproofed with birch resin mixed with organicmatter.

Animal droppings, hay and moss were foundbetween the planking and in the stern area. Furtherorganic material was found under the keel whichincluded leaf mould, acorns, a hazel nut and goatand horses dung along with wool and hair.

Reconstruction and displayAs part of its outreach and community supportprogramme First Hydro commissioned theUniversity of Bangor to reconstruct and display theLlyn Peris boat. The disarticulated remains wererecorded, along with all constructional details andevidence of deformation. This included thepositions of each nail hole on both sides of theplank, important when it came to reconstructing thehull form of the vessel.

Archaeological remains were modelled at 1:4, inboth plastic and wood. The planking was cut andshaped, and the nail holes drilled at their originalangles (hence the reason for both faces needing tobe recorded). The lands, where individual planksoverlap, were also cut into the scaled planks. Whenjoined together, nail hole to nail hole, the planksreformed themselves into the original shape of thevessel. The scaled down internal structure, withslight modification to take out any quantifiabledistortion, was then fitted into the planking. Theresulting 1:4 scale model was then recorded and afull set of boats plans and lines were produced.Using this set of plans a further 1:4 model wasproduced, in oak with iron clench and roved nails,to show what the vessel would have looked likewhen first built.

The recording of the timbers and building of themodel gave intimate understanding of constructionand hull form of the original vessel. This helpedimmensely when rebuilding the original timbersand constructing their tailor-made support frame.The models also became part of the display, tellingthe story of the boat and how it was rebuilt. Theoak model is also a tactile display for the visuallyimpaired and the ever inquisitive children.

Whilst the display focuses on the vessel and thescale models, it also encompasses wood technology,the local environment and history, and climatechanges. Types of moss used in the waterproofinghighlighted the different seasons they werecollected and environments they grew in.

Dendrochronology allowed a time line to beconstructed, whilst naval architectural analysisgives the visitor an idea of how much the vesselcould carry and thus how it could have been used.

The success at Electric Mountain can be judged bythe increase in visitors to the site, some from as farafield as Australia. The capacity of the visual impacta boat or ship can have should not beunderestimated. It can reach the imagination andemotions of an individual and thus drive theircuriosity. Hopefully in the future other parts of ournautical archaeological heritage will also be allowedto tell their story and light the imagination of youngand old alike.

Douglas McElvogueSenior Research FellowMary Rose Trust

Llyn Peris Boat on display

Model of Llyn Peris

Boat to showing how

it would have looked

when first built

Looking up the pass, with Llyn

Peris in the foreground and

Dolbadarn Castle to the right

1:4 scale reconstruction

model being built

Douglas McElvogue

Bringingold timbersback to life


Our indefatigable underwater archaeologists

are now involved in investigating the first

stratified submarine Mesolithic site to be

recognised, and in the process are

demonstrating the impact of climate change

10,000–5000 BC. A sea level over 100m

below today’s level meant that Britain was a

remote peninsula of Europe, and the Solent

a series of rivers abraded across Dorset

through to West Sussex. As the glaciers

retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, the

warming climate encouraged hunters and

foragers north. They exploited the resources

(being richest adjacent to the watercourses)

and occupied newly accessible territories.

After another 5000 years lands were lost

below the oceans, but in that time the

population had made an impact we can

detect archaeologically. Garry Momber, of

the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime

Archaeology (HWTMA), describes the

potentials and technicalities of work in this

environment.

In the western Solent the courses of the ancientriver channels have not been satisfactorily detected,primarily due to erosion continually deepening thechannel as the system is evolving. Large deposits ofthe early to mid Holocene landscape do howeverfringe the waterway, protected by alluvial silts laiddown as the waters rose. Today, they represent arich archive of sediments and peat that containarchaeological material. This material is beingexposed as the Solent continues to mature.

Submerged samplingInvestigations of these exposures by HWTMA arebased on a programme of monitoring and sampling.This followed bathymetric and geophysical survey,employed to locate topographic variations and sitesof potential archaeological or palaeo-environmentalinterest. This is followed by diver investigation,monitoring and sampling. Sampling involves usinga 30mm auger to track submerged deposits underthe alluvium, collection of timber samples fordendrochronological analysis and of monoliths forpalaeo-environmental analysis. Excavation isconducted where required.

Oaks on the seafloorIn 2000, excavations led to the discovery of over 300 Mesolithic worked and burnt flints from a

submerged site lying 10–11m below OD, a site pre-dating 8565–8345 Cal BP (Beta-140104). In 2003English Heritage funded a further excavation tocharacterise the landscape from which thearchaeological material has been recovered,assessing the impact of human activity on theevolving landscape. Excavations were conducted ina metre-wide section cut into the cliff face with asmaller trench dropped into the seabed. Large oaktrees exposed in the peat on the seafloor around thesite were believed to form the basal organic deposit,but new exposures revealed a more complicatedstratigraphy.

Initial assessment suggests a number of eventscaused adaptations to the landscape (see plan). Thelowest exposed level (11–12) contained fluvialgravel lying within 500mm of fine sands and flintfragments. A small cluster of burnt flints wererecovered from just above this horizon (10). Thiswas covered by up to 550mm of fine grey silty sandcontaining freshly knapped flint flakes, workedcores and organic inclusions (7). On the easternside, timber (9) lay directly over the fine grainedsand, and flint fragments were recorded at thebottom of the trench (11). This was covered by apeaty/humic seam, dipping to the north (8). Abovethis lay the fine grey silty sand (7) with flint flakesand organic inclusions. Central to the trench but notexposed in section to the west, was a fluvial fan ofgravels intermixed with organics (6). This wasrecorded directly above the grey silty sand (7). Thedeposit contained a possible secondaryarchaeological deposit of abraded Mesolithic andUpper Palaeolithic flints. The whole sequence wascapped by a layer of peat dipping to the north andwest (3), which in turn was covered by Holocenealluvial silts (1) laid down as the sea covered thelandscape during the Flandrian Transgression.Layer 2 represents the interface between the peatand alluvium where the silts have become stainedby vegetation.

Reconstructing drowned landscapesInterpretation of the results, currently subject todating and specialist analysis, will identify thepotential archaeological and geomorphologicalsignificance of the drowned landscape and lead to a reconstruction of the events during a period thatsaw the rising sea engulf a continental shelf.

The discoveries in the Solent have been madebecause the HWTMA has invested time in looking.A second site about 600m to the west has now beendiscovered eroding from the submerged cliff andthe presence of worked flint over areas of theseabed suggests that primary context sites havealready been lost. Erosion of Holocene alluvialsediments is continuing around the country. Thesite at Bouldnor Cliff may be the first stratifiedunderwater Mesolithic site identified to date but asmore archaeologists look below the water, manymore will be found.

Garry MomberHampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime ArchaeologySouthampton Oceanography Centre, Room W1/95Southampton SO14 3ZH

Subterranean secrets below the Isle of Wight

The Solent, lying

between Isle of Wight

and Hampshire

Section at -10.5m OD

across an horizon

containing cultural material.

Lithics have been recorded

from within and below the

peat deposit

Adaptations of

the landscape:

excavations at

Bouldnor Cliff,

Isle of Wight

Lithics recovered

from Bouldnor Cliff

site in 2000


The last twenty one years are also animportant period in the development ofarchaeological science. In this time EnglishHeritage, through its Centre for Archaeology(CfA), scenically if inconveniently situated inthe dramatic Napoleonic stronghold at FortCumberland, has continued to contribute toinnovations in many of the techniques wenow see as routine, and remains a principalpractitioner in archaeological science. JustineBayley (Head of Technology at CfA) looks atsome of the major advances of the last 21 years.

SEEING UNDERGROUNDGeophysical techniques are now a routine part ofdeveloper-led evaluations. Rapid digital datacapture and improved visualisation of geophysical

data have been aided by portable computers, data-loggers, graphics software packages etc, and thesehave enabled ground-penetrating radar to beintroduced into archaeology alongside improvedmethods for visualisation of the data (notably 3-Dtime slices). The development of global positioningequipment for locating survey measurements,towed arrays of sensors for extremely rapid andwide ground coverage and the adoption of moresensitive magnetometers for investigatingproblematic areas, such as archaeology underalluvium and very weakly magnetised features suchas post-holes, are other areas where technicaldevelopments have led to real benefits.

Other developments include explorations of multi-elemental geochemical analysis as an interpretativetool in conjunction with geophysical survey.Important too of course is the ready availability ofinformation about surveys via the Web: the EHGeophysical Survey Database now contains over2400 surveys.

DATING BUILDINGSThe world of scientific dating has also changed overthe past 21 years. Radiocarbon dating hasundergone several more ‘revolutions’, with high-precision calibration available from the mid 1980sand Bayesian modelling producing chronologies ofunprecedented precision from the mid 1990s.Significant developments in both calibration andmathematical modelling continue. In 1982, tree-ringstudies in England were dominated by waterloggedoak. Now, construction of long well-replicated oakmaster chronologies for the medieval period inmost parts of England has meant that the dating of

standing buildings has become routine. In the 21stcentury, the first steps to extend this analysis tobuildings constructed from imported conifers arebeing taken. One example of using radiocarbon andtree-ring studies together is the felling date ofApril–June 2050 BC for the inverted stump atSeahenge.

INSIDE MONUMENTS While 21 years ago most environmentalinvestigations involved the analysis of bones andplant remains, there is now an increased emphasison synthetic approaches towards understanding siteformation processes and palaeoecology. A recentexample is the collapse of an antiquarian tunnel atSilbury Hill, which has provided a fortuitousopportunity to look again at the turf stack andburied land surface previously examined in the1960s. A by-product of the seismic study to searchfor additional voids was a series of 10cm-diametercores from the whole depth of the hill. These willyield additional ecological data particularly fromthe dark organic (turf) deposits of the primarymound. Moss within the turf layers can now bedated using AMS to provide the most accurate dateso far for Silbury’s construction. These turves arebeing compared micromorphologically withsamples both from the cores and from areas aroundthe monument in an effort to understand bothconstruction details and the burial environmentwhich has led to this unusual preservation.

INSIDE BONESTwo decades ago, human osteoarchaeology wasmainly carried out by those with a background inmedicine, and concentrated on descriptions of

interesting cases of unusual diseases. Now theemphasis is on populations rather than individualsand there has also been improved integration withthe rest of archaeology. There have also beenimportant innovations in methodologies. Twentyyears ago, human osteoarchaeology was primarilybased on the visual observation and measurementof bones. Now, techniques include stable isotopeanalysis, ancient DNA and histological study ofbone thin-sections. More workers now have accessto laboratory facilities, and there is less tendency forspecialists to work in isolation, starved of otherarchaeological input.

Micro-analytical techniques are making otheradvances. Recent work with Bristol University, forinstance, has used small but significant differencesin stable carbon isotope ratios in specific lipidresidues extracted from potsherds to study thecontents of the original vessels. Milk for example isshown to be regularly used in England from theEarly Neolithic.

INSIDE ARTEFACTSA scanning electron microscope (SEM) used toproduce images of mineral-preserved organicmaterials on metal artefacts was an innovation ofthe late 1970s. Once the potential of the techniquehad been demonstrated it was enthusiasticallytaken up and nowadays identifications of this sort,and the reconstructions they allow conservators tomake of complex objects, are taken for granted.Modern SEMs are far simpler to use and, with theaddition of analytical capabilities, can be used toanswer questions about the structure andcomposition of many materials. In the field ofancient technology the need for quantitativeanalytical data is now often met by the routine useof such equipment.

The Centre for Archaeological Science:

21 YEARS OF SCIENCE

IN ARCHAEOLOGY

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Fluxgate gradiometer and

field plotter in use by the

Ancient Monuments

Laboratory in 1981.

Dual fluxgate gradiometers with

automatic recording in use in

2003. © English Heritage

Scenic if inconvenient:

CfA headquarters at Fort

Cumberland, near

Portsmouth. © Crown

copyright. NMR


The last 21 years have seen a move from identifyingpast technical processes to interpreting the debristhey leave behind in a social and economic context;however, this must still be based on scientificanalyses. Extending into the post-medieval periodhas brought new rewards; eg combining scienceand documentary research has provided muchinformation on changes in glass technology.

OUTREACHRegional Science Advisors (RSA) were firstappointed in 1999, partly to strengthenarchaeological science within developer-fundedinterventions, and partly to provide ‘one-stop’advice regionally. They now provide scientific

support for curatorial and contractingarchaeologists dealing with development andnatural pressures. Close consultation is maintainedwith regional offices of Defra, the EnvironmentAgency, English Nature and other bodies indeveloping management strategies, as theseinvariably have impacts on the historicenvironment. In the east of England, for example,the vulnerability of the coast to erosion andsubmergence and to the impacts of longer-termclimate change is significant. Schemes of mitigationfor submerged and buried prehistoric landscapes,wrecks, and other types of site are being developedand contributed to the production of Coastal Defenceand the Historic Environment: English HeritageGuidance.

Many recent developments in archaeological scienceare reflected in the Guidelines which EH publishes.They and the related training courses are areaswhere the RSAs and CfA collaborate to encouragefuture developments in archaeological science.

Justine BayleyWith help from Alex Bayliss, Gill Campbell, MatthewCanti, Andrew David, David Dungworth, JenHeathcote, Simon Mays, Peter Murphy, Andy Payneand Sebastian Payne

English Heritage Centre for Archaeology

Directional archaeomagnetic dating is a little-used scientific dating technique owing to itslimited applicability, but it is used by a fewpractitioners, including the English HeritageCentre for Archaeology and can date features towithin 50 years during periods when the Earth’smagnetic field was changing rapidly.

It works on the principle that the position of themagnetic north pole varies with time relative to truenorth. This magnetic pole position may bedetermined relative to any point on the Earth’ssurface by measuring the declination of themagnetic field at that point (the direction indicatedby a magnetic compass) and the angle ofinclination, or dip, of the magnetic field belowhorizontal. It is based upon substances containingiron oxides which have the ability to becomepermanently magnetised when heated above the‘blocking temperature’. This temperature is specificto the material and typically ranges from about400–800˚C. On cooling, the substance will becomemagnetised in the direction of the prevailingmagnetic field. Clays (and thus bricks and tiles) aswell as many types of stone can acquire thisthermoremanent magnetisation. Thus, if anundisturbed structure such as a hearth, kiln orfurnace is constructed of an appropriate materialand was heated above 400˚C during its use, its lastfiring can be dated.

A good illustration of the technique is Bagot’s Park,near Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, where it hasbeen used to investigate medieval and early post-medieval glass furnaces. Central Staffordshire wasone of only two major centres of glass production inBritain during the medieval and Tudor periods (theother being the Sussex/Surrey Weald). David

Crossley investigated glassmaking here in 1966,excavating one of the furnace sites and showingthat crown window glass was being produced. Thesite was subsequently used for arable agriculture.

Test excavations in 2000 demonstrated that thenatural clay soil originally beneath the furnaces hadbeen heated sufficiently to acquire athermoremanent magnetisation, and was below thedepth of ploughing. Fifteen archaeomagnetic datesfrom furnace sites already indicate that glassproduction was not uniform, but that after limitedactivity in the late thirteenth century there was anhiatus of about 75 years after which it resumed andincreased steadily until the mid sixteenth century.We know too that glassmakers from Lorraineworked in the Park from 1585 onwards, and two oftheir sites are known from surface scatters althoughthey cannot be dated by archaeomagnetictechniques. There does appear to be a gap beforethe arrival of the Lorrainers, and this adds to anational picture of dwindling window glassproduction in England in the mid sixteenth century.

Paul Linford & Christopher WelchCentre for ArchaeologyEnglish Heritage

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The SEM in use. On the

main screen is an image of a

seventeenth-century copper-

rich slag. The right hand

screen shows the analytical

data. © English Heritage

SEM image of mineral-

preserved sheep’s wool from

the Iron Age sword from

Bryher, Isles of Scilly.

© English Heritage

A rc h a e o m a g n e t i cd a t i n g :g l a s s m a k i n g s i t e sa t B a g o t ’s Pa r k ,S t a f f o r d s h i r e

Stereographic projection of

the Arctic region, showing

the apparent movement of

the magnetic north pole over

the last 1200 years (yellow

line)

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‘Archaeology above ground’, as study of historic buildings is sometimes known, hasbecome part of mainstream archaeology in recent years, and both our disciplines havebenefited by moving closer together. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in IFA’sBuildings Group. In 2003 this Group has a new committee but will still be headed by itsChair, Robina McNeil. Robina wanted to learn more about the special interests of hercommittee, and so asked them to describe theirfavourite or most hated building/case history.The results are a fascinating reminder of how far archaeology has extended its range in bothperiod and subject matter.

Religious architecture featured prominently in thechoices made. At Romsey in the Test Valley therefectory roof of the Abbey is being dated bydendrochronology and at the King John’s Housesite an adult education course included hands-onexperience of working with lime mortars. This hasto be one of the ways forward, teaching people toappreciate their historic assets and the developmentof new skills in the profession. In Manchester, theCathedral has finally (after 600 years) acquired a

refectory in its new Visitor Centre. This was createdas a result of the IRA bomb in 1996 and housesHanging Bridge, a scheduled monument that waspart of a massive rebuilding of Manchester in c1421.Hanging Bridge is one of the sites involved inAPPEAR, an English Heritage and Europeaninitiative to make hitherto unknown archaeologicalmonuments more accessible to the public and soincrease our sense of ownership of the past.

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century standingarchaeology, primarily post 1880 ‘mass consumerage archaeology’ (eg social housing, cinemas, pubs,schools, etc) features prominently among theinterests of the Group. In Hertfordshire JonathanSmith’s favourite buildings include the 1938 lavishart deco Rex cinema in Berkhamsted, the early1950s’ Fire Research Station in Potters Bar, many ofthe 1930s’ subtle art deco hangars and ancillarybuildings at Hatfield aerodrome, and the OvaltineEgg Farm north of Watford (a particularly lovelyart-and-crafts structure).

For those of you who are football mad, the charm ofthe Vicarage Road Stadium, Watford, originally laidout in 1922, is that each side exhibits differentperiods of development and quite different stylesand engineering techniques. The east side includes

the 1922 East Stand, constructed with a pitched roofsupported by vision-restricting stanchions. Prior todemolition, this has been fully archaeologicallyrecorded in the usual manner – in today’s societytwentieth-century archaeology in all itsmanifestations is becoming mainstream.

And most hated in Hertfordshire? The Galleria onthe edge of Hatfield, constructed over the A1M, wasbuilt in the mid 1980s and brutally re-excavatesfrom one’s psyche all the worst of that decade. Itwas opened by Margaret Thatcher amid fanfareslauding its status as an icon of shopping centresthat provided high quality, cosseted, pipedconsumerism. The Galleria’s structures can largelybe described as a collection of steel-framedwarehouses clad with pressed steel. This is jazzedup extremely superficially with crudely assembledbrushed tubular steel fretwork, cable, and acres ofplate glass. The only barely perceptible architecturalstyling might be described as faux neo-neo-neo-Georgian. Within a year of its opening the Galleriaproved a striking commercial failure, a financialmillstone to the local authority.

Another building associated with commercialfailure is Hardwick House in Norwich. This is animposing building of 1865 designed by PhilipCharles Hardwick and originally intended to beHarvey & Hudson’s Crown Bank. It was built in theClassical style with a grand portico and large top-litbanking hall, in many ways reminiscent of aGeorgian Assembly Room. The grandeur of thestone building and use of the outdated Classicalstyle were attempts to give clients the impression ofa solid and reliable bank. It nevertheless went bustwithin five years of moving into this building. Thebuilding went on to be the General Post Office forNorwich for ninety years, and until recentlyoccupied by Anglia Television. Phil Thomas admiresthis building on his way to work.

The Trafford Centre on the M60 is no commercialfailure. For those of us in Manchester, you willnever need to travel the world again, as the wholerange of architectural styles from Classical Greece tonineteenth-century New Orleans is displayed asyou wander through the Middle Eastern bazaar, thetemples of Manon, China Town or join the doomedon the bridge of the Titanic. Our past informs thefuture and we must wait to see how these retailparadises will be judged in the future.

Some twentieth-century buildings inspire awe, andthe Battersea Power Station is Catherine Cavanagh’sfavourite. Assessment and subsequent record andanalysis have been carried out for both the power

station and the adjacent Battersea Water PumpingStation, completed in 1840. Both are listed but thelatter is due to be demolished. At one time thepumping station housed the largest Cornish engineever built with a 112” diameter cylinder. Recordinghas included researching the existing archive andwill be supplemented by oral testimonies of formeroperatives, and video recording.

Pre-determination assessment can be vital to informdecision-making. Assessment of three blocks of

of buildings

Hardwick House,

Norwich, originally the

Crown bank of Harvey

and Hudson. Photograph:

Phil Thomas

Battersea Power station from

the air. English Heritage

Battersea Power Station taken through

window of Battersea pumping station.

Photograph: Catherine Cavanagh

The archaeology


buildings east of King’s Crossuncovered a nineteenth-centurystable block behind a 1980s’ façade,and led to the listing of industrialbuildings on the site. Conversely,Lots Road power station furtherupriver has no statutory protection.This is despite the probability of it

being Britain’s earliest surviving steel-framed multi-storey building, predating the construction of theRitz Hotel. Until very recently, the power stationsupplied electricity to London Underground.

One of Catherine’s worst buildings in London mustbe Merton Priory. The twelfth-century foundationsof the Chapter House are on display beneath therelief road, and the Savacentre was built over theexcavated priory. It really is a grim spot, alleviatedby the nearby Abbey Mills with its working waterwheel, part of the former Liberty works. TheChapter House is a scheduled monument and onthe Buildings at Risk register. There is some hopethat the new Heritage Centre will present theremains more sympathetically.

Staircase House in Stockport is my own choice. It isan intact merchant’s house with integratedwarehousing comprising on the domestic side atown house (a cruck hall in 1460), with a timber-framed service, solar and staircase wing behindand, on the business side, timber-framed and brickwarehouses, shops, a stone counting house andcourtyard. This arrangement of rooms and

hierarchical spaces remained virtually unaltered forover 350 years. I was forced to reassess it when anarsonist tried to burn it down, and applied newempirical inquiry. As with so many buildings, this iswhat is important – posing research questions andlooking at different models to understand thesignificance of buildings and hence the role they canplay in regeneration strategies.

Blaenavon used the significance of its archaeologyand its potential in regeneration strategies as thecornerstone of its successful bid to become a WorldHeritage Site (WHS). Manchester and Salford hasbeen entered on the UK Tentative List of WHSs andunderstands the advantage of underpinning itsheritage as an economic, social and culturalresource. The citation reads `Manchester is thearchetype city of the industrial revolution. Itwitnessed Britain’s first true industrial canal,Britain’s first mainline, inter-city passenger railwayand the country’s first industrial suburb based onsteam power’. The site is thus considered as acomplete and integral urban landscape thatincludes an outstanding architectural ensemble ofbuildings, structures and archaeological remains.

Monuments of the Industrial Revolution interestMike Nevell, in particular the archaeology of thecanal warehouse in the North West. Warehouses inthe Castlefield Basin, Manchester, the terminus ofthe Bridgewater canal, are epitomes of type 1 classiccanal warehouse, a model for canal basins acrossthe country. Thus a typological study of building

types will be invaluable in demonstrating‘Outstanding Universal Significance’, the basis forWHS inscription.

Kate Clarke has shown us that Conservation BasedResearch is the key to management of the historicenvironment (see Informed Conservation). TheNational Trust is one body that takes this to heart.Working for them, Oliver Jessop specialised in thesurvey and analysis of eighteenth-centurybuildings, particularly from formal pleasuregrounds such as Stowe. Later in Edinburgh heresearched development of the New Town and highstatus Georgian architecture. Recent buildingprojects include recording water filtration houses inBingley and Huddersfield; survey of the DemaGlass Factory in Chesterfield; and survey ofCrookes Methodist Chapel, the Cornhill Works andNeepsend Rolling Mills all in Sheffield.Forthcoming projects are to record the survivingarchitecture of the Peak Forest Tramway and theCromford and High Peak Railway in Derbyshire,funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund,along with a proposal to combine existing historicarchives to aid the conservation and interpretationof the buildings of the Sheffield cutlery trades.

The National Trust for Scotland cares for over 1100standing structures, all of which require ongoingmaintenance and repair. In the Trust’s North EastRegion alone, the area for which Shannon Fraser hasa remit, 45 essential buildings projects were carriedout last year. One of the Trust’s aspirations is to

carry out Historic Building Surveys for all of itsproperties, to produce a ‘biography’ of the building,though, with severely restricted resources, suchsurveys are generally only commissioned inadvance of major repair or development projects.

What we see here is how archaeology and inparticular buildings archaeology aids economic andregeneration strategies. As archaeologists we mustall celebrate the fact that the world is beginning totake notice of what we have to say, and thatinformed conservation about the importance of thehistoric environment can and must contribute towider regional strategies.

With all the proposed changes to heritage designationsand the PPGs, there has never been a better time to jointhe IFA Buildings Special Interest Group. Membership isfree to all IFA members and a small cost is charged tonon members. Contact Jonathan Smith([email protected]). We are looking forcontributions to the next newsletter. Please contact PhilThomas ([email protected]) withyour contribution. Deadline: 20 February 2004. We lookforward to welcoming new members and yourcontributions.

Robina [email protected]

Dema glassworks,

Chesterfield. Photograph:

Oliver Jessop

Cleaning a retaining wall

containing reused

architectural blocks at the

Cornhill Works, Edward

Street, Sheffield.

Photograph: Oliver Jessop

The 1830 railway station

and warehouse, Liverpool

Road, Manchester, part of

the proposed World

Heritage Site. Copyright:

English Heritage NMR

The Chapter House; wall

foundations on display

beneath road (arched

‘windows’) with Savacentre

to rear, built over remains

of Merton Priory.

Photograph: Catherine

Cavanagh

T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t42 A u t u m n 2 0 0 3 N u m b e r 5 0

ARGE – (Archaeological Resource Guide forEurope) at http://odur.let.rug.nl/~arge/ is alsohaving problems. Searching by country constantlythrows up errors. Martijn van Leusen emails thatthey are having problems with the software andwith the lack of system maintenance. Even worse,the European section of ArchNet(http://archnet.asu.edu/) has not been updatedsince January 2002 and still contains anadvertisement for the EAA in Esslingen. Also theydo not automatically include commercial sites intheir listing. Weirdly it has a section for UnitedKingdom & Scotland (UK) (sic) and a separatesection for Wales.

Online Publ ishingOn a more optimistic note online publishing seemsto be a growth area. There is a new Scottishpublication initiative called Scottish ArchaeologyInternet Reports (SAIR) athttp://www.sair.org.uk/. SAIR is a joint project bythe Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, with the CBAand Historic Scotland. SAIR is only a pilot at themoment and has published six reports so far inAdobe Acrobat format. A decision will be taken thisyear whether to continue with the pilot. Onecomment from their press release “Access to SAIRwill, initially at least, be free”. Does this mean therewill be a future charging policy?

By the time you have read this, CBA will have helda conference on electronic publication of journals, atthe Society of Antiquaries. I hope to report on thisnext time.

Mark [email protected]

This time I am going to talk about an embarassingproblem that may affect your site; yet no one isgoing to mention it, least of all your customers. It’scalled link rot. You spend much time and money ondesigning and writing your website, with graphicsand lots of links to other pages, internal andexternal. Then what happens? You forget about it,other things occupy your time. Meanwhile all thosehandy links you have put in have changed. Youmove your pages around; add in new pages andgraphics. What’s worse those external URLs havemoved or disappeared. Before you know it youhave a serious case of link rot. Users find more andmore dead links, to their frustration.

The very least you can do is put up a nice ~404 notfound page. See for examplehttp://www.archaeologists.net/notfound.html. Thepicture of Stonehenge on the page is to forceInternet Explorer to show this page instead of itsdefault page.

A better solution to link rot is Xenu’s Link Sleuth ™.This can check your pages and find broken internaland external links. Best of all it is free. It is forWindows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP platforms andcan be found athttp://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html.

DirectoriesThis not coincidently brings me to the subject ofdirectory resources for archaeology. There seems tobe a gap in the market at the moment for a good listof British archaeological resources, especially thecommercial units. CBA’s listing pages have not beenupdated for a while and are showing plenty of deadlinks.

ME

MB

ER

SNew membersPaula Smith

We are very pleased to welcome the following new members. We hope you will all enjoy the full benefits of IFA

membership, and hope to hear from you in the future.

ELECTED Member (MIFA) Associate (AIFA) Practitioner (PIFA) Student Affiliate

Ciara Clarke Jens Auer Lynn Averill Bryan Atkinson Peter Darby

Kate Cramp Brigitte Buss Graeme Carruthers David Barrowclough Cheryl Gallimore

Chris Day Martin Cook Helen Clough Zoe Bevans Bill Manners

David Divers Paul Fitz Russell Gant Eleanor Collier Fay Parsons

Hilary Murray Anne Haour Thomas Goskar Lynn Earley Andrew Smith

Jennifer Proctor Jonathan Kenny Cecil Hewett Elise Fraser Ian Waterfield

Tim Robey Graham Roberts Andrew Hood Ronald Gurney Phillip Watson

Andy Shelly Simon Underdown Sarah Lean Tregenza Hall

Chris Stevens Sallianne Wilcox Clare Maxfield Stephanie Haithwaite

Lesley Zienkiewicz Alison Nicholls Victoria Olesky

David Parry Gary Saunders

Andrew Peachey Kate Wardell

Philip Poucher Kirstine Watts

Katie Rees

Jonathan Smith

Fiona Wooler

TRANSFERS Member (MIFA) Associate (AIFA) Practitioner (PIFA)

Kevin Beachus Jane Bray Ruth Leak

Martin Newman David Lock

Sally Randell Katie Rees

Robin Taylor-Wilson Claire Strachan

ON THE WEB Mark BellA r c h a e o l o g y

Members newsDavid Gaimster (650) MIFADavid Gaimster, best known of course as IFA’s HonEditor, will be taking over the GeneralSecretaryship of the Society of Antiquaries ofLondon in February 2004, overlapping with DaiMorgan-Evans, who retires in March. David iscurrently Senior Policy Advisor, Cultural PropertyUnit, Department for Culture, Media and Sport,where he is leading the policy team on the portableheritage, including measures against the illicit tradein cultural property, in particular guiding theDealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act throughParliament. Before he was seconded to DCMS hewas an Assistant Keeper in the British Museum(1986–2001). He also lectures at Royal HollowayCollege London and is a Hon. Research Fellow atthe Institute of Archaeology, University College

London (from 2000). Off duty, he is the president ofthe Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology;Managing Editor for The London Archaeologist andChair of the British Archaeological Awards BookPrize.

David Gaimster (at

IFA’s AGM party)

T h e A r c h a e o l o g i s t

More members news

44

Lynne BevanLynne Bevan (1028) MIFA, has alsoleft Birmingham Archaeology. She isfinishing off her PhD (‘Prehistoric rockart in Valcamonica, northern Italy’)and is working as free-lance worked

Nicola PowellNicola Powell (1475) AIFA, previously of TVAS butbest known as Secretary of the IFA Finds Group, hasjust been appointed Finds Liaison Officer for Devon,based at The Royal Albert Memorial Museum,Exeter. Nicky took up the post on 1 December. Shesays she is keen to encourage her fellow FLOs tojoin the group as a forum for sharing and developingbest practice in all aspects of finds work. ‘The metal

Kate GearyExeter is filling up. Kate Geary (1301) AIFA, Chairof our highly-active Wales/Cymru Group, hasmoved there, to work with the sites andmonuments record of Devon County Council.Previously, she was working for GwyneddArchaeological Trust. She has just resignedchairmanship of Wales/Cymru Group, leavingFiona Gale hold the fort there until an election ispossible.

Annette HancocksAnnette Hancocks (1261) MIFA, has just movedfrom Birmingham Archaeology to become post-excavation manager for Cotswold Archaeology.There, she is taking on responsibility for about adozen publication projects, including several largepipeline schemes for Transco. These crossed areasof gravel in and around Beckford, so Cotswolds’publication programme hasexpanded fast. Annette isTreasurer of IFA’s Finds Group,and another active member.

Kate Geary

Annette Hancocks

flint and small finds specialist (offering reports on Roman, medieval and post-medieval finds of lead, bone, copper alloy, iron and stone, as well as prehistoric flint artefacts). Most importantly however she is continuing to build up our Jobs Information Service.

Lynne Bevan

detectorists of Devon are a sociable and friendlygroup.’ she says, ‘although not officially in post yet,I’ve already been invited to a Christmas bash!’.

Jonathan Drake (10) MIFAWe were very sorry to hear that JonathanDrake, who played a prominent role asSecretary of IFA from 1988–1991, died ofcancer on 30 September, age 45. Hisarchaeological life had begun in thesummer holidays at the age of 12 whenhe worked as a ‘bucket boy’ for MissOwles, the Ipswich Museumarchaeologist. He later wrote up thenotebooks of Basil Brown on the CastleHill villa site in Ipswich as part of his

degree at Peterhouse, Cambridge. After graduatingin Archaeology he dug around Britain with EnglishHeritage’s Central Unit, and also worked inBelgium, Cyprus, France, Italy Turkey, andHonduras. He then took his interest in archaeologyinto different directions, becoming head ofmuseums at Southampton, later taking over thepolicy-making role for arts and leisure there. In 1997he moved up to Kirklees to be head of cultural

services, a job he continued working at until tendays before he died.

As IFA’s Secretary he was much concerned withmodernisation and how we projected ourselvesoutside the profession. He was a leading member ofthe team that created our corporate image(including logo), and was also much concernedwith Equal Opportunities, producing Standardsdocuments, and also with MSC schemes. Hiswidow, Lynne, recalls how proud he was of his timewith IFA and all that was achieved. Tim Darvill,Chair at that time, remembers him warmly in thoseyears and Pete Hinton, then a Council member, wasimpressed by his energy, vision and efficiency – ‘hecertainly moved our Institute, and our profession,up a gear’.

There is a celebration of Jonathan’s life atHuddersfield Town Hall on Sunday 7 December, 12noon, where all who knew him will be welcome.

Photograph by

Lynne Drake, in

their garden last

summer

celebrating 21 years of the ifaautumn 2003 number 50 this issue: celebrating 21 years of the ifa the...

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