Archaeological fieldwork at Newcastle University
Gaining fieldwork experience is vital if you wish to work in archaeology after you graduate, but it is also a great opportunity to develop a range of skills (e.g. teamwork and problem-solving) which will help you irrespective of your future career.
For this reason, we expect all our students on single and joint degree programmes to complete a minimum of four weeks' field placement on an approved project.
Fieldwork is organized in the summer vacations at the end of Stages 1 and 2. Work experience in a museum or other heritage organizations may also be possible in Stage 2. We offer financial support to many of our students during their placements.
For further information, please contact Dr Jan Harding.
Current Field Projects
Derwentcote
Excavation of Britain’s oldest steelworks summer 2012 Newcastle University and English Heritage are working together to find out more about Derwentcote, the earliest and most complete steel-making furnace in Britain. Over the next four years, Dr Jane Webster of Newcastle University and Dr Rob Young of English Heritage, will investigate the row of workers’ cottages near the steelworks. The cottages were built in the 19th century. The the team will be looking for evidence about the way of life, and material world, of the people who lived there. The first season of excavations took place in July and August 2012, 26 students and numerous volunteers from the local community joined the dig.
Dr Jane Webster, Newcastle University said: “We’re really excited to start this series of digs over the next few years and encourage local people to get involved with the excavations. We know quite a bit about the industrial elements at Derwentcote and now we want to move on to the people who lived and worked there and find out what stories they have to tell.”
Dr Rob Young, Historic Environment Advisor, at English Heritage, said: “Derwentcote is a fascinating site in our care and both the dig and estate work are helping to train people up in much needed archaeological and heritage skills. The site is the earliest known steel works in the whole country and can tell us a lot about the North East’s industrial history and its place in the development of the steel trade.”
English Heritage hosted a master class in conservation techniques at Derwentcote. Once the archaeological excavations are completed English Heritage will be offering training through the Heritage Skills Initiative in the use of heritage conservation techniques to consolidate the exposed cottage ruins (http://www.nect.org.uk/heritage-skills-initiative).
To become a volunteer at the dig in 2013/ to take part in future excavations, please contact jane.webster@ncl.ac.uk.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/derwentcote-steel-furnace/
Gibside field-skills weekend
At the end of teaching week 1 all Stage 1 students taking module Introduction to Archaeology attend a residential weekend at Gibside National Trust estate. Gibside is an 18th century landscaped pleasure garden filled with stunning monuments inspired by classical antiquity. The students stay at the magnificent converted stables and spend the weekend building their archaeological skills: trying out surveying, planning, geophysics, map reading and landscape interpretation, as well as doing some excavation and recording - all whilst having fun getting to know one another and the lecturers.
Hastings Hill
The Hastings Hill Project is looking at a prehistoric landscape on the outskirts of Sunderland. Aerial photography shows that an important Neolithic and Bronze Age monument complex once existed here, consisting of what is thought to be a causewayed enclosure, a cursus, a possible small henge, and a number of round barrows. Monument complexes are rare in north-east England and little is known about the sites at Hastings Hill. The project is trying to improve our knowledge and understanding of this landscape through a programme of fieldwork. The first season, in the summer of 2012, saw the successful completion of a geophysical survey across the possible causewayed enclosure and the northern end of the cursus, along with some fieldwalking. It is hoped that additional fieldwork will be completed in the future.
The Lateran Project
The Lateran Project co-directed by Professor Ian Haynes (Newcastle) and Professor Paolo Liverani (Florence) investigates the scavi (literally 'the excavations') underneath the Pope's own Cathedral, the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome. Excavations over the centuries here have revealed not only traces of the first building ever constructed for public Christian worship, but also the remains of barracks of the emperor's horseguard, palatial housing, a bath complex and much much more. In many areas mosaics survive on the floors while frescos decorate the walls. Newcastle students join the research team in this project.
The Lufton Villa and its Landscape
Dr James Gerrard
The villa at Lufton (Somerset) is a late Roman structure first excavated by Leonard Hayward FSA in the middle of the twentieth century. A number of mosaic pavements and a large octagonal bathhouse were uncovered along with evidence for ‘squatter occupation’.
I have been investigating this site since 2007. We have clarified the extent and size of the villa and also identified a hitherto unexplored archaeological landscape. This landscape includes a deserted medieval settlement and a newly discovered settlement and associated fieldsystems that are likely to be of late prehistoric and Roman date. We undertook our first excavation in 2012 when Newcastle Undergraduates along with members of the South Somerset Archaeological Research Group explored features identified by geophysical survey. One of these features was a ring ditch that seems to be all that remains of a Bronze Age roundhouse. We intend to carry our further work to extend our knowledge of this unique landscape.
Maryport Excavation
Maryport provided training for 21 undergraduates and about 12 postgraduates in both 2011 and 2012. The project is funded by Senhouse Museum Trust and Newcastle University.
This year proved to be a very rewarding field season at Maryport.Our aim was to ensure that we could review the full extent of the famous Maryport pits, first uncovered in 1870. Discoveries in 2011 had made quite clear that the famous Maryport altars had not been interred in an act of piety, but were in the pits, along with other stone, to act as ballast to support the timbers. Our aspiration was to better understand the structure or structures these timbers represented. By the end of 2012 we had identified 63 discrete pits. Most of these had been disturbed by antiquarian investigations, but the team unearthed one which had been left untouched. By no means all the original pits appear to have contained altars, but this one did.
The altar was dedicated by Titus Attius Tutor, prefect of cohors I Baestasiorum. This regiment is known to have been stationed at Maryport from the mid AD 160s until the early 180s. Small fragments of several other altars were found this season too, but only one other had lettering on it, yielding traces of two letters. Exciting as the altar find was, the interpretation of the pits and their immediate setting was the priority. What more could the site tell us?
An important breakthrough came with excavations at the NW end of the main site. Here team members unearthed a clutch of long cist burials. Two of these contained quartz pebbles, a strong indication that the original occupants were interred following early Christian funerary rites. The acid soil meant that very little survived within the graves, but fragments of tooth enamel, human bone, a mysterious wooden object, a fragment of textile and a necklace were unearthed. We await the results of laboratory analysis of these finds with interest.
The graves do not encroach on the area occupied by the timber structures and the structures respect the graves. The implication is thus that they are contemporary and related somehow to one another. What emerges from this is that site was probably of particular importance to an early Christian community and, looking out across the Solway on a clear day, one can perhaps see why this high point was chosen. It is inter visible with Whithorn, the cradle of Scottish Christianity.
http://www.itv.com/news/border/2012-08-14/maryport-roman-dig-ends/
Recent Field Projects
Our students complete their placements around the world. Many attend our own field projects, which have included:
Bollihope Common Archaeology Project
Directors: Dr Jane Webster and Dr Robert Young (English Heritage)
Bollihope Common is located near Stanhope in Weardale. As with many moorland stretches of northern Britain, there is LOTS of archaeology here, dating from the Mesolithic (around 6000 BC) right through to the Industrial Revolution. Jane Webster and Rob Young have been digging at Bollihope since 1998, and every year 25 Newcastle students get their first taste of excavation here, during our three-week fieldwork season. Bollihope is also a community excavation, and local volunteers of all ages can come along and dig with us for free, receiving exactly the same fieldwork training as our students. We very much encourage sixth form students thinking about archaeology degrees to come along and dig with us too. This can be done on a day-to-day basis (for free) and we also offer a limited number of one-week (fee paying) residential placements too. Contact Jane Webster for more details.
Factsheet for community volunteers 2011, (PDF 83.8 KB)
Kilise Tepe Project
Directors: Dr Mark Jackson (Newcastle University) and Prof Nicholas Postgate (Cambridge University)
Undergraduate, postgraduates, and graduates from Newcastle University have been trained at Kilise in southern Turkey. The project’s main research aim has been to examine the changing nature of this Byzantine rural settlement from the from the 4th to 13th centuries AD. This was a period of great historical change in southern Asia Minor and Kilise Tepe is ideally located to address a number of important research questions at a local and regional level. Students from Newcastle can spend two months in the summer as part of a large international team which includes professional archaeologists and local people from the neighbouring village.
Pisidia Kiln Survey Project
Directors: Dr Mark Jackson (Newcastle University), Dr L. Vandeput (British Institute at Ankara) and Dr V. Köse (Hacettepe University, Ankara)
This multidisciplinary regional survey project examines Late Roman pottery production sites in southern Turkey. Students are trained in the surveying of sites and the collection and recording of ceramics.
This work requires students to collaborate as part of an international and multi-disciplinary team of professional archaeologists, surveyors and other specialists while they live abroad for a month. The project also provides excellent opportunities for students to visit some of the exceptional sites in the region of Antalya on the south coast of Turkey.
