Post-Excavation Taster Weeks -Booking Now Open

Posted on March 31, 2024 by bamburghresearchproject

Dates: May 20th to 24th and September 9th to 13th

What is post-excavation?

Archaeology is not all about digging. In order to turn the data gathered through excavations or surveys (for example) into information that can be used to interpret a site and/or plan further investigations, archaeologists must process this data during the ‘post-ex’ phase.

This includes recording the artefacts recovered, processing the environmental samples taken, digitising the drawings and survey information, for example. This work generates a physical and digital archive, which connects all the pieces of information together. It takes far longer (in most cases) than the actual field work and often takes place in the lab or at the desk.

Post-Ex at the Bamburgh Research Project

Here at the BRP we have generated a lot of post-excavation work in the last 20 years. We undertake much of the initial post-ex on site, where we wash and process the small and bulk finds, we process our environmental samples and we catalogue much of the records and photographs we take. However, there is still much work that is undertaken during the off-season by our staff and more that is sent away for specialist analysis. We thought this year we might bring some of this ‘behind the scenes’ work back to the Castle and share it with a small cohort of interested individuals.

What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

We offer quality training in archaeology with an emphasis on practical hands-on experience. The post-excavation taster week will use the BRP’s extensive archive, which consists of material from the prehistoric to the medieval periods, as the basis for an introduction to the different post-excavation techniques and research methodologies employed by the project.

We are still planning the daily schedule but the week will include:

a general introduction to finds processing (bulk and small finds)
hands-on training to record, draw and photograph artefacts from the site
live demo and handling session with a medieval textile specialist
introduction to environmental sampling and processing
guided tour of Bamburgh Castle, related Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the new ossuary and Bamburgh Bones exhibition
learn the process of creating pottery from clay to shaping to firing from a specialist

Please Note: we are also in the process of organising tuition by an osteoarchaeologist for September TBC.

Who is it for?

Our training is open to people of all skill-levels and abilities, with particular interests accommodated where possible. We particularly wish to offer a fun and educational experience to beginners and non professionals.

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about access, facilities, etc.

BRP is open to anyone aged 18 and over.

Who will be teaching me?

Professional field archaeologists and post-excavation specialists.

How much does it cost?

The post-excavation taster week costs £350 pp and covers 5 days of training in a small group of between 6-8 people. This covers the cost of the tuition, tours and the trip to Lindisfarne.

How do I book a place?

Please visit the BRP’s website and take a look at the Post-Ex Taster Week page. At the end of the page is the details on how to book and pay for your place.

PLEASE NOTE: the week will only run if the BRP receive enough bookings to make the week viable (more info on website).

Any questions? Email: graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

Excavation Season 2024: Booking is open!

Posted on January 8, 2024 by bamburghresearchproject

30th June – 26th July 2024 (4 weeks)

Join us this summer for our 2024 excavation season at the world famous Bamburgh Castle.

We will be continuing our excavation and survey on and around the outworks at St Oswald’s Gate; the latest chapter in our investigations of this fabulous multiphase site whose history spans at least 3000 years. The dig will run for four weeks from the end of June to late July 2024, starting Sunday 30th June.

You can find out more about our field school by visiting our Archaeology Field School 2024 page on our website.

If you are ready to book a place please head straight to our Booking Details page.

We also aim to offer two separate post-excavation focussed weeks this year as well. Keep an eye out for more details on what these will involve soon.

*Excavation at the outworks beyond St Oswald’s Gate.*

Where will we be working this season?

We have had three really good seasons on this site already and made some fascinating discoveries – such as the surviving stone arch into what must be the well-room at the base of the Tower of Elmund’s Well. This year we aim to finally find the base of the tower and the well itself. In addition we will begin to survey the mounds to the landward side of the outworks that may be a siege castle dating back to 1095 AD. It promises to be a very exciting season!

If you want to read up on the history of this area of the castle, how it relates to the other areas of excavation, and what we have discovered to date, take a look at our Bamburgh Castle: St Oswald’s Gate website page and look back on the blog entries here from previous seasons.

*The Tower of Elmund’s Well under excavation*

We welcome people from all ages and backgrounds

We are lucky to be able to welcome to the dig people of all ages and backgrounds, not just students of archaeology, and we feel that this makes for a friendly and welcoming team and a fun experience.

If anyone is interested but worries that mobility or other issues might be problematic then do get in touch with us via the Contact us page on the website and we will do as much as we can to accommodate you.

Book Now for our 2023 Post-Excavation Week!

Posted on August 4, 2023 by bamburghresearchproject

Dates: 10th-14th September 2023

Bookings are OPEN for a 1 week post-excavation taster.

Two people sorting finds from the environmental flotation system

What is post-excavation?

Post-Ex at the Bamburgh Research Project

What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

We are still planning the daily schedule but the week will include:

a general introduction to finds processing (bulk and small finds)
hands-on training to record, draw and photograph artefacts from the site
live demo and handling session with a medieval textile specialist
introduction to environmental sampling and processing
guided tour of Bamburgh Castle, related Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the new ossuary and Bamburgh Bones exhibition
guided visit to Lindisfarne and Yeavering

Please Note: we are also in the process of organising a visits by a conservator and/or osteoarchaeologist but these are yet to be confirmed.

Who is it for?

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about access, facilities, etc.

BRP is open to anyone aged 18 and over.

Who will be teaching me?

Professional field archaeologists and post-excavation specialists.

How much does it cost?

The post-excavation taster week costs £300 pp and covers 5 days of training in a small group of between 6-8 people. This covers the cost of the tuition, tours and the trip to Lindisfarne.

How do I book a place?

Please visit the BRP’s website and take a look at the Post-Ex Taster Week page. At the end of the page is the details on how to book and pay for your place.

PLEASE NOTE: the week will only run if the BRP receive enough bookings to make the week viable (more info on website).

Any questions? Email: graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

Booking for the Post-Excavation Taster Week is now open

Posted on July 15, 2023 by bamburghresearchproject

Dates: 10th – 14th September 2023

Bookings are OPEN for a 1 week post-excavation taster.

What is post-excavation?

Post-Ex at the Bamburgh Research Project

What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

We are still planning the daily schedule but the week will include:

a general introduction to finds processing (bulk and small finds)
hands-on training to record, draw and photograph artefacts from the site
live demo and handling session with a medieval textile specialist
introduction to environmental sampling and processing
guided tour of Bamburgh Castle, related Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the new ossuary and Bamburgh Bones exhibition
guided visit to Lindisfarne and Ad Gefrin

Please Note: we are also in the process of organising a visits by a Specialist but these are yet to be confirmed.

Who is it for?

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about access, facilities, etc.

BRP is open to anyone aged 18 and over.

Who will be teaching me?

Professional field archaeologists and post-excavation specialists.

How much does it cost?

The post-excavation taster week costs £300 pp and covers 5 days of training in a small group of between 6-8 people. This covers the cost of the tuition, tours and the trip to Lindisfarne.

How do I book a place?

Please visit the BRP’s website and take a look at the Post-Ex Taster Week page. At the end of the page is the details on how to book and pay for your place.

PLEASE NOTE: the week will only run if the BRP receive enough bookings to make the week viable (more info on website).

Any questions? Email: graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

Excavation Season 2023: Booking is open!

Posted on February 8, 2023 by bamburghresearchproject

2nd July – 22nd July 2023 (3 weeks)

Join us this summer for our 2023 excavation season at the world famous Bamburgh Castle.

We will be continuing our excavation on the outworks at St Oswald’s Gate; the latest chapter in our investigations of this fabulous multiphase site whose history spans at least 3000 years. The dig will run for three weeks in July 2023, starting Sunday 2nd.

You can find out more about our field school by visiting our Archaeology Field School 2023 page on our website.

If you are ready to book a place please head straight to our Booking Details page.

*Looking up from the outworks towards St Oswald’s Gate*

Where will we be working this season?

We have had two really good seasons on this site already and made some fascinating discoveries – such as the surviving stone arch into what must be the well-room at the base of the Tower of Elmund’s Well. If you want to read up on the history of this area of the castle, how it relates to the other areas of excavation and what we have discovered to date, take a look at our Bamburgh Castle: St Oswald’s Gate website page.

This year we will finish the site and find out what trace is left of the well itself. Exciting!

*Aerial shot of Elmund’s Tower, note the stairs leading down to the arch and into the rubble-filled well room (or so we hope!)*

We also have some really exciting news to share soon, which will mean we have some extra visitors working onsite alongside our main excavation and post-ex team. Watch this space…..

A fantastic write up by one of the 2022 participants of her time at the BRP

Posted on January 30, 2023 by bamburghresearchproject

*There is definitely some medieval masonry hiding under there!*

As we get close to announcing the details of the new season of projects, its nice to see a positive write up by one of the participants of last year’s excavation. Hilary was present for the full season and seems to have enjoyed her time with us. You can see her article here

This year we will be undertaking the excavation on the outworks in July (three weeks starting 2nd July) and a week of post-excavation work in September (starting 10th September). Keep looking in here for the full details in the next few days!

The Excavation season for 2023 will be announced soon

Posted on January 5, 2023 by bamburghresearchproject

We are planning two different activities this year – the normal excavation and a new post-excavation week

The Summer excavation season will be 3 weeks in July 2023

We will be continuing our excavation on the outworks at St Oswald’s Gate. The dig will run for three weeks in July 2023, starting Sunday 2nd of July. The aim is to get information up on the website and bookings open very early in the New Year. If anyone wants to be added to the contact list to be notified as soon as the info and bookings go live feel free to email us at graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

We have had two really good seasons on this site already and made some fascinating discoveries – such as the survivng stone arch into what must be the wellroom at the base of the Tower of Elmund’s Well (check out some of the blogs below for reports on the work so far). This year we will finish the site and find out what trace is left of the well itself.

What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

In addition to the normal excavation season, we will also be offering a Post-Excavation taster Week which will be an introduction to work on the archive from previous seasons. This includes recording the artefacts recovered, processing the environmental samples taken, digitising the drawings and survey information. This work generates a physical and digital archive, which connects all the pieces of information together. It takes far longer (in most cases) than the actual field work and often takes place in the lab or at the desk.

We are still working out the most appropriate date for this (week starting the week of 8th May is very softly pencilled in at the moment) but as with the excavation, details will follow soon and again you are welcome to ask to be added to the list to be notified (graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk) as soon as bookings open.

Introduction to Archaeological Finds a Post Excavation Taster Week: Bookings Open Now!!!

Posted on August 8, 2022 by bamburghresearchproject

Dates: 10th-14th September 2023

Bookings are OPEN for a 1 week post-excavation taster.

What is post-excavation?

Post-Ex at the Bamburgh Research Project

What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

We are still planning the daily schedule but the week will include:

a general introduction to finds processing (bulk and small finds)
hands-on training to record, draw and photograph artefacts from the site
live demo and handling session with a medieval textile specialist
introduction to environmental sampling and processing
guided tour of Bamburgh Castle, related Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the new ossuary and Bamburgh Bones exhibition
guided visit to Lindisfarne and Yeavering

Please Note: we are also in the process of organising a visits by a conservator and/or osteoarchaeologist but these are yet to be confirmed.

Who is it for?

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about access, facilities, etc.

BRP is open to anyone aged 18 and over.

Who will be teaching me?

Professional field archaeologists and post-excavation specialists.

How much does it cost?

The post-excavation taster week costs £300 pp and covers 5 days of training in a small group of between 6-8 people. This covers the cost of the tuition, tours and the trip to Lindisfarne.

How do I book a place?

Please visit the BRP’s website and take a look at the Post-Ex Taster Week page. At the end of the page is the details on how to book and pay for your place.

PLEASE NOTE: the week will only run if the BRP receive enough bookings to make the week viable (more info on website).

Any questions? Email: graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

Way Back Wednesday: Glass Beads

Posted on July 6, 2022 by bamburghresearchproject

The weather this morning was a bit ugly, so some of the students went into the archive annex in the castle to organise small finds from years past. We were reconciling information in our database and the physical storage containers and shelf-marks. As we nosed around the different boxes, we came across two blue glass beads excavated in 2012 from Trench 3. (It was a weird blast from the past for Constance and Lauren, who were both students at the time.)

Both beads came from the eastern half of the trench at a level pretty securely dated to the 9^th century. The bead on the left, a globular bead, was from the northeast corner where a very compact, stony context was located. The bead on the right, a barrel bead, was from the southeast corner, where we found a large area of burning and evidence that suggested it was possibly the site of a stable.

Most of our knowledge of early medieval beads actually comes from surveys of grave goods. Between the 5^th and 7^th centuries, much of the glass was recycled from Roman material; when new beads were made, their chemical content suggested they came from raw glass from the Near East. The period of the beads we’ve found are not associated with graves, as furnished burials were less common in Christianised communities. This unpublished thesis from James Robert Nicholas Peake talks a little bit more about early medieval bead production via a case study from RAF Lakenheath assemblages. It’s only in the 8^th and 9^th centuries that we have on the ground evidence for production in Britain becomes available. Things like beads would have likely been produced by travelling artisans, rather than as a household industry. The 9^th century is also a time when the fluxes (material that lowers the melting point of silicates) used to stabilise the batch of ingredients were purposefully richer in potash (potassium oxide) instead of natron (soda ash), which protected the glass from water damage. The blue colour of our beads was probably due to the addition of cobalt, but could have been exacerbated by Roman cullet (leftover broken bits added to fresh glass) during the 9^th century.

There’s a really great open access book that talks all about early medieval beads in English contexts you can read here.

To Scrub-a-dub, or Not to Scrub-a-dub?

Posted on July 4, 2022 by bamburghresearchproject

A major part of finds processing is cleaning the material that has come from the trench, because you can’t identify something if it’s covered in mud! Many artefacts are washed with clean, detergent-free water, while others that can’t get wet are brushed off dry.

We place a tray of dirty finds next to a basin of water and place the cleaned finds in a blue tray with newspaper to aid with drying. Both trays must be labelled with year and context number to keep track of where things were found

The most common tool we use is a toothbrush with synthetic bristles, and instead of scrubbing the artefact while submerged, we bring the water on the brush up to the artefact. This prevents the artefact from soaking up too much of the water and becoming unstable and falling apart.

The toothbrush is a pretty gentle tool, even with vigorous brushing for example on very muddy animal bone. Sometimes, however, you’ll find areas you can’t quite reach due to the toothbrush head’s size. In those instances, we use more pokey tools, but start with the softest (wooden skewers) before using something more heavy duty (metal dental tools). This is similar to the process professional archaeological conservators will use in a lab: you always start with the gentlest tool and work your way up to something harder. Conservators also use more unusual tools before they reach for the dentist’s kit, for example, using rose thorns or porcupine quills to scrape off stubborn bits!

But before you even get to sit down in front of your basin set-up, you’ll need to know what can get washed and what needs to be kept dry.

Bone

Animal bone (including horn cores and antler) is almost always perfectly suited to washing unless you find something super unexpected like preserved flesh (but this is not really an option in our soil environment). This category also includes worked bone, but if there are incised lines, you’d want to be particularly careful not to damage any decoration.

Human bone can be washed, but only extremely carefully, and it should be handled outside of view of the public. It is important to note any areas of discolouration due to contact with metal objects and not wet those areas. For example, if a green stain appears on an arm bone, the individual may have been wearing something made of copper alloy that eventually rested directly on the bone in the burial. Similarly, an orange stain could suggest an iron implement was nearby. We hope to do a future blog post on corrosion, but these two are the most common examples that leave a trace on human bones.

Ceramics

Prehistoric pottery can be extremely delicate and friable, crumbling even as you excavate it in moist soil, and thus may need to be left alone for a few days to dry naturally. Then it can be gently dry brushed to determine if it should be wet again at all. You may also use a sponge to clean these early earthenwares. Most historical pottery, in general, is a robust material in that it survives in the archaeological record, regardless of being in pieces. Glazed pottery can be washed, but not scrubbed vigorously on the glazed surfaces. Painted pottery surfaces should not be washed, as the pigments could easily be lost. When we find Samian ware, a Roman ceramic type from Gaul (modern France) (hyperlink), we do usually wash it, but without the scrubbing tools. We do this to preserve the surface, but still be able try to identify the pattern and any maker’s mark. If pottery seems to have food residue on its surface, we do not wash it, and, if possible, can send it away for further analysis to learn about the diet of the community that used it.

Clay pipes

Pipe-stems and pipe-bowls, can be washed fairly easily, but you must take care when clearing out the borehole so as not to send a crack down the whole stem. Pipe-stems were often broken during use, and anywhere you find British influence after the commodification of tobacco you find broken bits of clay pipe.

CBM

Ceramic building material like fired bricks or tiles can be washed, while unfired clay, mud bricks, and daub is brushed while dry.

Charcoal

We don’t wash charcoal, as it will crumble easily. Instead, we dry-brush it gently and bag this separately. In special cases of large charcoal deposits, they will be taken as a sample rather than collected with bulk finds. Environmental archaeologists can then examine the sample to try to ascertain wood species and possible dendrochronological (tree-ring) data.

Glass

Glass can be washed if it is not iridescent—that is, if it doesn’t have gold flakes on the surface or rainbow-coloured patches. These are ways glass corrodes, where the layers of glass pull apart from each other allowing air in between. The bouncing around of light in these tiny air gaps leads to the beautiful colours visible.

Shells

On our site, we used to wash all shell that we found, all molluscs but from gastropods (like snails) to bivalves (like oysters). We no longer wash oyster shells because they often simply fall apart when brushed.

Stone and mortar

While we don’t find a vast quantity of stone artefacts on our site, we have in the past found tools and debitage (waste flakes) of flint. Flint, along with other worked stone, can be washed, unless painted or covered with mortar. Mortar clumps and mortar spreads on stone are brushed while dry.

Metal and slag

OH NO. DON’T EVEN LOOK AT THE WATER BASIN WHEN YOU SEE METAL.

It’s not the end of the world if you do start washing something and suddenly realise it’s heavier than it looks or reveals a metal surface. Just stop brushing immediately and allow it to dry. If it is dry, you may dry-brush it gently. We just want the soil off the surface because it’s within the skillset of the professional conservator to best decide how to handle the corrosion. We also do not wash slag (metal byproduct comprised of impurities).