TAG 2012: BRP Media

Just before Christmas, Liverpool University hosted the annual TAG conference, one of the premium venues for theoretical archaeology and new innovative methodologies. This year one of the sessions focused on ‘Archaeology and the Media’. As many of you will know the BRP has been using video recording for many years, spearheaded by Gerry Twomey. It seemed only right that the BRP should be represented.

Gerry starting his first paper in the Archaeology and the Media session at TAG 2012

Gerry gave two papers, the first of which explored the methodology implemented at Bamburgh, plus the problems encountered and solved along the way. The second part looked at clips from the BRP feature-long documentary exploring the early years of the BRP and the impact Dr Brian Hope-Taylor has had on the project. Both papers were presented to others working on similar projects or those hoping to develop a media aspect alongside archaeological investigations. The session was also streamed live to over 600 people.

Volunteers Editing Video of the Kaims

This article was kindly written by volunteer Ruth Brewis, who took part in the video editing of footage from the Bradford Kaims Wetland Heritage Research Project. The Project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage.

We’d be delighted if more volunteers expressed an interest in doing some video editing – if you want to have a go at this please get in touch with me, gerry.twomey@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

It will be possible to arrange one to one sessions or small groups if anyone wants to participate in this, and you do not have to have been a volunteer previously – this is open to all, and it may be possible to do this in your local area – I am prepared to travel with the footage and equipment!

Ruth writes:

Stress, Stress, Stress……

Video Editing…terrifying! Thought I was going to lose all the footage and there was so much of it! A somewhat daunting task and not an aspect I was expecting to be involved in when I signed up as a volunteer for the Bradford Kaims Heritage Wetlands Project, but the opportunity presented itself.

The BRP Editing Laptop!

Editing a small video can take days of patiently sifting through footage, re-watching the same clips over again and re-editing, playing it through many times, searching for a beginning and an ending, deciding if a picture should be static or not, which looks better??

Not as straight forward as I thought it would be!

Under Gerry’s guidance I was able to select snippets of video and assemble them to form a workable version with a storyline that would make sense to anyone viewing the video, at the same time trying to produce something that would be interesting, showing the process of coring done at the Kaims by Richard Tipping, BRP Staff and the volunteers. Looking back at the footage it was hard to decide how much to include in the video, for me it is all interesting and something that was completely new to me, so I wanted to include everything.

I came to the project expecting to learn about archaeology and was happy with that but I got the chance to try video editing, and really enjoyed the experience and I thought it would be good to see how Gerry puts together video’s for Bamburgh Research Project and as I like taking photographs when I’m on site, it was an extension of my interest in photography.

This is Ruth’s completed video which was first uploaded during the summer.

Kaims Video update – Burnt mounds?

This is the latest video in our Bradford Kaims Wetland community heritage dig series. Last time we gave you coring, this time it’s all about the features. What exactly are we digging up? The sites themselves are remarkably well preserved and subtly different, and our excavations are revealing that the promontory identified by Richard Tipping’s coring was extensively used, with multiple sites of burned stones, intermittent pits and exciting results from the geophysics.

Bradford Kaims Outreach

Bradford Kaims Co-ordinator, Neal Lythe, provides an update on the work being undertaken out at the Kaims.

Neal’s Report

This season the Kaims has so far produced some interesting and exciting archaeology. We have opened numerous test pits, excavated more of Trench 6 and opened a brand new trench on a ridge in the field to the south of Trench 6. This work has been undertaken by students from the Bamburgh Research Project, as it has been for the past 2 seasons, as well as by numerous volunteers from our Bradford Kaims Project, which is a community project for local and regional volunteers.

So far we have had numerous volunteers and we are continuing to get more every week. Many have had little or no experience of archaeology, others have volunteered on other projects and some have come along just to gain more experience to further their career. The volunteers have played an integral part in the excavation and recording of our site this season. For example, Ruth and Bob, half sectioned a pit that surrounds the hearth in Trench 6. This pit was sampled, photographed and drawn and if the weather improves, will be 100% excavated.

Bob section drawing the feature

The volunteers have also worked alongside Bamburgh Research Project students and together they have opened numerous test pits looking for human activity and settlement surrounding the former lake. This involved de-turfing and then painstakingly mattocking and shovelling the various deposits out of a 1×1 metre test pit, whilst looking for archaeological material. The volunteers also played  an important role in helping the BRP staff and students open up our new trench, Trench 42, on a ridge in former lake to the south of Trench 6. More information about this exciting area will follow in future posts.

The opening of Trench 42 with students and volunteers

Everybody has enjoyed themselves during our first 4 weeks and as we continue to get more interest, more archaeology will be uncovered, which will make for a more exciting season.

We were also visited by Wooler First School last week. They came to have a look round the site, have a go at coring and watch Co-director, Kristian Pedersen, undertake some flint knapping. A good time was had by all.

Kristian demonstrating flint knapping

Gerry demonstrating coring to the school children

Coring, Volunteers and Wooler First School

Over the weekend the Bradford Kaims Wetland Heritage Research Project was in full swing coring at the site, plus local volunteers and Wooler First School helped out with some post-ex finds washing.

We also have more volunteering opportunities, so read on to find out.

Graeme’s Report

Last Friday we were back on the Hoppenwood bank site at the Bradford Kaims, having had something of a rain induced break in our programme, to do some more coring with Richard Tipping (To see the previous outing with Richard click here) . This time we were investigating the peat deposits immediately to the west of our ‘hearth’ site. We had been doing a little coring of our own, in Richard’s absence, in this area and had identified a thin marl layer within the peat, in some of the cores that appeared to slope!

The sloping marl layer found in the core

By putting in a new transect of cores with Richard, from the trench edge outwards, we have mapped the subsurface contours of the ground surface as it existed before the lake deposits and peat layers developed. In doing this we profiled the sloping edge of the lake as it shelved down beneath the peat. What came as a surprise was that we soon picked up the rise of the opposite bank, well before we reached the Winlaw Burn, only a few tens of metres away. This shows us that the lake areas to the south drain northwards through a very narrow channel that passes right by the ‘hearth’, before quickly opening out again to the north. It is hard not to see the positioning of our unusual site being in no small part driven by this topographic feature.

The channel as suggested by the coring

This is a very intriguing new discovery, the full implications of which will take time to properly understand.  Looking at the first edition Ordnance Survey map it is clear that the Winlaw Burn has been canalised and back in the mid-19^th century meandered a little further to the west. This raises that possibility that there could be more than one channel to the stream, though whether they were ever contemporary we do not yet know.

Later that day we also ran a small workshop in Bamburgh village pavilion, having invited anyone interested in the community to come along and help out. We did some finds washing, starting the process of cleaning the finds recovered during our field walking late last year.

Local volunteers working their way through the field-walking finds

On Tuesday we were at Wooler First School to do a brief introduction to our work and to introduce the children to the joys of washing more of the field walking finds. This proved to be hugely popular, in fact even the quite large quantity of finds that we had brought along only just managed to keep them busy till lunch. The children are coming out to see the site in June. Let’s hope they enjoy that just as much.

Volunteering – Gerry updates us on the field work opportunities for May.

The next fieldworking days will be Thursday 10th May.  Richard Tippingwill also be out again with us on May 17th to 20th along withGSB’s Graeme Atwood who will be doing some geophysics on the Saturday and Sunday. We are also planning to be on site on Wednesday 23rd May.

Please come along if you can, dressed for weather, and wellies are recommended. As usual no experience is necessary, and it should be fun as we will be digging. If you would like to volunteer please send an email to Graeme Young at graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk or call him on 07711187651 as we will be limited to around 20 volunteer places per day.  We very much hope to see you there!

Getting There

The site is located at Hoppen Hall Farm – to get there you will need to take the B1341 between the A1 and Bamburgh.
Heading towards Bamburgh, you pass over the main rail line level crossing just past Lucker, then take the first right hand turn along a rough track heading up hill towards Hoppen Hall farm and cottages. The site is accessible only by prior arrangement, and there are holiday lets near the area we will be parking as well as the main farm house so we ask that all participants show due care and respect the privacy of the residents and guests. We will park and gather together by the main farm buildings, then walk through the fields for around ten minutes to access the wetland site.

Video Editing 
I’m hoping some of you will take an interest in doing some video editing of the footage we’ve been taking of the site. It’s a good way to re-familiarise yourself with the progress so far and help me decide what to put in the video reports. If anyone is interested please email me as I don’t think this is something everybody will want to do, but you’re more than welcome!

Excavation Season 2012: Project Director’s Overview

Here at the BRP we are beginning to gear up for our annual training excavation at Bamburgh Castle and its environs, commencing June 3rd. Over the next few weeks we will hearing from staff about their hopes for the season. To kick start the blog thread Project Director, Gerry Twomey, tells us about his plans for the Media output this year.

Gerry’s Thoughts: Media 2012

Over the course of the year we have been looking into ways the project can develop it’s education potential. We have recently been accepted as one of the few independent non university providers of content to Apple’s iTunes U store, so we will be spending time over the season developing that site and creating content for future courses that we hope to make available to students as part of the BRP experience.

The popularity of Jo’s blog has led us to take a new approach to the project videography, with a view to producing more regular short on site video updates in addition to our long term project video record.

Gerry capturing the dig as it happens.

We’re gradually moving away from tape based media to SD and CF card formats which is a big change for us as we will soon no longer be generating a physical video archive.  The advantage is lossless high quality files that are easily labelled during capture, but they take up a great deal of disk space so we’ve decided to cross convert them to our standard HDV file formats. One of the problems BRP faces in the near future is the effective management of its digital data archives, which mainly comes down to the expense of large hard drives and their backups. Ultimately, our archives will need to be ingested into appropriate county archives. This season, we will begin to digitise the remainder of the tape archive that has previously not been digitised, with the aim of creating a master archive of the project video.

We’re hoping that more schools and volunteers will take up the media challenge to edit stills and video from the Kaims, and we will be hosting sessions for volunteers to have a go at crafting narratives from the existing footage, and video they generate themselves (To see an example of previous volunteer work click here). I’m also excited to be going up to the University of Stirling in the next few weeks to film the lab work associated with the coring that Richard Tipping and our volunteers have been doing recently. Click here to see the coring in the field.

The seemingly endless post-production of our feature length documentary about the Hope Taylor excavations is now roughly complete, pending narration and music recording. We hope to make the film available in the near future, at conferences and festivals, with a commercial release as the ultimate aim. This has been a labour of love for a long time and very many people have contributed to it over the years. It is to be hoped we will have a premiere in Newcastle before the 2013 season.

More to follow as the season draws near.

Update on Gold Assemblage from Trench 3, Bamburgh Castle

Last week the Bamburgh Research Project was lucky enough to have a visit from Early Medieval gold filigree expert, Dr Niamh Whitfield.

Dr Whitfield visited the castle to look at the gold first hand and share her thoughts on the five pieces unearthed to date with Project Directors, Graeme Young and Gerry Twomey, plus myself, Jo Kirton.

Dr Whitfield measuring the dimensions of the various gold pieces in the museum

Gerry and myself taking photographs of the cleaned gold pieces in their museum case

Dr Whitfield was able to demonstrate through comparable archaeological material that the pieces that we have found at Bamburgh are typical of the 7th-8th century. For example, the famous Bamburgh Beast, unearthed by Brian Hope-Taylor in the 1970’s, has strong comparisons with objects from the Staffordshire hoard and images from the Book of Durrow.

The most recent gold find from the West Ward excavations at Bamburgh Castle

Reverse of the gold filigree object

The most recent piece of gold to be discovered at the castle (see above) has decorative techniques that appear on many examples of decorative gold work from this period, particularly the border patterns. However, it was noted that the swirling pattern is less regular than other known pieces including another example of gold filigree decoration unearthed in Trench 3 (see the picture below). However, the shape of the object – a half moon – was harder to place and requires further research to suggest a provenance for the mounting.

Gold filigree decoration found in previous seasons

The piece below appears to be missing its centre mount, which Dr Whitfield believes would have been coloured glass. Again the form was hard to place but it does look comparable to the centre of some brooches.

Gold fitting missing a probable coloured glass centre.

Dr Whitfield intends to return to the project over the summer, so she can examine the gold under a microscope, which may provide further insight into the manufacturing techniques and the decorative design. It will also give us the opportunity to show her the trench in which these objects were discovered and who knows, we may have more to show her!