Hi Phil,

I was a 3rd week BERT. Thanks for the reading tip, I shall look this up.

I have an interest in landscape archaeology and am currently reading Barnes & Williamson's "Hedgerow History", published in 2006. Its predominantly a study of hedges & field enclosures in the county of Norfolk. Apparently our corner of Norfolk is rather different from the south eastern half of the county having developed from a 'champion landscape' with medieval open field systems as opposed to 'woodland landscapes' with ancient hedgerows.

Well the Saxons had plenty of enemies before the arrival of the Vikings, mostly other Saxons!

The East Anglian Kingdom fought a number of wars with Mercia and in 794AD they were conquered by King Offa, the famous builder of the Welsh border dyke. They regained their independence after a succesful revolt in about 822 to 825AD. If the ditches are of a defensive nature then maybe they were built in response to the threat from Mercia.

There are a number of Saxon linear earthworks in Cambridgeshire & Suffolk, such as the Devils Ditch and Fleam Dyke which may be relics of the Mercian-Anglian wars.

You can find an interesting web site on the Kingdom of East Anglia at http://www.wuffings.co.uk/

Hello, Phil, good to hear you! And hello to Jerry; good wasn't it? Being a Bert that is!
Anyway, I'm still digesting your comments; but I have a couple of initial comments. I'm not convinced that all ditches are defensive! We have no evidence of palisading on any of the ditches in T6. Both ditches would be only minor hiccups to an angry man, or a hungry sheep.
The dating of these ditches is still pretty vague. I'm helping 'Miner John' and Sally go through the boxes of pottery, ie the written records, to pull out all the 'grass tempered ware', originally thought to be Iron Age; it has been suggested that this is early AS, not Iron Age. And as we perhaps know less about the early AS than any other time, this is exciting! Phil, didn't you find a bit at the bottom of our first slot? [I'm picking up the lingo!]
Fact from pottery Ident. Day School. Segeford is the 3rd largest producer of Thetford ware in EA, only Ipswich and Branden more productive so far. Which suggests a busy settlement; which may lend support to 'defensive' role of ditches, even if symbolic rather than actual.
Last point, which I can develop, but offer as a passing thought for now. Were the AS really such strangers to EA before the end of the Romans? Pre-Roman I suggest the East had more in cultural common with the lands on the other side of the North Sea than with west Britain.
Do look at google Earth at the moment, the current stream is fantastic for cropmarks.. busy landscape around Sedgeford.

Absloutely right, there were many incursions into EA before the Romans. The modern thinking though is that these people didn't displace the native 'Britons' but they mixed, co-existed and cooperated. They are usually called Anglo-saxon but they were probably not Angles or Saxon. The Iceni who famously rose against the Romans were the residents of Norfolk/Suffolk for a while before the romans came, they were not Saxon or Angles. They were probably not true Britons either.
Pottery finds from all over Norfolk and Suffolk and parts of Lincolnshire are identical to those found in Frisia, part of Holland. The suggestion is that they didn't all come as trade goods, nor were they being made by locals in a frisian style but that they were being produced locally by settled frisians. Pottery from Kent and Essex is different, mainly Saxon. Again not trade goods but produced by settled Saxons.....not Angles.
Hence my original question. Who is living at Sedgeford? Are they leftover Britons, are they leftover Iceni, are they Romanized British, Britiscised Romans or Frisian settlers? The date is all important.
The term Anglo-Saxon is perhaps the problem. By Anglo-Saxon I suppose we really mean those peoples who migrated into England after Roman rule petered out but before the Danes arrived. I have found a couple of references, in two of the books I've read recently, to Romano-British authorities hiring Gallic or German tribes for protection after the last of the legions had left. Maybe these were Angles and Saxons. One theory suggests that they found such easy, rich pickings that they then took over. The same pressure on Romes' eastern front was driving the natives of central and northwest germany and holland/belgium over here. I understand from David Miles' book that most modern East Anglians are closer genetically and through DNA sampling to modern Holland and Germany than the north welsh are from southern welsh just a few miles away.
Right again, defensive ditches are useless without ramparts and pallisades but the ramparts would be above ground with the pallisades on top. We will not find remains of a pallisade because if there was one it fell down, on the surface, over 1000 years ago. the rampart, if there was one, would then be ploughed into the rest of the topsoil. The original, southerly, east west ditch is a drainage ditch, it has a gully(anklebreaker) at the bottom. The double ditch, if that is what it is, is the anomaly. Why build another drainage ditch that close to the first? And with a double bottom? Similarly why build another ditch for defense if you have a perfectly servicable ditch already? They surely must be from different dates?

Phil, you asked for dates of pottery:
Ipswich ware... AD 720/750 to 850/875
Thetford ware... 850/900 to 1100/1150
The two sets of dates reflect differing opinion and 'transistion'
The piece of pot at the bottom of our slot sounds like the type of pottery we have to pull out of store; did anyone mention 'grass-tempered' at the time? The Gressenhall boffin thought this g-t ware could be early AS. The plan is to collect it, and have it further examined by experts, and maybe some will be carbon dated.
So keep it in mind that your ditch is possibly early AS. Such an enigmatic time..

I've got note of the fill numbers and I' ll let you know, at some time over the winter!, if those bits of pot are selected as possible early AS.

Phil, I also have a copy of Renfrew & Bahn but I'd reccommend "The Archaeology of Britain: An Introduction from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Industrial Revolution"
edited by Ralston & Hunter, as a better introductory read. It's by a number of authors, some of whom are very readable, others less so. I found the sections on Saxon & Viking periods particularly gripping.

As for your withdrawal symptoms there are amateur archaeology groups thats are active all the year round. My local group in Hampshire is usually out field walking & surveying for two weekends each month and on the bank holiday weekends run 4 day digs. This August we are investigating a Roman Road alignment and associated Saxon parish boundary ditch. There's a society in Cambridgeshire (http://www.cambridge-archaeology.org.uk/cafg.html) which seems to be very active, I shall probably be joining them when I move back to East Anglia next year.
.

Well if its something more advanced you want then another good book I've bought recently is "The Anglo Saxon Kingdom of Lindsey" by Kevin Leahy. Its all about the archaeology of Lincolnshire in Saxon times. I've been looking for an equivalent for Saxon Norfolk or East Anglia but I've not found anything yet.

Hi Phil,
I did a couple of years on the Sedgeford dig, but haven't been able to make it recently due to work, dammit!
But anyway, the whole Anglo-Saxon invasion/selttlement/assimilation thing is really a fascinating one. I recently read a fab book on the subject by someone called MJ Harper. It's called 'The History of Britain Revealed. The Shocking Truth about The English Language' (published by Icon Books, ten quid new)
The author describes himself as 'an applied epistmologist', which as far as I can work out is just another term for a sceptic. Basically, he takes a recieved idea - in this case that the Anglo- Saxons managed to obliterate a language and a culture in about three hundred years - and has a real old go at it, chiefly by saying '' where's the proof?''. The result made me laugh out loud - he's a very good writer and very rude about the archaeological establishment (who clearly loathe him - check out a discussion thread on the official Time Team forum website, titled 'English spoken in the pre Roman period?' The level of hostility really is very impressive).
Wether you go along with his ideas or not - and I'm not sure I really do - it's a thought provoking take on that important period of our history and a cracking read to boot.
Cheers,
Kim

Back on the forum after a couple of weks absent, not lack of interest, lack of time! Been reading (surprise surprise!) A number of books given to me by a friend. All of them smaller and shorter than the massive tome's that I have been reading of late. Viking England by Julian Richards, Anglo-saxon England by Martin Welch both from English Heritage. Romes northern frontier and Romes saxon shore both by Nic Fields, Forts of Celtic Britain bu Angus Konstan and Fortifications of Wessex by Ryan Lavelle, all from Osprey. They have all added to my understanding of Roman Britain, post Roman Britain and Anglo-saxon Britain. I am now reading the age of Arthur by John Morris, it is a history of England from 350 to 650 so should be perfect, I hope.
I also visited Flag Fen last week, my first visit there in something like 8 years. I appreciate that the reconstructions are of bronze and iron age roundhouses etc but I have re-evaluated my opinion of defensive pallisades. I, like most people I suppose, have always seen a pallisade as logs driven into the ground vertically, lashed together in some way, sharpened into a spike at the top- much like a wild west fort. At flag fen they have hurdle fences, a kind of wicker work lattice fence. Re-constructions of types known to have existed in bronze and iron age britain. They are very strong even though there was no single piece of timber thicker than 50mm and these were the main members that were driven into the ground about every 200 - 250 mm apart. I had trouble moving them, there was some flexibility but nothing more than an inch or two of wobble at the top. Put these on top of an embankment behind a ditch and they would provide a resonable barrier especially if armed men stood behind. Although I doubt that they would stand up to a determined attack by a longboat full of vikings unless there were a large number of troops defending.
If anybody has not been to flag fen I recommend it. Only a fiver for an adult.

Thanks for that but I have enough trouble with the adults that I already have without taking on any more, even at a fiver a throw! I am thinking about visiting Norwhich's museum, is it worth the visit? will it fill a whole day?

Until sedgeford my main interest was late medieval / wars of the roses so perfect. I could spend all day in any museum, unfortunately I'll probably have my wife in tow, her interest in history is limited to yesterdays eastenders!! Persuading her to spend the day with me pasing through west stow as well might be difficult. Persuading her to spend half a day in a museum and the other half shopping might just work.
Phil.

It looks like museum and shopping and leaving west stow until springtime. Are there many cremation urns on display? Or anything from Sedgeford?
Phil.

I think our copper alloy stylus is on display in Norwich - they've definitely got it anyway and they wouldn't unless there was a reason.

I've been digging Roman Roads with a group in Hampshire of late, it made an interesting contrast with Sedgeford. We were digging at a site where the London to Winchester Roman Road crossed a Saxon parish boundary. We dug five trenches, two across the approximate course of the road just to the east of the Saxon ditch, and another two either side of these looking for the ditches that usually bounded roman roads. A fifth trench was dug at right angles to these, cutting across the parish boundary ditch & embankment to see if the Saxons had robbed any of the mettling from the road.

The two central trenches soon found plenty of flint mettling, apparently the densest deposit found so far on this particular road. However in the two trenches looking for the ditches we also found plenty of flint at about the same density. At this point the project director was looking a bit glum, we either had found a roman super-highway (the M25 of Roman Britain!), or more likely we had hit a deposit of natural flint which would mean locating the course of the road would be very difficult. Fortunately the trench across the Saxon boundary came to our rescue. It revealed plenty of flints in the embankment, plus the Saxon ditch had cut through the dense layer of flints into the natural clay below. A dense horizontal layer of flints appears to run underneath the embankment. At this point the light began to dawn, we were possibly at a crossroads! It appears that the Saxons have converted a Roman Road into a boundary by digging a ditch down the centre of it and piling the rubble up on one side. We didn't prove this conclusively so we're going back next year to do some more digging. Of course we can't really determine the destination of this new road from just one site. To the south it heads off towards the coast and a straight line would lead to somewhere between Portchester & Chichester, to the north it would pass well to the west of Silchester. Of course it could just be a local farm road.

I've learnt a lot about Roman Roads whilst on this dig. The project director Richard Whaley has been researching them since the 1960's. He's discovered the courses of roads in Dorset, Hampshire & Kent and invented several new methods for finding them.

The construction of roman roads is highly variable as they tended to build them from local materials. The two ditches dug either side of the road were not only boundaries but also the source of the road building material. The method of construction varied according to the type of rock they could dig up. Only in marshy areas would they import material from other areas. In Hampshire the London to Winchester road passes through chalk hills, the ground is not unlike that of Sedgeford although there seems to be a lot more clay than you find in Chalk Pit Field. As a consequence in this area the Romans have built their road from packed flint. In nearby Surrey the road crosses the gravel terraces of the Thames Valley and there the road is made from gravel. The road we are digging is a 'secondary' road and in most places where it has been excavated ony one or two layers of flint have been discovered. The site we dug recently is an exception in that it has three layers of flint. This may be because crossroads were better built or perhaps the new road that has been discovered was more important.

The Saxon ditch seems to have been dug along the centre of the new road and the embankment piled up on the western side. The dense packed layer of flint does not seem to have deterred them and they may have deliberately chosen to dig it up as a handy source of material for the embankment. The eastern side of the road was left untouched and remains as a flat terrace about a metre wide running parallel to the boundary. The boundary runs very straight for about a kilometre

Many Roman Roads were built by the Legions and were designed with defence from ambushes in mind. The course of the road was deliberately built up at least a metre above the surrounding land, that way if a column of troops were attacked from the flanks they merely had to turn to face the enemy and they were immeditely defending a line of higher ground. That combined with the boundary trench made it very difficult to attack them. Wherever it was possible they would ensure a clear line of sight either side of the road so that any ambushers would be spotted beyond the range of their javelins. Where this could not be done they dug very deep trenches or built other earthworks to prevent an ambush. Examples of this have been found on the London to Winchester road.

hello everybody, not been active on the forum for a while, busy. Hello Nic, where are you and what are you doing? Have you and miner John made any progress with the GTW? I followed your example and am now studying towards a degree, archaeology and landscape history. So far going well, bit of a struggle though fitting it in with work and family but, of course, you and Sam were right, you are never too old for it.
Sorry to appear inpatient but does anyone know when the '09 prospectus will be published? I am keen to book up ASAP -I don't have the luxury of choosing when I take leave it is given to me subject to the needs of the service- so if I am going to be at Sedgeford this year I need to fit it in with work colleagues etc. Also a couple of my fellow students have expressed an interested in doing a BERT too.
It would be good to hear from you Nic, or anyone else for that matter,
best wishes, Phil.

Thanks Brenda, I would lke to be there from the 4th July as a volunteer, if there are any day courses during that week I will be interested but not crucial as I probably could fit in the odd couple of days later in the summer. The way my shifts fall I might be able to come a couple of days earlier if you need a hand with anything before the season starts proper. I'll e-mail you my shift pattern for the end of June early July and if you think I could be useful just give me the nod.
My course is going very well thank you, I was nervous at first of the whole going back to school thing but there is a lot to be said for the mature student. Applying life experience and general knowledge that many younger students don't have. I have taken to it like a duck to water although I think the time is right now, I am not sure that I could have done it even just 5 years ago and it all came about by a chance meeting at my local history society meeting in August.
Thanks again and I look forward to seeing you all in July.
Phil.

Greetings Phil! It sounds as though you can make it for the first week; that's what I'm planning too, so looking forward to catching up.It's a good time to get time off, leaving parents the school holidays, and a big plus, everyone is so pleased to see each other. I did notice on my end of season visit last year that some relationships were getting a bit frayed! I'm not studying, partly because the UEA has had to more than double fees and cut courses, and more importantly, we're building a straw bale house in our garden for my Mum. 'Mudding' the wall with clay and chopped straw feels like experimental archaeology sometimes: I'm betting some of those AS houses were pretty neat. West Stow is good for getting a feel; especially if you remember the AS were probably better at it. I bet they didn't burn smokey unseasoned logs in their hearth?!
There's a short length of surviving roman road in the woods on Marsham heath, in that the raised road and ditches are clearly visible. Curious that this small section survives, and doesn't appear to have continued in use.
I bet you're enjoying the course; where are you doing it?
Had a couple of days fieldwalking at Sedgeford last week; no amazing finds, a little Roman, and a good scatter of medieval pottery; slag and coal, charcoal and bitumen? Nothing AS. I can wait to get back to the dig, I'm still trying to get some handle on it all. Take care.

One for all you environmental archaeologists....
I surveyed a site recently for my course which was an anglo-saxon abbey. It continued in use until the dissolution. It is now a SAM and used as pasture for sheep. Between 1968 and 1979 the whole site was used as winter resting for a travelling circus. A previous archaeological survey and excavation had taken place during 2006. The 2006 survey included a phosphates study in an attempt to show land use. the particular subject for my survey was identified as a medieval stock enclosure of some sort about 40m square. The stock enclosure had raised phosphate levels between two and three times higher than most of the site, but, and a big but too, the stock enclosure had been the site of the elephant enclosure. Surely the waste produced by the elephants over ten years would affect/corrupt any sampling? Forgive my ignorance if I am mistaken but I haven't yet covered environmental archaeology. I should add that the sampling was done at between 1 and 1.5 metres at the bottom of the enclosure ditch.
thanks, Phil.

Is there room for a couple of elephants in chalk pit field this season?
The enclosure ditch is still clearly defined, the elephants wee would have collected in it each time the elephant enclosure was hosed down, presumably every day?
Thanks for the reply anyway.

Also a factor must be environmental impact. The warm hot summer of '76 may have dried out the soil so much that it cracked to a considerable depth allowing the wee to penetrate, alternately it may have made the soil so hard that the urine simply evapourated before it had a chance to penetrate. Were there any environmental trends between '68 and '79, such as very wet winters etc?
As you say too difficult, but a good talking point.
I just thought about your 'elephant peeing equivalents', we could use less people if we simply held a punch party every night of the season!!