Hello everyone.

I've just read this season's weblogs and am very pleased and excited to see such good quality excavation finally yeilding some of the best evidence for structures of the Middle Saxon settlement at Sedgeford. Unfortunately I was in Berkshire for two months over the summer, supervising the excavation of Insula IX at Silchester Roman town, and couldn't visit the open trenches this year. Once again the weblog has proved a fantastic resource for us, now more liminal, Sharpies to stay in touch with current developments. It warmed my heart to see the traditions of the punch party and fancy dress also continuing, recorded in the photographic record of facebook.

Back in the spring, I was prompted to begin a discussion about Sedgeford's similarity to other nearby Saxon sites by some research I was doing on Terrington St Clement. I realized then that there were several similarities between the sites and the method of data collection, which my original post listed as follows:

"1. Fieldwalking at Terrington initially found over 1000 sherds of Ipswich ware, at the time a huge uncharacteristic total. Sedgeford has easily this many sherds of Ipswich. So to me this seemed similar - although speaking to Gareth, he thinks this amount of Ipswich isn't neccesarily uncharacteristically high for Saxon sites in the region. This leads me to the second similarity.

2. Terrington has had two long thin evaluation trenches dug there, which found pits and ditches of Middle and Late Saxon date. This makes our amount of information, recovered from the Sedgeford 2007 evaluation, a very nice size for comparison. Specifically, the trend in animal bone, amongst other things. With regard to metal work, Gareth pointed out to me that Terrington has very little, whereas Sedgeford has loads. Although much of the Sedgeford material comes from the largescale excavation of the cemetery."

The 2007 chalkpit work produced such important evidence because it was directly comparable with that collected by the Terrington evaluations. The 2008 work puts us in another unique position with regard to evidence: open area excavation, supported by a level of geophysical survey absent from most other sites.

Hi Matt, i think the d-shape enclosure, which I have called a stock enclosure, is the southern limit of intense activity. The pottery loss from surface collection is concentrated to the north of this. I have all the figures you request in the archive report, but unfortunately cannot post picture links etc here (will forward a PDF link once I have drafted the report in Sept). The correspondance between geophysical anomalies and the trenching (especially this year) is excellent!

My feeling is that Sedgeford and Terrington St Clements are very different sites, with contrasting roles and functions. However, they are now apprporiate fro comparision (I have asked Krios to post something on the animal bones). In terms of metal work, Sedgeford does have more BUT it still is not up there with the top sites (although ourexcavation has recovered iron finds of the 10th century which is good). West Walton in the fens is more rich in non-ferrous metal loss for example.

I think the thing that is noe clear is that the settlement hierarchy is vast, multi-functional and ever changing: the thing we might be able to do (eventually) is start placing these sites within the hierarchy.

Right, off to Denmark! G x

Gareth, you say that you think the D enclosure marks the southern-most extent of intense activity. I'm trying to get this straight in my head (difficult because I always switch N and S at Sedgford).
Isn't the D enclosure on the northern extent of what has been excavated in Chalkpit Field so far ? And therefore the enclosure continues southwards up the hill ?
Am I remembering the geophys wrong ? I thought the apparent archaeology it showed continued south into the enclosure.

Another question.
If what was excavated represents (1) some sort of industrial site and,(2) possibly high status association, doesn't that imply that somewhere there is a high status homestead with house, barns etc. ?
If so, any ideas where that might be ?

Also trying to post a picture. My area at Silchester this year, from a cherrypicker.

I obviously was not paying enough attention during tours. Is the D enclosure the same as or distinct from the big enclosure ditch.
I hope Phil is right about the settlement - the location of houses - being further up the slope. I would have thought that where they were would be more finds of a domestic nature - or is that not typically the case ?

A trench across the 'large enclosure ditch' next year would be interesting - just to make sure it isn't Roman. Also, I always wondered if that big linear depression in the field is from an old springline, similar to Ladywell in Saxon times. It would have been a good reason for the settlement location in that case, and I've always been interested in putting a trench across that.

For those not able to get to Sedgeford this year here is a copy of the geophysics survey. I am no computer wizz but I think I have successfully compressed the image. Bear in mind that it is a scanned photocopy and not the original. Trenches 6,7 and 8 are plotted. The square part of trench 6 was 20 metres by 20 metres, this gives some impression of the overall size of the enclosure/drainage ditch. I believe that the white area at the top marked with +003 is the manhole next to the hedge.

Hi all (again),

With regard to the several circular anomalies potentially identified within the enclosure ditch:

If these are the ones I think Phil is talking about, during the survey I recall many large, wide and deep tight curvi-linear plough ruts where agricultural machinery had been turned around. The magnetic strength of some of these are below 2nT/m. It is the responses to these that may be showing in the dataset.

Also, along similar lines, the strong linear anomaly aligned roughly e-w, passing just south of the chalk pit and cutting through the D shaped enclosure ditch is actually a 1 metre wide ditch between the bird cover and the cultivated part of the field. I remember it well - as I fell in it. It is all in the report.

Best wishes,

Dave

(Grid Nine Geophysics)

Hi all,

A VES section across the declavity may reveal anomalies associated with a stream. If there are questions being asked about the origins of the depression it would certainly be worth considering.

Dave.

A number of people have commented on how good the relationship is between what was excavated and what was picked up on the geophysics survey. I have to say how impressed I am with the whole geophysics thing. Being a beginner to archaeology the only time I had come across geophysics was on time team and often what the survey shows and what is found are not related at all. I had no notion at all that geophysics could be quite so exact, to pick up what could be turning circles of agricultural vehicles is, to me, incredible.
Dave, where can I see a copy of the geophysics report? Is there any plan to extend the survey across the ridge to the east, south of the wood? i.e. east of the '14' anomalies, has that area been the subject of field walking? Although I suppose that with so much 'going on' in chalk pit field looking further afield is not a priority.
Again for those not lucky enough to have visited sedgeford this year I am going to try to post a photograph of trench 6 before any excavation had taken place. It is taken from the south west corner looking east along the enclosure/drainage ditch. The relationship between the survey and what you can see is remarkable.

I have compressed it so much that it looks awful if you zoom in. Back to the drawing board, or rather back to the kids...one of them will know how to do it properly.

Hi all,

It indeed would be useful to extend the geophysics in all directions. However, the dataset does demonstrate that we are experiencing a falling off of the magnitude of the anomalies the further away from the main settlement we go. Basically what this means is that is less and less magnetically enhanced material going into the ditches. But we do know there is stuff to the south (the RB project area).
Those blobs could be thermoremnent features (one does have a 'kiln-type' response in the trace data), but I think they are more likely to be pit-type features with highly magnetic fills, possibly the result of anthropogenic/industrial working nearby - but it could be deeply buried ferrous, rubbish the landowner has used to fill holes in the field or even geomorpological. Intrusive investigation may be the only answer to their origins.

Gareth Davies/SHARP have the report, so you would have to get permission off SHARP to obtain one directly from us. Although I am a Trustee of SHARP you better get a 'collective' nod from SHARP first - just in case.

Hope this helps.

Dave.

(Grid Nine Geophysics).

Hi Eve,

Earth resistance (sometimes incorrectly called 'resistivity' by many) relies on moisture content (and other factors) in the ground to work best. Is this what you mean?
If so, yes, we use earth resistance occasionally to locate foundations of structures (I think SHARP has one somewhere). The VES method is also a variation on the earth resistance theme, but can see deeper because it uses different electode spacings than the more common one you see on Time Team which is usually a standard twin probe array. The VES uses a variation on the Wenner array with 20 probes over 20 metres in a straight line. This would be good across the est side of CPF. It would not give you all the answers, but the data may help.

Best wishes,

Dave

(Grid Nine Geophysics)

Hi Eve,

We use magnetometry most of the time. It is fairly quick and good for evaluating a site. The survey in CPF was a magnetometer survey using a fluxgate gradiometer (so, technically, it was a gradiometer survey in case I get emails!) The only real problem is that the operator has to be completely ferrous-free and it is good at picking up ferrous objects like the manhole cover in CPF.
There are two main types that are in daily use, these are magnetometer surveying and earth resistance surveying. Ground penetrating Radar (GPR) is becoming more common, but its uses are even more specialist than mag' or res' - and it is expensive.
If you pop on to our website at http://www.gridnine-geophysics.co.uk (huge, obvious plug) there are some examples and explanations of what we do and how and why mag' and res' works.
VES stands for Vertical Electrical Sections - put simply it is an earth resistance survey going vertically into the ground rather than going across the ground in a series of grids. It produces a vertical section rather than a plan view.

Hope this helps,

Dave

(Grid Nine Geophysics)

Dave, thanks for the explanation. Were there any other geophysical surveys before the 2008 chalkpit field survey?

Dave, hyperthetical question, if money was not a factor would there be any value in carrying out a survey of cpf using ground penetrating radar?
Phil.

Yes, I realised that as soon as I posed the question. What is going on at somerton castle?

Me and Soph did some magnetometry in CPF at Easter 2002 - i discovered the settlement was up there first - bah!

Back to somerton castle....the double skin curtain wall....is this the unusual design feature? I visited Pickering castle in Yorkshire many years ago -BC- (before children), I think Pickering also has double skin curtain walls with walkways between, I thought this was unusual then but I am no expert on Norman castles.
On to the geophys...did the earlier excavations match so closely with the geophys as the 2008 trenches?
thanks, phil.

Perhaps it was just me but there were a number of comments on how the results of excavation this year really did correspond with the geophys. I wrongly assumed that this hadn't happened before. Maybe previous years excavations didn't relate to the previous geophys quite so well but trench 6 was remarkable, you could see every feature from the geophys on the ground. As a complete beginner I was impressed. BUT, I have not seen the older geophys. When the new website has them available I will purchase the earlier published reports, hopefully before next season.
Now that I have done a BERT is it possible for me to get involved with the pre-season work such as field walking and geophys if these things are planned for next year?
Phil.

That's the point of BERT - you should get to work as much as you want/can afford to now! Since I'm no longer involved in organising things like that I don't know what the mechanisms are, but I guess keeping an eye on here is a good start.
Soph

hi all! great comments. im just back from denmark so will work at getting the 2007 report including geopyhsics etc etc availableto everyone ?via the archive site asap! please bear with me im not witholding info, just got soooooooooooooooo much to do

g x

Hello, I know this conversation ran out of steam.... but it started me thinking. The discussion about the possible stream; surely the hill can only be shaped by water. Its not a hollow way. I had a couple of wonderful days fielding walking at Easter in Hope Piece, two large fields away up the valley, to the east, -ish. Same shape in the land and along the valley sides.[One of the prettiest spots in Norfolk, looking up the valley to Fring and way beyond, field, wood and rolling hills]
There is a spot locally [ to me in Cawston ] which looks similar, water shaped 'valley'. I'm finding a lot of pot-boilers at the top of the valley. Here the geology is essentially a clay plateau, with a top coat of glacial sands. The clay layer forces a line of springs out along the valley side, but the water table is probably 15 m. lower than it must have been then. Any similar geology at Sedgeford?
A flowing spring was more important than the river as a source of clean drinking water. The river was boats, eels, ducks, an important resource, but not a basic essential.
Franes Pryor would begin to talk of ritual sites at this point!?