"The archaeology album." by leics

I want to enthuse people about archaeology, because the past is vital to our understanding of the present. Evidence of the past is being destroyed everywhere, everyday, and that knowledge is being lost. You don't have to get involved, just understand that what was once where you are now can help you to understand where you came from and where you may be going.

How would you feel if you picked up a Mesolithic stone hammer, last touched by a human being perhaps 10 000 years ago?

How long did it take to drill the hole in the middle with no metal tools?

Was it lost? Abandoned? Replaced by a better one? Did the person who made/ owned it die? Or has it come from a grave, disturbed by farming thousands of years later?

What about this harness decoration? Did it fall from the bridle of a knight's horse whilst he was fighting in a Medieval battle?

Too many people (in the UK, at least) think that archaeology is about finding treasure because those are the aspects which get the most media attention. But the most important part of archaeology is finding out how people in the past lived and trying to understand them. It's brilliant to find something which no other human has seen for 500 or 5000 years, but working out where an Anglo-Saxon person worked on their loom, or what internal parasites Vikings in York suffered from, is just as fascinating.

Archaeology in Britain is underfunded, so most digs are 'rescue' digs ..... excavating areas which are going to be built on or redeveloped. The people who do this type of digging are professionals, working to time limits and rather badly paid. 'Research' digs are undertaken by universities, usually involving training for their students. It is difficult to get permission for a research dig, as many archaeologists think that what is under the ground is better left there unless it is under threat. There are a few digs which take and train volunteers, notably in York, Northumbria and Norfolk. I have dug in York and Norfolk so far, the former a multi-phase (about 400 BC to 1950 AD) site and the latter an Anglo-Saxon (about 400 - 1000 AD)settlement.

Apart from historical (written) clues, aerial photography can show sites in outline through cropmarks, soilmarks and parchmarks in grass (the letter fairly rare in the UK, for obvious reasons). Chance finds in fields can also give clues (for example, chunks of roof tile and mosaic tesserae suggest a Roman villa ), which is why fieldwalking is important. Most sites in the UK, however, are chance discoveries during redevelopment. The law now requires all new building to include an archaeological assessment, which is a great improvement. Recent discoveries made in this way include an Iron Age (about 1500 BC to 55 AD) chariot burial and an incredibly rich and well-preserved Anglo-Saxon burial chamber. The Council of British Archaeology at www.britarch.ac.uk has many interesting articles and reports about recent archaeological discoveries.

As well as aerial photography and fieldwalking, archaeologists can use modern equipment to 'see' through the soil and investigate sites. Resistivity meters, magnetometers and ground-penetrating radar are all useful tools. They require fewer people (so costs are kept down) and also have the advantage of giving us information without affecting the site. All excavation is destruction ..... once a site is dug it is gone forever.

I really enjoy all my archaeological investigations .....so much so that I've also gained some academic qualifications in my 'spare' time! Nothing else quite matches the feeling I get from actively exploring the past. I hope this album has sparked a little interest in you too.