LANCASTER UNIVERSITY. REGIONAL HERITAGE CENTRE, Department of History. 44th ANNUAL ARCHAEOLOGY FORUM. 4 March 2017

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1 LANCASTER UNIVERSITY REGIONAL HERITAGE CENTRE, Department of History 44th ANNUAL ARCHAEOLOGY FORUM 4 March 2017 Ribchester Revisited: inside the north gate. Evidence from the 2015 and 2016 excavations Dr Duncan Sayer, University of Central Lancashire Ongoing field work at large fort in Ribchester, the Ribble Valley Lancashire, is traditionally considered abandoned in AD 370, fieldwork by UCLan suggest otherwise with evidence of continued occupation including a feature we are interpreting as a Fabrica. Excavations in 2016 reveal a flue, layers of burnet material, over a thousand fragments of slag and pieces of crucible. This fabrica was situated just past the North gate, opposite the granaries and was probably repurposed from a previously prominent barrack block. Additional evidence incudes the opening up of space within this part of the fort and with the discovery of coins and brooches, we suggest that this space offers evidence for a complex social interplay which existed between the fort and the external world. Coin and pottery data evidences occupation of Ribchester into later Roman and immediately post-roman phases, and it is in this context that making, mending and trading was used to construct identities and create or recreate social connections. Flying over the Past: the use of drones and LIDAR in community projects Louise Martin, Morecambe Bay Partnership Since 2014, Morecambe Bay Partnership has been delivering the Headlands to Headspace Landscape Partnership Scheme, designed to investigate, record and celebrate the rich heritage of the Bay. During this time, innovative and high-tech recording and investigation techniques such as the use of photogrammetry, Unmanned Aerial Aircrafts (drones) and LiDAR have become more accessible. The rise of such techniques has enabled the team from Morecambe Bay Partnership to commission specialists to capture records of key heritage sites- like they never have been seen before. The focus of this work has been not only to create a recent record but to provide a tool for investigation and monitoring, as part of community projects. This presentation will take you on a journey on how the technique of photogrammetry (use of photographs to make 3D models) and aerial survey has been applied to key sites around the Bay, including military remains on Walney Island and the intriguing remains at Jenny Brown s Point. The work undertaken in 2015 at Gleaston Castle, as part of a Castle Studies Trust Grant, and the fascinating results acquired will also be presented. The flight path will continue onto Warton Crag where a specially commissioned LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey is helping both professionals and community groups define, explore and challenge the common interpretation of this site as a multivallate hillfort. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) uses pulsed laser beams fired from a plane, which is fitted with specialist equipment that captures the returned laser beam, both from when it hits objects in its path (such as trees/buildings) and where it has been able to penetrate through to the ground surface. The application of LiDAR to archaeological study is becoming increasingly important, especially as the 1

2 laser beams have the capacity to penetrate through gaps in vegetation/tree canopy which enable features to be revealed from beneath the trees. What could this technique reveal about the site at Warton and how will this direct future studies at the site? During the break forum participants a welcome to have a go at photogrammetry using IPads and a freely available app 123D Catch. An Update on Furness Abbey Jeremy Bradley, Oxford Archaeology North Between 2009 and 2014, Oxford Archaeology North and Headland Archaeology undertook a series of archaeological works within and around the presbytery of the church at Furness Abbey. The works were undertaken in association with a multi-stage scheme of underpinning works that was required to ensure the stability of the standing remains of the presbytery. This was due to major structural cracks having been observed, the growth of which was accelerating, and given the abbey s history of structural instability (the north transept was underpinned in the 1920s and 30s), this was a source of alarm. The programme of consolidation and repair devised English Heritage is now complete and OA North are now in the process of analysing all the data produced during the excavations. A number of significant discoveries and finds were revealed during the excavations, which included the confirmation of the long held belief that the earliest Savigniac presbytery was apsidal in form, the later cellular raft that supported the later Cistercian presbytery, the failure of which lead to the structural problems that have dogged the remains of the Abbey over that last century. The excavations also revealed a number of burials in a variety of modes (including examples in cists and lead coffins), both within the presbytery, sacristy and external graveyard. The most lauded of these was that of man with a crozier, thought to be an early abbot of the abbey. The analysis of the bones is beginning to reveal something about the lives and deaths of the people who were buried in the abbey; from degenerative diseases caused by overconsumption, higher than usual incidences of tooth decay, the detection of a fishy diet, and the possibility that abnormal bone growth on one of the skeletons may have been caused by horse riding. Unusual also, were the presence of a small number of women buried in the presbytery. Whilst Carbon 14 dating has shed light on what are likely to be some of the earliest, if not the first burials at the abbey. High Living: the upland longhouses of the Duddon Valley Jamie Quartermaine, Oxford Archaeology North and Stephe Cove, Duddon Valley Local History Group The Duddon Valley Local History Group, in conjunction with Oxford Archaeology North and the Lake District National Park Authority, have embarked on a three year programme of community survey and excavation to record a series of long houses on the upland margins of the Duddon Valley, in South-West Cumbria. In the 2016 season detailed surveys of three longhouses, near Seathwaite Tarn, were undertaken by volunteers, under professional supervision, using a broad range of techniques from theodolite to drone. This was followed by the community excavation of the Tongue House A long house, which was revealed to have had two phases of development; the first of which was a two celled structure with a cross passage. In the second phase the cross passage was replaced with a thick dry-stone dividing wall, and the two cells thereafter had independent access. The radiocarbon chronology is uncertain but would suggest a foundation in the late medieval/early postmedieval period. Pleae visiti the Duddon Valley Local History Group at 2

3 Twelve Years a FLO: the highlights and pitfalls of recording finds in North West England Dr Dot Boughton, Finds Liaison Officer, Lancashire and Cumbria, Portable Antiquities Scheme The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a DCMS funded project to encourage the voluntary recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales. Every year many thousands of objects are discovered, many of these by metal-detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening or going about their daily work. The bulk of the recording and liaison work is being carried out by 38 Finds Liaison Officers (FLOs), with many counties having their own FLO. Since 2004 Lancashire and Cumbria have had their own, shared, FLO. Outreach, especially in Cumbria, has always been difficult, with travel to museums on the West coast (such as Maryport, Whitehaven or Workington) taking up much of the FLOs time. There are two metal-detecting clubs in Cumbria and four in Lancashire. However, at one of the detecting clubs in Cumbria the FLO is not welcome and many detectorists in Northern Cumbria do not visit the only other club (based in Kendal) because of the distance. Even though the majority of detectorists in Southern and Eastern England are happy to share findspots to ten and twelve figure grid references with the FLO, many of the detectorists in the North are not. Only a handful of detectorists (especially the independent ones) in Cumbria and Lancashire are happy to share exact findspots. Traditionally, detectorists do no trust members of the archaeological profession and sadly, we find that little has changed up here in the past ten years. The Roman Temples Project Maryport: Excavating a cult sanctuary on Rome s Northern Frontier Professor Ian Haynes, Newcastle University, and Tony Wilmott,Visiting Fellow, Newcastle University Amongst the fine collections of the Senhouse Roman Museum at Maryport a group of altars recovered in 1870 holds a special place. These altars, mostly dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, were discovered in pits 300 m north east of the Roman fort. Their importance has long been recognised internationally. All of them were dedicated by soldiers within a short period of one another during the second century AD. Importantly, we can see that some named individuals, all commanding officers of Maryport, dedicated multiple altars within the group evidence for repeat offerings made at key moments in the religious year. The altars thus offer a powerful insight into the worship of Jupiter on the fringes of the Roman Empire, and are frequently cited as such by specialists worldwide, but many questions remained unanswered following the 1870 discoveries. Amongst these two were particularly significant, where were the altars originally displayed and why were they buried in pits. A long-standing theory was that as each new altar was erected at the side of the fort parade ground, its predecessor was ritually interred. Work by Professor David Breeze and Dr Peter Hill raised fundamental questions about the likelihood of this explanation, and in 2010 the Senhouse Museum Trust (SMT) invited applications to investigate the site of the 1870s discovery. Newcastle University was privileged to receive SMT s blessing and financial support, adding its own resources to the challenge. What began as a one year project ended up running for five years, all generously funded by SMT and Newcastle University, and benefitting support from volunteers and the local community. Team members first focussed on the location of the 1870s pits, examining how antiquarian excavations there were conducted. Scrutiny of these pits revealed several features that the nineteenth century investigators had not considered, amongst these was clear evidence that the pits were used as part of the foundations of massive timber buildings. Though the original floor surfaces were missing, elements of the plan of one phase could be reconstructed, enough to show that one of the buildings had a substantial apse. These buildings in turn overlay a curvilinear ditch which contained pottery from the late fourth century AD. In the process of reinvestigating the 1870s site, several other important new discoveries were made. Amongst these was a cluster of burials, one of the earliest of which contained a fragment of textile of late Roman date. The pattern of these burials, the way in which several intercut, and their 3

4 proximity to other features raises important questions about the overall interpretation of the site. For many colleagues, though, the most exciting discoveries were, however, elements of altars, including one complete example to Jupiter that had been missed by the 1870s excavators. Following extensive work at the 1870s site from 2011 to mid-season 2013, the team shifted its attention to an area 100 m to the south, where in 1880 another fragment of altar dedicated to Jupiter, and two buildings, one circular and one rectangular, had been discovered. Work in this area occupied the team until the end of fieldwork in 2015 and yielded several very important results. Excavations here demonstrated that the rectangular building was a classical style temple, the northwesternmost known example in the Roman world. They also uncovered evidence for animal sacrifice prior to the temple s construction. The circular building, previously interpreted as a mausoleum with cremations, was further investigated, revealing it to be a cult building with a porch. These two buildings, combined with evidence for walls, a free-standing monument, cobbled surfaces and a further structure, which seems to have served as some sort of entry point to the complex, illuminate the religious landscape of Roman Maryport. An Edwardian Archaeologist in Urswick: John Dobson and the North Lonsdale Field Club Dan Elsworth, Green Lane Archaeology John Dobson was born in 1855 in Stank near Appleby-in-Westmorland, the son of a farm labourer. He was clearly academically gifted and after qualifying as a teacher at Chester Training College was appointed headmaster at Urswick Grammar School, at the time in Lancashire north of the sands now also part of Cumbria. He appears to have soon acquired an active interest in the local archaeology and history, and after settling down and starting a family he was soon involved in the investigation of a variety of sites. The majority were in the immediate vicinity of Urswick itself, which is surrounded by a range of prehistoric monuments, and included important late prehistoric settlement sites, a stone circle, several barrows, caves, and a hillfort. In 1907 he was instrumental in the establishment of the North Lonsdale Field Club (NLFC), based in Ulverston, one of two local field clubs that engaged in archaeological work, the other being the Barrow Naturalists Field Club (BNFC), both of which operated alongside the more-well established Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (CWAAS). Dobson with the members of the NLFC published the majority of their results in the pages of the CWAAS, although in doing so they had to deal with the keen eye of its editor, William Gershom WG Collingwood. Collingwood (b d. 1932) was an almost direct contemporary of Dobson (b d. 1936) and while the two corresponded and collaborated on a number of these projects it s clear that they were not as a close as Collingwood was with the president of the BNFC. Nevertheless there are remarkable parallels between Dobs and Collingwood in their areas of interest and the research they were carrying out. Dobson published the first excavation of what we might now call a Romano- British settlement in 1906, and yet Collingwood tends to get more credit for his publications on a similar site in the years immediately after. Dobson evidently struggled with his workload at the school and a huge range of activities he was involved in in the village and the wider area, leading to at least two nervous breakdowns. Nevertheless, his achievements and contribution to the understanding of the areas archaeology and those of his cohorts deserve to be better known especially given the recent interest in Collingwood s work. For small parochial society they were remarkably forward thinking using photography to record their work and finds, carrying out scientific analysis of material. Unfortunately as Dobson became older and less active in the Club the standard of work seems to have declined and the last few sites they examined were never properly published. However, there is a substantial archive including a vast amount of original notes and drawings curated by his family, which not only fill in the gaps where work was not published, but also provide a fascinating insight into the workings of such an organisation. Dobson remained president of the NLFC for over 20 years, having been 4

5 headmaster at Urswick for over 44, but with his death the Club soon foundered. Much of the material from their museum did, however, find a home in the museum in Barrow-in-Furness and their work lives on through their publications and extensive archive. Dobson at work at the Stone Walls settlement, 1906 Publications by John Dobson and the NLFC W.G. Atkinson, 1927 Report on the Exploration of Bonfire Scar Cave and Dobson Cave, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 27, Committee of the North Lonsdale Field Club, The, 1922 Report on Further Excavations Carried out at the Druid s Circles, on Birkrigg in the Parish of Urswick, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 22, J. Dobson, 1907 Urswick Stone Walls, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd series, 7, J. Dobson, 1909 Urswick Field Names, Proceedings of the Barrow Naturalists Field Club, 17, J. Dobson, 1910 Stone Implements in Furness, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd series, 10, 509 J. Dobson, 1912 Report on an Ancient Settlement at Stone Close, near Stainton-in-Furness, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 12, J. Dobson, Neolithic Implements in Furness, Trans Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd series, 1914, 14, Excavation Committee of the North Lonsdale Field Club, The, per J. Dobson, 1927 Report on the Exploration of the Sunbrick Disc Barrow, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 27,

6 C. Gelderd and J. Dobson, 1912 Report on the Excavations Carried out at the Druids Circle on Birkrigg in the Parish of Urswick, September, 1911, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 12, C. Gelderd, J. Randall, and J. Dobson, 1914 Some Birkrigg Barrows, Trans Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd series, 14, North Lonsdale Field Club (ed), 1923 Two Reports Dealing with Finds of Prehistoric Remains in the Furness District, (Ulverston: The Ulverston Press) Other relevant sources Anon, 1951 North Lonsdale Field Club: Collection of Prehistoric Finds from Furness, Proceedings of the Barrow Naturalists Field Club, n ser, 7, W.K. Calvert, 1951 The North Lonsdale Field Club s Collection Antiquities, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 51, W.G. Collingwood, 1908 Report on an Exploration of the Romano-British Settlement at Ewe Close, Crosby Ravensworth, Transactions o the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 8, W.G. Collingwood, 1909 Report on a Further Exploration of the Romano-British Settlement at Ewe Close, Crosby Ravensworth, Transactions o the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 9, A. Fell, 1908 The Early Iron Industry of Furness and District (Ulverston, Hume Kitchen) C.I. Fell, 1947 A Reconsideration of the Finds from Low Lightburn Park, Ulverston, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 nd ser, 47, M. Lea and K. Lea (eds.), 2013 W.G. Collingwood s Letters from Iceland: Travels in Iceland 1897 by W.G. Collingwood and Jón Stefánson, (Cardiff, The R.G. Collingwood Society) M. Towend, 2009 The Vikings and Victorian and Lakeland: The Norse Medievalism of W.G. Collingwood and his Contemporaries, (Kendal, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, extra series 34) M. Winstanley (ed), 2016 Revealing Cumbria s Past: 150 Years of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, (Kendal: CWAAS) 6