Our first fieldwalking session took place
on Saturday 20th April under a cloudless sky on a beautiful Spring
day.
In the morning Barbara Butler and the team
brought along a group from the Colchester Young Archaeologists. Following a briefing by Howard Brooks
from Colchester Archaeological Trust, they set out to walk across the field
scanning the ground as they went.
Archaeological fieldwalking ‘does what it
says on the tin.’ The piece of
ground under investigation is measured off into sections and you walk each
section keeping your eyes peeled for anything man-made or worked by human hand. You pick up anything you find and put
it in a bag labeled with the section number ready for later washing and
inspection. It’s good practice to try and keep to a certain amount of time for
each section so that you end up with a uniform sample. It sounds simple because it is! But it’s
surprising what you can find just sitting on the surface of the soil.
There was a lot of discussion as we tried to identify worked flints but we had plenty of help from Hilary, Emma, Kate, Amy and Barbara who are the enthusiastic leaders of Colchester Young Archaeologists.
The 10 young people who came along were interested in the project and keen to find artefacts. I really think they have an advantage over adults when it comes to fieldwalking - they've got sharp eyesight and being closer to the ground they're much more likely to spot things! They certainly seemed to be finding flints and also fossils - not what we were looking for but interesting none the less.
Some things we put in our bags were definitely maybes, some we weren't sure about at all but included 'just in case'. We'll be able to see our discoveries at the finds washing session at WCEC on Saturday May 4th 2.00 - 4.00pm. Join us there!
Thanks to YAC members, Barbara Butler and the team of helpers, also to Howard Brooks from CAT for organising us so well, and not forgetting the people who joined us for the afternoon session to carry on the search for finds.
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