We are fortunate to be allowed continued access to our new permission where we thought that there may be an Anglo-Saxon settlement.

As per the last post we published where 4 Anglo-Saxon coins were recovered, we recovered another 5 coins, one of them being extremely rare.
The coin is a new variety of sceat, being that of King Alchred AD 765 - 774.

Another surprising fact is that we have only recovered a few pieces of pottery, and that is from any period!
No Saxon pottery as yet, but Medieval and a couple of Roman sherds have surfaced.
What is strange is that we've recovered 7 Roman brooches and fragments as well as other Roman metallic items, but very little pottery.

As can be seen from our Flickr site, there are several Medieval metallic artefacts but, again, proportionately less pottery.
Another oddity is the lack of C12th to C15th coinage with only 2 coins coming up, a Richard Ist penny and your good old favourite, a penny of Edward Ist.

We're going to venture back soon to carry on our survey and see if any more interesting artefacts come to light.

​Meanwhile, here's a link to our latest finds <here>

​We'll report back soon.....

We visited a brand new permission last week that we gained in May this year.
We suspected that the site is Anglo-Saxon due to the research we carried out.

Unfortunately, the site has been ransacked by nighthawkers over the last 5 years, so many rare Anglo-Saxon coins and artefacts will have been stolen.

The first coin to emerge was indeed a Saxon styca of Aethelred II dating to AD 840 - AD 858.
Another styca and two sceats were also recovered during the same visit.
As well as Saxon coinage, Roman coins and artefacts also surfaced.
Several pieces of lead and small ferrous items were encountered reflecting that the site had been a very site over the years.
Saxon pins, mounts and Medieval objects also saw the light of day.

For the images of this visit, please visit this link: flic.kr/s/aHBqjARRT8

The archaeological dig at our Yorkshire farm went really well with lots of Roman pottery coming up including some fantastic large pieces!
Interesting to see the sizes of some of the pits and ditches.

There will be another report soon!

Well, after a false start due to the JCB having a technical problem the dig got underway with a ditch appearing within the first few minutes.
It wasn't long before several more features started to show including pits, post holes and other yet-to-be-explored archaeology.

​Here are a few of the first images showing just some of the features:

​There will be more images and news over the next few days.....

Next week see's the start of our annual dig in East Yorkshire.
​People from all over the world will be returning to one of the most popular digs carried out by DigVentures.

The JCB will cut the first trenches on Monday morning and we'll be there to survey the spoil heaps and trench floors.
The archaeologists are also conducting remote sensing in other areas including an area that we suspect may be a shrine site.

Whilst there, we will try and catch up with a few landowners as to the state of their harvest progress.
One has potatoes growing in a field that has produced the most Anglo-Saxon artefacts in any field we have ever surveyed.
Another farm (a new permission) has invited us to survey an area that has had nighthawkers stealing the history there for the last 5 years.
This could be another Anglo-Saxon site.

There are 4 more new permissions that we will be visiting during the dig.

Hopefully, we'll have more news and photo's over the next couple of weeks.

Our sites that were productive have now showing signs of serious 'artefact diminution' 
We could in essence search the entire landholding of all the permissions we have but this would be an impossible task due to our life-time expectancies.
After all, we've only targeted a small area of a farm to conduct a survey with no expectation to survey any other area of that farm.
So, if we had permission to survey 50 farms, that would, in reality, be 50 fields. A majority of farms have far more than 50 fields under their ownership.

So, we ventured out on a beautiful sunny day to visit 5 farms that we had researched with a view to asking for permission to survey.

The first farm was down a very long farm track.
We parked up next to the kennels with two beautiful labs that were wagging their tails enthusiastically. 
Our research showed that there may be a Saxon settlement there so we were quite excited at the prospect of gaining a permission here.
The landowner came out to greet us and after the initial 'cold' meet we got on really well with him. He did make a point of the dogs not barking, he said that they always bark at any approaching vehicle or person!
He was surprised by our knowledge of the area.
A downside to the visit was to learn that nighthawkers had targeted the same area we wished to survey 5-years on-the-trot.
Unfortunately, this scum had come across what we'd suspected to be a special site. Hopefully we can rescue the remaining artefacts that may be there. 

The second farm we visited has evidence of Romano-British and, perhaps, Anglo-Saxon habitation.
The farmhouse is quite a distance from our survey site and is adjacent to his son's house and land.
Again, we were invited to return as soon as the crops are harvested.​ 

The third farm has definitely got Roman history there.
After a good exchange of history and cultural discussions, we were again invited to return at harvest time.

The fourth farm visit was again successful with the landowner saying we could come back at harvest. 
Our suspicions of Roman activity were verified when the landowner said the other detectorists had found Roman coins there.

The fifth farm however was a definite 'no'. 
This was quite a strange affair as the person we spoke to was the landowners son and came out with some odd remarks.
He said "we don't like the idea of people walking around our fields".
Another comment was "how would you like it if someone was walking around your garden?"
Another comment was "if others see you detecting, hundreds will start to come".
This was a legitimate request to survey their field and I'm afraid that if we could ascertain that there's a large Roman settlement there, nighthawkers will eventually find the same evidence.

Phase 2 of our permission requests will start in ernest soon......

​Let's hope that our new 2023/2024 season starts well.
 

We revisited a 24-acre stubble field that has produced several artefacts from the Roman period to modern day items.
This was out 3rd visit with still a large section of the field to cover.
The stubble was fairly soft and the soil is a silty loam which is lovely to dig as it's quite loose.

​We were confident that there would be further Medieval artefacts within the plough soil.
Apart from a few Medieval artefacts, nine Medieval and Post Medieval coins were recovered.
Modern coins were also found, including a nice George III sixpence dated 1816.
A surprise find was a Roman trumpet brooch.
Another nice recovery was a bi-conical and decorated spindle whorl.
 
A large amount of Post Medieval coins have been recovered in this particular field as well as a few dress hooks.

​All together, we recovered 9 silver hammered coins.

​HD images for the days finds can be seen here.

Wow! The rain has stopped, the only trouble now is that the land is soaked AND frozen. We've been our on several occasions were the temps were hovering around -2C to +2C but have never had the ground so hard... ever!!

We had one run and decided that it was too difficult to dig. Besides, the conditions were such that any holes couldn't be accurately placed due to the solid surface, therefore risking damage to any hidden artefacts.

We moved to some pasture near the farmhouse and, as expected, we started finding lots of pre-decimal coinage and modern artefacts.
Good fun doing a bit of coin-shooting for a change.
We found 42 pre-decimal coins and other items all together.

The fun wore off a little so we looked for somewhere else to play.
We came across a field that was our very first field we visited at this farm in 2015.
It was in stubble and is home to a very large Roman settlement.
Within half-an-hour we had recovered 9 Roman grots and two denarii, one  of Julia Domna and one of Julia Maesa dated 200 AD and 218 - 222 AD respectively. 

With the light starting to fade we made our way back to the cars and the long journey home.

​Lets hope our intended field has thawed somewhat for next weekend!

​The link to all the images can be found here.

We've had a slow start, mid-season, for various reasons, the main one being another wet winter.
We're currently "enjoying" a dry spell...... but that means it's going to be cold, very cold. At least we can 'tog-up' wearing lots of layers and warm footwear.

The consensus is that we aim to finish of a field we started on the 27th November last year. The field was in stubble at the time and is about 24-acres in size. 

Fingers crossed for this Sunday and we'll report back as soon as!

We returned to the field we were in last week where we recovered 59 Roman coins and other artefacts including some nice Medieval buckles.

The difference with this visit was that we were joined by YouTube detectoress superstar 'Digger Dawn'.
Her record for finding Roman coins in a day was 5 and that was in Norfolk.
Dawn was hoping that this total could be beaten.

The weather was perfect, if a tad cool, with clear blue sky and the ground frozen with a 3-inch crust, but the underlying soil was very fluffy and easy to dig.

Within seconds of setting off the first Roman coin was recovered.
It wasn't long before more Roman coins were being uncovered by all the team.

Dawn realised her ambition of beating her previous total by finding nine Roman coins and a token Roman brooch fragment.
I think the total amount of Roman coins almost matched last weeks total of 59 with 3 Roman brooch fragments, a Roman button and loop fastener and a obligatory hammered coin.

As promised, here's the Flickr link to images of the finds recovered <Flickr>

Today, we headed for a field that we last visited in December 2021.
The field had been ploughed and drilled with wheat which was quite advanced in parts. This was probably due to the recent warm weather and then plenty of rain.

The day didn't start too well as two of the machines suffered coil problems from the start with a constant 'chattering' that made it very difficult to detect.
A change to the 9" HF coil sorted the problem and no further issues arose.

This site is a small Roman settlement situated on a Roman roadside and may have been some kind of retail site as there are many coins strewn around the area, especially along the road.
Oddly, the first coin to be recovered was a silver hammered penny of Edward I minted at Bury St Edmunds.
Another silver hammered coin was also recovered later on in the day in the form of a Elizabeth I penny minted at London.

Altogether, 58 Roman bronze coins, a denarius of Julia Domna and several artefacts were recovered.

The field is just over 23-acres so we only scratched the surface of it!

​Hopefully, we'll return before the wheat grows much more.

Images of the days finds can be seen here.