Today saw the team visit a brand new permission in Lincolnshire.
The farm has several features such as a Medieval church, a Roman villa, a Bronze Age feature and an Iron Age or Romano-British settlement.
The first survey area was the Roman villa site which looked quite promising from the documentation. The landowner stated that there wasn't much evidence to support the theory of a villa and not much had been found metal-detecting previously. The archaeological papers say otherwise.
We marked out the "villa" perimeter and set out to discover what evidence that may be there.
Some lead items were found, some of them quite large, with 29 fragments of Roman pottery and one piece of Medieval pottery. No Samian Ware was amongst the assemblage which would be odd for a Roman villa site.
Part of a Roman "T" style fibula, a Roman buckle and an extremely rare head of a bronze statuette were recovered. This was a contradiction in terms of villa/settlement status as there is usually Samian Ware on high status sites but finding a bronze statuette on site is puzzling.
Another puzzle was that there wasn't any coinage whatsoever in the area.
We are currently trying to ascertain the identity of the bust which is quite exciting as this is a first bronze figurine for the team.
Initial results and thoughts are Mars and Vulcan.
The next area to come under the spotlight was a 115ft circular feature that looked to be Bronze Age.
Nothing could be seen at ground level so the centre was marked out and an overlapping square was gridded. No metallic signals were encountered.
The third area was a wheat stubble field right up against the church but again, not many metallic items were recovered. The stubble was quite a challenge too.
The draw of the field of which the landowner had mentioned that was full of Roman pottery was too much of a temptation........
The fourth field was roughly ploughed but again, very sandy and soft.
We thought it might be worth using the machines as well as fieldwalking as you never know what might be on top of the furrows.
This is something that we have never done as it is normally rolled and drilled but it just seemed "right" to do.
We set off in three different directions as this was only a recce and we found the field very soft to walk on.
There was quite a lot of pottery, both Medieval and Roman but not many metallic signals due to the field conditions.
After ten minutes there was a call on the two-way radio, "I think I have found my first Celtic gold". With that, Rob and I went over to see what all the fuss was all about. Sure enough, Robin was holding a Corieltauvi gold stater in his hand!
Although not many metallic finds were recovered here, several pieces of Roman and Medieval pottery was found.
The gods were smiling on us, with the head of the bronze god statuette and the gold stater, the day was a very strange mix of emotions indeed, other than that, not much else appeared.
We agree with the landowner regarding his suspicions about the Roman "villa", his thoughts are that the villa wasn't there for that long.
Not much ferrous, not much lead nor any coinage at all point to a very short occupation on this site.
Quite a lot of worked flint was recovered from both the "villa" site and the roughly ploughed field showing that man was here 4,500 years previously.
Three almost perfectly round stones were found, one on the "villa" site and two on the roughly ploughed field.
HD images of the days finds can be seen here.
The farm has several features such as a Medieval church, a Roman villa, a Bronze Age feature and an Iron Age or Romano-British settlement.
The first survey area was the Roman villa site which looked quite promising from the documentation. The landowner stated that there wasn't much evidence to support the theory of a villa and not much had been found metal-detecting previously. The archaeological papers say otherwise.
We marked out the "villa" perimeter and set out to discover what evidence that may be there.
Some lead items were found, some of them quite large, with 29 fragments of Roman pottery and one piece of Medieval pottery. No Samian Ware was amongst the assemblage which would be odd for a Roman villa site.
Part of a Roman "T" style fibula, a Roman buckle and an extremely rare head of a bronze statuette were recovered. This was a contradiction in terms of villa/settlement status as there is usually Samian Ware on high status sites but finding a bronze statuette on site is puzzling.
Another puzzle was that there wasn't any coinage whatsoever in the area.
We are currently trying to ascertain the identity of the bust which is quite exciting as this is a first bronze figurine for the team.
Initial results and thoughts are Mars and Vulcan.
The next area to come under the spotlight was a 115ft circular feature that looked to be Bronze Age.
Nothing could be seen at ground level so the centre was marked out and an overlapping square was gridded. No metallic signals were encountered.
The third area was a wheat stubble field right up against the church but again, not many metallic items were recovered. The stubble was quite a challenge too.
The draw of the field of which the landowner had mentioned that was full of Roman pottery was too much of a temptation........
The fourth field was roughly ploughed but again, very sandy and soft.
We thought it might be worth using the machines as well as fieldwalking as you never know what might be on top of the furrows.
This is something that we have never done as it is normally rolled and drilled but it just seemed "right" to do.
We set off in three different directions as this was only a recce and we found the field very soft to walk on.
There was quite a lot of pottery, both Medieval and Roman but not many metallic signals due to the field conditions.
After ten minutes there was a call on the two-way radio, "I think I have found my first Celtic gold". With that, Rob and I went over to see what all the fuss was all about. Sure enough, Robin was holding a Corieltauvi gold stater in his hand!
Although not many metallic finds were recovered here, several pieces of Roman and Medieval pottery was found.
The gods were smiling on us, with the head of the bronze god statuette and the gold stater, the day was a very strange mix of emotions indeed, other than that, not much else appeared.
We agree with the landowner regarding his suspicions about the Roman "villa", his thoughts are that the villa wasn't there for that long.
Not much ferrous, not much lead nor any coinage at all point to a very short occupation on this site.
Quite a lot of worked flint was recovered from both the "villa" site and the roughly ploughed field showing that man was here 4,500 years previously.
Three almost perfectly round stones were found, one on the "villa" site and two on the roughly ploughed field.
HD images of the days finds can be seen here.
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