HERITAGE
ARCHAEOLOGY: VIRTUALLY A THING OF THE PAST
Archaeology:
Past Virtually a thing of the
?
by Greg Prior
In this era of ‘virtual’ Parish Council Meetings, church services, choir practices, doctors’ appointments, lessons, keep-fit classes and tea parties, it seems you can do virtually everything online, except perhaps archaeology.
Surface finds from the 3rd to 19th centuries
...it is virtually impossible to socially distance in a metre-square test pit! Alas! David Hankins’ magic trowel is redeployed as a humble gardening tool and Gregg Duggan’s mighty mattock has been furloughed along with our cones until things are virtually back to the ‘old normal’.
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vil agetribune
Covid-19 certainly put pay to PAST’s excavation programme in Peakirk this year simply because it is virtually impossible to socially distance in a metre-square test pit! Alas! David Hankins’ magic trowel is redeployed as a humble gardening tool and Gregg Duggan’s mighty mattock has been furloughed along with our cones until things are back to the ‘old normal’. Meanwhile, what we all can do is to venture outdoors and look at the archaeology of our historic landscape, which is so much more clean-cut now that the harvest is home. Take for example, the view of the depression made by the now defunct Roman watercourse, Car Dyke, where it crosses Mile End Road between Glinton and Northborough and continues across a field of stubble. Following the 6m (19.5 feet) contour between the fens and the gravel uplands
for 92km [57 miles] from the River Nene at Peterborough to the River Witham near Lincoln, the Dyke was as an enormous an undertaking as Hadrian’s Wall when it was excavated in the first century AD. What an impact it must have had on the indigenous Iron-Age population (especially on the locals who were forced to dig it) and may be compared with the construction of the railways, in the nineteenth century, and our motorway network, in the twentieth! Then, after the land has been prepared for winter, walk alongside on the adjacent footpaths to see what the plough has turned up. In some parts of Tribland, you may find sherds of pottery dating back to the Iron Age. Castor is particularly famous for its resurgent Romano-British NeneValley ware, since there were numerous kilns near Ermine Street, in Normangate Field, and
