SEDGEFORD HISTORICAL  AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT

Easter 2005 weblog

Diary and photos by Gareth Davies

The SHARP Easter season has run for two weeks from the 26^th of March until 9^th of April.  A combination of SHARP team members and volunteers have been involved in a number of activities. 

 On the 26^th of March the Human Remains Team held a refresher course for the recording of disarticulated human remains: a common artefact from the Boneyard cemetery on the southern slope of the Heacham river valley.  The day course in the Old Village Hall, Sedgeford, was well attended and subsequently the ‘disartic’ recording has continued apace. The Human Remains Team and volunteers recorded over 900 pieces of bone in the first week of recording, and this was only two boxes out of about twenty! Clearly this is an immense task, but when it is complete we will have a far better idea of the minimum number of individuals buried in the Boneyard cemetery.

Charlotte and Martin revising Human Skeletal Remains with course attendees Martin gets to the point

The two other main activities that have also been taking place are the traditional Easter fieldwalking, and also this year some much needed geophysical survey in the parish. 

Terry and his stalwart volunteers have spent two weeks lining out transects, marking up bags and going cross-eyed looking at ploughed fields for any surface finds that might reveal hidden sites throughout the parish. Our team of metal detectorists have also been hard at work producing metal finds that will compliment the picked-up pottery. Roughly a half of the arable land in the parish south of the river has now been investigated by the SHARP fieldwalking team. This year, two fields south of the river Heacham have been investigated: one in the west of the parish and one in the south east.   Highlights this years have included some nice surface scatters of Neolithic flints on the high-land to the south of the parish, and a continued evidence of a heavily cultivated parish during the Medieval as represented by finds of Glazed Grimston ware pottery produced between the 13^th and 15^th centuries.  

Terry leads a dedicated team of field walkers and metal detectorists   Mixed weather prevails as usual

This year has also seen geophysics taking place in the south of the parish.  We have been lucky enough to carry out both resistivity and magnetometry techniques over a know surface scatter of Roman Samian ware pottery.  The results are still to be fully processed, but Dave informs us that ‘anomalies’ have been located that perhaps represent the fields and droveways of a previously unknown Roman and possibly Iron Age settlement.  The plan in the summer is to investigate this site with trial trenching as part of a new Roman project, so watch this space…

Magnetometry - a new field for SHARP, a new line in metal redundant clothing,  as modelled by Jon, Mark & Matt Ignoring the cold, Megan indulges in a spot of static field walking & has a laugh with Dave