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Exercise Magwitch, Rat Island 2017

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Exercise Magwitch, Rat Island 2017 Rat Island 2017 Excavations: Exercise Magwitch A Wicked Noah’s Ark: Exercise Magwitch, Rat Island 2017 Archaeological Excavation Report Rat Island 2017 Excavations: Exercise Magwitch A Wicked Noah’s Ark: Exercise Magwitch, Rat Island 2017. Excavation Report Code BI17 By Richard Osgood, Chris Daniell, Nicholas Márquez-Grant and Richard Bennett ‘By the light of torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then the ends of the torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with him’. Charles Dickens, ‘Great Expectations’. Non-Technical Summary In 2014, major winter storms revealed human remains on ‘Rat Island’ (also known as Burrow Island) between Gosport and Portsmouth (NGR SU62075 00760). Local legends have it that the island which overlooks the old Naval base was the resting place of hundreds of Prisoners of War. These stories tell of buried Frenchmen, of Americans from the Wars of Independence and sometimes of those incarcerated on the Prison ships that were moored in the docks. These remains were recovered as quickly as possible - the grave cuts into the consolidated beach shingle are still visible. Part of the cliff (just under 3m of made ground) overhanging the graves collapsed during this recovery process leaving at least one set of human remains behind. Since this initial recovery, further erosion occurred and a team composed of serving military, professional archaeologists, professional forensics experts, and Wounded Injured and Sick (WIS) service personnel on the Op Nightingale programme excavated this area in May 2017 to recover archaeological remains immediately threatened by erosion processes. The 2017 season recovered the remains of four individuals raising the total recovered to a minimum number of nine individuals when combined with the 2014 results. This report contains the background history of the site, the technical report on the archaeological recovery, the osteological report and isotopic studies accomplished on four of the bodies. Further to this, it includes the results of the facial reconstruction undertaken on the skull of A7 by Facelab at Liverpool John Moores University. The overall results therefore are that the remains of a minimum of nine individuals were recovered from graves on the south east end of Rat Island. These burials were in elm coffins, some of which were stacked on top of one another. The isotopic signatures indicated that the deceased had mixed diets and that at least two individuals had originated from the mainland of Europe. Two of the people had been the subject of autopsies – with a craniotomy of skeleton A7 being the most obvious example. Lack of associated small finds or artefacts meant that any conclusions as to whether these were prisoners or prisoners of war from the hulks, or both, was impossible. The team concluded that there is a VERY HIGH likelihood of further human burials being present on the island, with the eastern and south eastern portion of the island especially sensitive. Indeed, fragments of wood, consistent with the elm coffins found in the excavations were visible close to a rubble wall in this area. Rat Island 2017 Excavations: Exercise Magwitch Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Circumstances of the fieldwork .......................................................................................................... 4 Comments on the organisation of the report ..................................................................................... 4 Summary of site archive ..................................................................................................................... 5 Potential of the data ........................................................................................................................... 5 Legislation, Policy, Plans ..................................................................................................................... 6 Background ......................................................................................................................................... 6 Desktop strategy ................................................................................................................................. 7 A Documented History of Rat Island – Christopher Daniell ................................................................ 7 Fieldwork ........................................................................................................................................... 15 2014 .............................................................................................................................................. 15 2017 .............................................................................................................................................. 16 Research Aims ................................................................................................................................... 16 Previous work on the site ................................................................................................................. 16 Team Composition ............................................................................................................................ 16 Recording .......................................................................................................................................... 17 Timings .............................................................................................................................................. 17 Licenses Required (SSSI, MOJ) .......................................................................................................... 18 Fieldwork Methodology .................................................................................................................... 18 Burials ............................................................................................................................................... 18 A5 (Context BI17 004) ................................................................................................................... 18 A6 (Context BI17 008) ................................................................................................................... 19 A7 (Context BI17 014) ................................................................................................................... 21 A8 (Context BI17 010) ................................................................................................................... 24 Artefacts ............................................................................................................................................ 25 Small Finds .................................................................................................................................... 25 Discussion.......................................................................................................................................... 25 Lives and deaths of those on the Prison hulks .................................................................................. 26 Disease .............................................................................................................................................. 26 Mortality ........................................................................................................................................... 26 Nationality ......................................................................................................................................... 26 Diet .................................................................................................................................................... 27 Age and Sex ....................................................................................................................................... 28 Children: ........................................................................................................................................ 28 Women:......................................................................................................................................... 28 Rat Island 2017 Excavations: Exercise Magwitch Parallels ............................................................................................................................................. 28 Answers to Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 29 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 30 Dissemination ................................................................................................................................... 30 Archive .............................................................................................................................................. 30 Overall Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 31 Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................
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