Royal Archaeological Institute Newsletter No August EDITORIAL • Katherine Barclay IN THIS ISSUE Editorial Cultural organisations argue that every pound invested in the arts and heritage sector earns £ for the economy. What Grants and Awards impact spending cuts from central and local Government will have is yet to be seen, but all is not yet doom and gloom. Research Grant Reports A recent survey by the Council for British Archaeology found that , people are now involved in voluntary archaeology Dates for your in the UK. This figure has more than doubled since a similar Diary survey was carried out in . Part of the reason for the increase is undoubtedly that funding opportunities such as Cardiff Conference Heritage Lottery Fund grants have enabled the creation of new voluntary groups. Despite the recession, lottery ticket sales have Spring Day Meeting recently been higher than expected, so the Heritage Lottery to Buckinghamshire Fund has more money available, and over the next five years, the four good causes of the arts, sport, heritage and charitable Summer Meeting in activity will move to equal shares of the lottery proceeds. This Pembrokeshire could mean a further £ m for heritage projects in – . RAI Lectures As well as increasing expenditure on major grants of £ m or ‒ more, the HLF is to devote a further £ million to creating new training places on its ‘Skills for the Future’ Institute of programme, which trains people in traditional craft skills, Archaeology/British conservation, heritage resource management and skills in Museum Seminars community engagement. Fifty-four organisations have training ‒ schemes that have been approved. The British Museum will receive £ , to provide fifteen people – at least half of BAA Meetings ‒ them from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds – with traineeships in curation and collection management. They will spend six months at the British Museum and twelve Miscellany months with a partner museum. The Council for British Archaeology has been awarded a grant of £ , for a three- Caption Competition year programme to train nine people a year (twenty-seven in total) to work with voluntary sector archaeology groups. The project will be managed by the CBA, but bursary places will be hosted by a variety of organisations already masonry, carpentry, joinery, lead work, working in this field. plumbing, painting and decorating. The three-year full-time programme, which In a separate initiative, the National Trust is begins in September, will offer sixteen funding a new apprenticeship scheme in a positions at National Trust properties across bid to tackle the severe building skills the country where apprentices will train shortage in the heritage sector. The alongside staff due to retire within that time. programme, which is aimed largely at sixteen The aim is to provide continuity of valued to nineteen year olds, will train young skills by enabling those who are retiring to people in traditional skills, including stone teach and mentor the next generation. GRANTS AND AWARDS ROYAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE RESEARCH GRANTS The Institute awards the following grants annually: Tony Clark Fund Up to £ for archaeological work and dating Bunnell Lewis Fund Up to £ towards archaeology of the Roman period in the UK RAI Award Up to £ towards archaeological work in the UK Please write to the Administrator at RAI, c/o Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, London, for an application form or visit our website, www.royalarchaeolinst.org Closing date for applications: second Wednesday of January . Awards announced in April . TONY BAGGS UNDERGRADUATE BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISSERTATION PRIZE AWARDS WINNERS 2010 This is a biennial prize for the best The winners of the six British dissertation by an undergraduate at a British Archaeological Awards were announced to a university; nominations are made by full audience at the British Museum on University and College Departments. The July at a ceremony hosted by historian and winner will receive a prize of £ and the broadcaster Michael Wood. Before opportunity for a paper based on the announcing the awards, Michael gave a dissertation to be published in the rousing speech in which he said that Archaeological Journal. The award will be ‘Archaeology is our primary tool for presented at the London meeting of the understanding what Bronowski called “The Institute on March and the result will Ascent of Man”, an essential tool for be published in the Spring edition of understanding ourselves’. The Minister for the newsletter. Tourism and Heritage John Penrose, who presented the prizes for best project and best St Peter Port Harbour which was discovered discovery, memorably said that ‘this and excavated in the s (Rule and Government takes archaeology very Monaghan, ) and a summary of finds seriously’. from other possible Roman wreck sites. Finds from St Peter Port harbour and other The winners of the six Awards were: coastal areas will also be included. Best Archaeological Project: The Tarbat The excavation of the Bonded Stores site in Discovery Programme St Peter Port has increased our knowledge Best Community Archaeology Project: Fin about the Roman period in the islands Cop: Solving a Derbyshire Mystery considerably. Excavations began in January in advance of the Victorian Market Best Archaeological Book: Europe’s Lost Buildings being redeveloped. The site is in World: the re-discovery of Doggerland by Vince the heart of modern St Peter Port close to Gaffney, Simon Fitch and David Smith, the parish church of St Peter (standing by published by the Council for British ). It is at the bottom of one of the two Archaeology valleys that border the town and in the Best Representation of Archaeology in the Roman period would have been a hundred Media: The Thames Discovery Programme metres or so from the waterfront. The main website finds from the excavation were from around the second century , although there were Best Archaeological Innovation: the ‘Lindow several earlier phases. Structural remains of Man: a Bog Body Mystery’ exhibition at the Roman buildings were located under later Manchester Museum (April to April medieval walls. There was evidence of ) metalworking in the higher part of the site. Best Archaeological Discovery: The Part of a small-iron smelting furnace was Staffordshire Hoard excavated. It was built with a dome of clay The chairman of the British Archaeological over a clay floor from which a flue directed Awards board of trustees, Mike Heyworth, the molten metal to a sump area with small announced that the board was planning to angular stones set in a brown soil. The make the Awards an annual event in future. furnace had been fired at least twice and to a very high temperature and is typical of RESEARCH GRANT REPORTS furnaces built around . In another area of the site a building appeared to have R E B burnt down leaving traces of burnt timbers G • Heather Sebire and quantities of floor and roof tile. Work continued on the reports of rescue In all, over sherds of pottery were excavations carried out in the Bailiwick of recovered of which approximately were Guernsey. In particular the excavation report Samian ware. There were many forms on a major Roman site – the Bonded Store, present including flagons, bowls and cups St Peter Port – is being incorporated into a from a wide variety of sources in southern, volume which will include all known central and eastern Gaul. The pottery dated Roman material from the Bailiwick of from the later first century through to the Guernsey with a gazetteer of sites with third century. The Bonded Stores assemblage Roman finds. It will also make reference to indicates that Guernsey was receiving high the Gallo-Roman trading vessel from percentages of products from East Gaul. The . coarse wares also show strong links with the elucidate the use and post-discard histories of areas of the Rhine, the Argonne and the material in more detail than was possible northern France (Wood ). Amongst the with that assemblage. For example, Samian ware were two pots with maker’s measurement of sherds’ surface areas – as stamps, one COBNERTIANUS, and well as their weight – will help to another, MAGIO. Cobnertianus and Magio understand better the fragmentation of both worked at Lezoux, in Central Gaul, material which includes both thick- and around – (pers. com. Brenda thin-walled sherds (for which weight alone Dickinson). Sherds of Dressel a amphora would be misleading). Abrasion is recorded and of Dressel amphora from Spain were for each surface and for edges, rather than found as well as mortaria. Glass fragments using a more usual overall abrasion were retrieved including several pieces of descriptor. In this way, differing histories of vessel handles and a tiny fragment of a use between material in pits, house floors polychrome pillar-moulded bowl. A lump of and middens may be distinguishable. raw glass was also found, which might imply There are clear similarities between this that glass working was going on in the area. assemblage and the material from the – Rule, M. and Monaghan, J. , A Gallo- Durrington Walls excavations. However, Roman Trading Vessel from Guernsey, there are some clear differences. In Guernsey Museum Monograph . decoration, Longworth (, ) noted the three most common techniques as grooving, Roman Guernsey and the Wood, A. M., , incision and cordons and this is also the case context of the pottery from the Bonded Store, in the current assemblage. Yet a decorative Guernsey Museum unpublished report. technique which appears absent from the L N previous assemblage is that of lines formed D W • Ros Cleal and Mike by end-to-end fingernail impressions. This Parker Pearson has been found on sherds belonging to several vessels and is occasionally found on The recording of the large ceramic Grooved Ware elsewhere in Britain. Circular assemblage from the Stonehenge Riverside motifs were defined by Longworth as a excavations of – has been partially diagnostic trait of the Durrington Walls sub- completed and is ongoing.