Iron Smelting in Britain

 

At our June meeting, Paul Robinson gave a presentation entitled '2,000 Years of Iron Smelting in Britain'. The talk covered the bloomery process in detail from the early Iron Age up until the end of the Medieval Area.

It included a short video of modern day experiments in ancient techniques and samples of various types of bloomery slag were brought along for members to examine.

The final part of the presentation focused on our on-going project at Coven, where strong evidence for ancient iron-smelting has been found during the last year.

Bloomery 'tap slag' recovered at Coven

Isotopes in Archaeology

 

 

A fascinating presentation entitled 'You are what you eat: How isotopes can dish the dirt on you" was given by Dr Kate Farr at our May meeting. As a professional scientist, Kate was able to give a detailed but easy to follow account of what isotopes can reveal about the lives of those in the distant past. Her presentation also covered the forensic use of isotopes in a few recent criminal cases.

Letocetum Guided Tour

 

On Saturday 11th May we met at the Village Hall at Wall for a tour of the Roman settlement of Letocetum. Our guide was Dr Mike Hodder, an archaeologist who has a lifelong association with the site.

Mike was keen to share his knowledge of the development of the camp which was the precursor to the city of Lichfield. He was able to point out features around the village which would probably have gone unnoticed to the untrained eye and described in great detail how the site had grown and then declined. Since parts of the settlement are still to be investigated, we were happy to offer to carry out any geophysical survey that might be needed.

The standing remains are impressive and well worth a visit; parking is not too difficult and there is no charge to visit the site. A small museum adjacent to the ruins has a fascinating collection of Roman artefacts. The local volunteers deserve a big thank you for maintaining the site, organising tours and looking after the museum (and providing a very welcome cup of tea and slice of cake at the end of our visit!).

 A few of the artefacts on display in the museum

The Magic of LiDAR

 

The speaker at our March meeting was Nigel Westwood, who gave a fascinating insight into the development and use of LiDAR in archaeology. Images of Roman camps and roads in South Staffordshire were used to illustrate the value of this tool for those looking into the historical landscape.

Time Team & Dig Village

 

Videos from Time Team and Dig Village were shown at our recent meeting. For long-standing members this must have brought back very fond memories of our time spent with Channel 4's 'Time Team'. Eagle-eyed members will no doubt spot a few familiar faces in this still taken from the closing scene of 'A Village Affair', the episode about Bitterley, Shropshire (Series 19 episode 2).

 

Investigations at Coven

Following the recovery of two very large pieces of iron-smelting waste at Coven, we carried out a geophysics survey on 16th February. Our survey covered nine grids laid out in a 3x3 square. With each grid being 20x20 metres the total area surveyed was 3,600 sq m - quite a size!

As so often happens with Geophys, the results are interesting but inconclusive. There were certainly strong responses in both the magnetometry and resistivity. We hope to be digging test pits later in the year after the harvest. The final Geophysics plots and the results of our excavations will be included in the final report.