2003 News Archive

November 2003:-

•  Frog Firle
  At he beginning of October Bruce Milton supervised a geophysical survey on a site near Frog Firle. The site comprises a spur that projects out into the Cuckmere valley, upon which are a number of earthworks. The dating and purpose of these earthworks is currently unknown, although they have been scheduled as an Ancient Monument. The survey has produced some fantastic results, and Bruce is currently producing a report for English Heritage, and the National Trust who are the landowners. A full report will appear in 2004.
  - November 2003.
   

•  Local Archaeology on TV
  Members of MSFAT were featured recently on a programme about the Wilmington Long Man on the BBC" series 'Landscape Mysteries'. But this is not the only instance of MSFAT projects on TV. On the 'rebuilding the past' series on the construction of the Roman villa at Butser (Discovery Channel) Barcombe villa was shown.
  Chris Butler will also be featured on Meridian news later this week talking about the Piltdown Man hoax.
  - 18th November 2003.
   

•  Cooksbridge Earthwork
  In November 2003 members of MSFAT and students from a CCE class carried out a tape survey of a possible house platform in a field south of Cooksbridge. Bruce Milton also supervised a geophysical survey of the site, which produced some interesting results. In March 2004 a series of test trenches were excavated across the platform to investigate the geophysical anomalies.
  - NOVEMBER 2003 [Click the title above for more...]

July 2003:-

•  Reaching the places other archaeologists cannot reach – with watching briefs - by Anne Locke
  One of the many good points about Sussex archaeology is the way that the county archaeologists have been encouraging voluntary groups such as MSFAT and Lewes Archaeology Group (LAG) to take on ‘watching briefs’ on small-scale sites, recording any archaeological remains in places where otherwise no record would be kept.
  In November Andy Gammon and I were involved in an interesting watching brief with LAG in Lewes, a new extension behind a town house at 15 Mount Pleasant (opposite the Elephant and Castle pub), in a yard backing on to the north side of Brack Mount – almost certainly where in 1838 a probable Iron Age or Romano-British burial of a human skeleton and a boar’s head was found.
  - July 2003. [Click the title above for more...]
   

•  Barcombe Churchyard Survey/Recording - by Jo Miller
  We are progressing slowly with recording the gravestones at Barcombe.  We have now completed approximately 200/250 of them, but we have a very long way to go.  At the moment the section we are recording is extremely overgrown which is hampering our progress quite a bit, including getting stung by nettles and losing our equipment in the long grass!
  This is just the beginning.  All the graves have to be photographed and a computerised record made, followed eventually by entering into a database, so I will also need volunteers to do this as well - a lovely job for a boring winter weekend! I would appreciate as much help as possible as my volunteers have tailed off recently.  Perhaps anyone who is interested in doing the survey would email me at jm@gouldco.co.uk and I will be able to contact you with dates for the recording. At the moment I am notifying everyone on the main e-mail list and, although this goes out to over 70 people, I am lucky if I get 1 or 2 replies.
  Recording is very simple.  We have an A4 two-sided sheet that has to be filled in answering various questions (e.g. condition of stone, orientation, number commemorated).  The full inscription has also to be transcribed and a small sketch drawn of the grave together with measurements - and that's it. The equipment needed is a pen and/or pencil and rubber, ruler, clipboard, tape measure, trowel, chair/stool (optional), insect repellent and suntan lotion (also optional).  Other items that could be useful are flour, a mirror and a water spray bottle!
  - 31 JULY 2003
   

March 2003:-
 

•  Roman Pottery & Glass Workshops - by Chris Butler

  Many members attended two excellent day schools organised by the Brighton & Hove Archaeological Society earlier this year. The first was with Malcolm Lyne and covered Roman pottery, whilst the second was on Roman glass with John Shepherd of the Museum of London. Malcolm gave us an overview of all of the different types of pottery we could possibly come across on Sussex sites, including imports and locally produced wares. He also talked about production methods, distribution and trade. There was plenty of opportunity to handle the various types of pottery being discussed.

  John Shepherd also brought along many examples of Roman and later glass for us to handle. He explained how glass was made and how to identify Roman glass from later types. He also explained why glass is such a rare find on Roman archaeological sites. This is due to the broken glass vessels being recycled into new vessels by glass workers who were located all over the country (15 glass working sites have been identified in the City of London alone in recent years), and therefore all we tend to find on our sites are those fragments that were missed or lost and therefore not recycled. Glass workers should not be confused with glass makers who made the original vessels from raw materials. Almost certainly there were no glass makers located in Britain during the Roman period.
  - 28 MARCH 2003

February 2003:-

•  Wilmington Long Man - by Chris Butler

  Some of you were involved in a small project to excavate a trench below the Long Man at Wilmington over the first weekend of November 2002. This has been carried out in conjunction with a TV company and Martin Bell of Reading University. TV cameras were present, and the results will be shown in a programme called "Landscape Mysteries" as part of a new series to be shown on 7th October at 7:30pm (BBC2).
  - 01 FEBRUARY 2003 [Click the title above for more...]
   

•  Sussex Archaeological Collections - by Chris Butler

  The latest SAC has the final report on the landscape project we carried out at Pyecombe in the late 80’s and early 90’s. This report covers the fieldwalking and excavations carried out on an extensive flintworking site, which produced evidence of exploitation from the Mesolithic through to the Bronze Age.
  - 01 FEBRUARY 2003