There is no such thing as a typical day in archaeology, but to try and give you a flavour of what it means to be a volunteer I will try and recreate a collage of the many different things I have done, though not all on the same day.
I am a volunteer with Gwynedd Archaeology Trust based in Bangor. I have always had a keen interest in history and decided, once I had retired, to look into archaeology and how to become a volunteer. My first taster was a recording project at Pen-y Bryn in the Nantle Valley. I had no idea what to expect but was soon put to work painstakingly measuring, photographing and drawing the ruined buildings that were once home to the quarry workers. I was hooked from then on. I have a slight disability but was still made to feel very welcome.
My first ever day I was put to work recording information onto official forms. This involved accurately measuring, photographing, and drawing the old living quarters at Pen-y-Bryn part of the Dorothea Quarry complex in North Wales. We worked in pairs for this, one measuring and the other recording. Our professional archaeologist made sure we did everything properly, so we had a good grounding in this aspect of the work involved. This stood us in good stead for the future.
I've included a picture so you can see what we measured, photographed, and drew at Pen-y-Bryn. The site was in a very ruinous state so hard hats were worn at all times when near to the building.
My next project was a three-week stint at Dinas Dinlle, there were a lot of volunteers on this one as the site was huge. I recognised some of the people there and my partner from Pen-y-Bryn and I teamed up again with another volunteer. We are now firm friends and meet up regularly away from digging. Our task this time was hands and knees, trowel at the ready. We had a large rectangular trench to explore and soon uncovered some interesting features and finds. Lots of pottery known as Buckley Ware it’s very distinctive due to its shiny black glaze on the outside. This type of pottery was used for everyday things and came in several shapes and sizes. We soon learned that no matter what the weather the dig must go on, we only had a three-week time allowance to complete the whole project. Have you ever tried writing up notes in a howling gale while raining cats and dogs? Fortunately, we had waterproof paper. Still that was only one day.
Our trench doesn’t look very awe-inspiring; however, we did find that we had uncovered something of interest. We think that it was once a cowshed or dairy. The stones piled up on the edge of the trench are possibly demolition debris from when the whole site was turned into a golf course. We found a few items that would indicate some farm activity took place, a broken plough blade and some burnt clay areas.
On to a Roman Site next, Segontium, just outside Caernarfon. The site became available when the school was demolished. Once again it was a three-week window. We were looking for evidence of the vicus. This is a small settlement that would be attached to a Roman Fort providing goods and services. We came across finds immediately we began trowelling, beads, fine Samian Ware, blue glass and a lot of metal objects. Once again, the three of us were together beavering away and our trench was much more interesting this time We kept going down and down through the layers of history, but we couldn’t produce a definitive timeline as the finds were all jumbled together. The site had been a farm before the school was built and ploughing had disturbed the land so much that the different periods were mixed together.
I've included an image of my end of the trench as I came down to a huge number of pottery sherds of all different types of pottery. Samian, creamware, black burnish ware, along with a lot of various bits of other objects. You can also the range of finds from a typical day of digging in the finds tray.
During the winter months of 2019/20 my original partner and I washed, identified, and catalogued well over a thousand finds produced from the Segontium dig.
Our last dig was high up a mountain at Llanfairfechan, looking for and finding Neolithic roughouts of axes. As this was a late addition to the calendar it was late October with the usual Welsh weather, windy, misty and chilly.
Archaeology how to describe it? Exciting, interesting, and at times frustrating. You will discover skills you never knew you had and make brilliant new discoveries. These are of friendships as well as artefacts. So dig out your boots, sunscreen, and waterproofs, pack a flask and a sandwich and come and join us.
Contact details
Barbara Marshall
Gwynedd Archaeology Trust