Archaeological digs often feature in novels, or are portrayed on films or documentaries such as Digging for Britain. But if you imagine your own job portrayed in a seven minute TV slot, or serving as part of the backdrop of fiction you’ll realise how much more there must be to the real experience of volunteering on an excavation.
This year’s project in Alderney was the first for over two decades on which I was not in any respect in charge. I took the back seat as Dr Phil de Jersey was leading the excavation of an Iron Age site on he hill slopes at Le Huguettes.
An excavation is planned many months in advance, so we know exactly where we are going to dig and have a pretty good idea of what we expect to find. The site supervisor lays out the positions of the trenches with marker posts and tapes then marks the edges with pegs joined with string. The first rule of a good excavation is to maintain straight edges, with clean vertical sections that reveal the stratigraphy of the site. Trimming the sections to keep them vertical is an art we become proud of.
Digging is hard and I’ve known volunteers not return after the shock of the first day on site. Initially the work is clearance of the overburden, soil and subsoil, marked by discoveries of golf balls and plastic as clearly modern and must be moved before we get to the archaeology. We work in threes – one using a mattock, one clearing the soil into a barrow and the third then running the barrow up to the spoil heap. Th e heap grows quite alarmingly in the early days and needs to be positioned well away from the trench to stop the material sliding back in and to allow for the trench to be extended. Mattocking makes the body discover muscles it forgot it had.
After clearance we begin to see changes in the soil, so the site needs to be ‘cleaned’. Our trowels come out and we methodically scrape back loose soil to reveal layers and features below. We use a 4″ pointing trowel, though a veteran trowel will wear down to a more useful shape and length. Soil is scraped into hand shovels, then into a bucket, then passed up to a barrow. By this point we find that some of the volunteers are happiest moving buckets and barrows, some excel at shifting soil quickly and some have the experience to tackle the more sensitive features. Stonework will be scraped clean, helped by a brush if; I use brushes sparingly as if the soil is damp they tend to paint the site with mud. A dig comes with its own soundtrack of a distinctive scrape-scrape of trowels over hard ground or stones, the rattle and squeak of wheelbarrows and the solid thunk of buckets being emptied.
Once archaeological deposits have been reached, they are removed by trowel a few centimetres at a time. Trowelling can be tough on the body. We’re on out knees or our haunches for more or less the whole day, interrupted every few minutes to lift a three-quarters full bucket out of the trench. Full buckets are way too heavy! The up/lift/down again is a killer on the knees. Most of us switch hands, trowelling with left or right to suit the feature we’re digging and to give the other a rest. When the ground dries it loses its colour and hardens, requiring more force to scrape. There are blisters in the first few days – some wear gloves but it’s not something I like doing. Stones are cruel to knuckles and we had battle scars to compare each evening, especially those of us who worked the clear the extensive limpet middens. Limpet shells take no prisoners. The first days are exhausting but somehow we get use to it.
Finding objects never ceases to be exciting, even if most finds are small pieces of pottery, bone or flint. If the diggers miss any finds whilst working quickly, they are spotted by the barrow-sorter up above the section checking through the loose soil. Ancient objects can be the same colour as the soil we are digging, look just like stones or stick to clods of earth. As a back-up, a local metal detectorist turns up daily to search the spoil heap in case little objects such as coins have been missed – they chiefly turn up WW2 bullet casings from the topsoil.
The finds are put into old seed trays, marked separately with the number of the layer being excavated (known as a context number). Volunteers gently wash them back at the dig HQ at the Nunnry then the trays are laid out in the sun to dry. Later they will be bagged up in plastic bags or tubs marked up with the context number to be examined by specialists in what is known as post excavation. And of course, every feature of note is recorded, photographed, planned or drawn.
One long standing tradition is the tea break – mid-morning and mid-afternoon. It’s a chance to rest, drink tea (or Pepsi Max in my case), have a biscuit and chat. Together with lunch breaks it’s a convivial time, as diggers all have stories and we’ve known each other in some cases for several decades. In the May sunshine we take lunch sitting around the ruined Roman tower at the Nunnery that we discovered in our previous project. Although we dig in Alderney’s lovely sunshine, on cold mornings and in uncomfortable wind, rain will generally stop play. We might work on if a shower looks like passing, but heavy rain makes the site too wet to dig, it masks the detail and working on slippery ground can become unsafe.
Days feel long. We’re in touch with sun and sky and landscape in a way we rarely can in modern life. In the evenings come the other rewards of the adventure. Some brave souls go swimming in the bay or take walks (because we’ve not had enough fresh air and exercise!). Away from the distractions of TV and internet we enjoy books and peace. We’re billeted at several locations on the island, and I have the good fortune to be at the Nunnery itself, staying inside the Napoleonic barracks within the Roman fort that may at some point also have been a Nunnery. We cook communally – up to eight or ten at a sitting – and chat the evening away whilst watching the sunset. It ‘s very much Famous Five for grown ups.
At dawn the sun comes up over France around 0545, and my room in the roof has no curtains. Work begins at 0830, so its up and dress in old t-shirt and jeans, assemble a bag for the day, put on the digging boots and hat. Out in the courtyard the team is assembling. One will open the gate and the others take tools from the old magazine and pile them into wheelbarrows. Then we snake up the hill for another day’s adventure in the past.
For further information on this year’s excavations and previous work in Alderney, check the Dig Alderney Facebook page.
There is also a set of short videos on the Guernsey Archaeology Youtube Channel.
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