The Community Archaeology Project (CAP)
Are you interested in the past? If you want to discover the history of your area, this is for you. A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 started our new CAP scheme. It places a strong emphasis on helping people to discover the past of their local area.
Anyone can help find out the history of North Lincolnshire, including the Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon and Medieval periods. New volunteers are always welcome to come and join us for fieldwalking and finds processing. There are also opportunities to help to research the material we find.
For more information about the scheme, please contact the Community Archaeology Assistant, Ian Rowlandson, on (01724) 843533, or email ian.rowlandson@northlincs.gov.uk No experience is needed, just plenty of enthusiasm!
Why fieldwalking?
‘You walk along, furrow by furrow, glancing at every stone, and you can only search in comfort when the light is behind you and the rains have washed the stones.’
Barclay Wills, 1932, 'Shepherds of Sussex'.
Information about the past is all around us. Fieldwalking is a highly effective way of gathering it. Ploughed fields are walked, and artefacts are collected from the surface. We use a grid and a global positioning system to record their position. Museum staff help the CAP volunteers to process and identify the finds.
An advantage of a field survey is that it is not intrusive. Fieldwalked finds have been disturbed by the plough: the artefacts are brought to the surface in no particular order. They can reveal a lot about a site if they are collected in a careful and methodical fashion.
What can it tell us?
Not all the finds were deposited as a result of settlement. Just as we would not like to live among our rubbish, neither did people in the past. Computer software helps to interpret the scatters, and digital mapping can show us exactly where each find came from in the field. A concentration of finds may point to a lost settlement.
Scatters in a field may need further research. Old excavations, aerial photographs, maps, documents and place names may point to previous occupation. Things discarded by a medieval peasant household would differ greatly to those from a Roman villa. Some scatters may be waste disposal or accidental loss.
Manufacturing of tools produces waste, perhaps from flint knapping or metal casting. Often organic household waste was spread on a field to add nutrients to the soil. This is called manuring, and sometimes pottery was included with the waste.
Where is this happening?
Our new area of interest is the Lincolnshire Wolds, but past walks have explored South Axholme, Alkborough and Kirton in Lindsey.
More information:
South Humber Bank Wildlife and People Project