◊ Dear Microburins
The Eston Hills rescue archaeology project has kicked off and, three days in, we have features and flints. The weather has been mixed, but the hearty project team are delighted with progress, well-informed by previous geophysical work kindly provided by AOC Archaeology Group.
Read the ICE AND FIRE Week 1 Site Diary »
In other news, Mesolithic Spence has a job interview scheduled. Cross your fingers and roast a hazelnut for me?
♦ Spence
◊ Dear Microburins
The ongoing problems on Eston Hills and neighbouring farmland will be the subject of a Public Meeting hosted by Anna Turley MP at the Cleveland Inn, 37 Cleveland St, Normanby, Middlesbrough TS6 0LX at 5.30pm on Friday 28 April 2017. Cleveland Police Commissioner Barry Coppinger and ICE AND FIRE project director Adam Mead will also be in attendance.
The meeting is intended to discuss and explore, in an open community forum, both the issues and how cooperation between local government authorities, the emergency services, landowners, schools, residents and businesses might work together more effectively.
Acts of fire-setting, the burning of abandoned vehicles, illegal 4×4 and off-road vehicles, fly-tipping and other anti-social behaviour persist on an increasingly frequent basis, despite ongoing efforts by local services and voluntary organisations, including the Friends of Eston Hills, and media coverage.
The ICE AND FIRE project team and its stakeholders also believe that shifting public opinion – across generations from school children, their parents and people who benefit from tourism and economic footfall – is a local and regional priority. While the project aims to rescue archaeological and environmental assets where they are at risk, the longer term solutions must involve a coordinated effort to make anti-social behaviour entirely unacceptable in a community that values its rich historic, archaeological and natural environment.
More about the project and summer fieldwork »
♦ Spence
◊ Dear Microburins,
I’m delighted, as TimeVista Archaeology, to be part of this project team: a HLF-funded community project on Teesside, North-east England – supported by the local MP – ICE AND FIRE! Volunteer opportunities for outdoor fieldwork and indoor activities will be announced soon – all with training, so no previous experience is needed. You can register your interest via the website. The rescue project will look at the prehistoric archaeology of this fragile upland landscape from the end of the last Ice Age. Most fieldwork will take place in summer 2017 but with seasonal fieldwalking too. DOWNLOAD THE BROCHURE »
Project director Adam Mead is a Durham University archaeology student and we’re grateful for considerable support from the department and Teesside Archaeological Society.
♦ Spence
◊ Dear Microburins,
Here are a couple of ranty reads with mentions of the Mesolithic.
First is another great post from Caroline Wickham-Jones on her Mesolithic archaeology blog. Caroline (pictured) eloquently expounds some of the problems with typology-based dating.
“It is important to remember that type fossils are a tool that speaks to us, rather than one that we should force to fit in. We need to look at our finds and think carefully about what they might mean.”
Second up is an article I wrote for the Hands on Middlesbrough heritage campaigning group challenging the alleged suggestion, made in 2012, “that Middlesbrough has no archaeology”. Middlesbrough and its neighbouring boroughs, and Teesside overall, have an amazing portfolio of over 10,000 years of archaeology and built heritage! I offer some tips — against the value of heritage, the historic and archaeological environments — for easy steps to take in championing our shared past. A recommended reading list, much available online, and links to related resources are included at the end of the article.
♦ Spence
Hermitage, Co Limerick, Rep Ireland | Mesolithic cremation cemeteryImage | © University of York.
◊ Living Mesolithic Project | Frank Wiersema Photography with Chris Pallasch at Stone Age Park Dithmarschen in Albersdorf | 2015 Facebook (Images & video) Experimental archaeology
In the summers of 2015-16 the Stone Age Park Dithmarschen in Albersdorf (Germany) organized a Stone Age Living Project in the area of the newly built 2014 “Mesolithic Settlement” site, in the form of both an educational programme and as an experiment. The activities and outputs (used tools and established structures) were scientifically documented by archaeologists from the Archaeological Department of the University of Exeter, England, as partner of the OpenArch-project. The scientific results will be published by Exeter, the detailed documentation will be published by the Stone Age Park in form of a magazine and a brochure.
The aim of the project was to reconstruct the everyday life of hunter-gatherers of Mesolithic Northern Europe around 5000 BC by doing an authentic as possible life experiment with skilled re-enactors and experimental archaeologists, in order to gain a new type of insight of how life might have been at that time.
Images © Frank Wiersema
♦ Spence
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