Inside the Museum of London

The training excavation in Burgess Park has started.

This is a five day course for adults to learn the basics techniques of field archaeology in an urban environment.

We are continuing on the site following on from our community excavation work with schools and other groups.

Two of our new recruits, Becky and Katie,  took time out from excavating to share their initial thoughts and discoveries:

” Today is our first ever day as trainee archaeologists. About 14 of us are here from different backgrounds – old and young, supple and not so supple!  we are excavating footprints of Victorian terraced houses, many of which were bombed irreparably during the war and subsequently flattened and cleared before becoming a park.

First off we learnt trowelling to clear debris in order to reveal soil/brick features, discovering small finds as we go.

It is thrilling  to identify an intricate design on a piece of pottery, tile or clay pipe, but less attractive items must also be collected such as random metal pieces and glass.

There is an enormous variety of material…

…brick, plaster from architectural features, coal, slate, flint (all discarded unless unusual) and then clay pipes, pottery , glass etc…oh, and losts of dust!

Will be learning this afternoon how to record the finds on context sheets and seeing what everyone elsehas found and what we can learn.”