Bye for Now!

Hello everyone! We’ve reached the end of our field school adventures, and we’re all returning home or enjoying new travels! I’m a little sad that it is over now, but incredibly grateful for this experience! The excavation has given me plenty of memories and lessons that I’ll take with me into the future. Before I go, here are three things I learned while at Vindolanda:

1. It’s not always about finding small artifacts with delicate tools.

It’s true that Vindolanda’s unique conditions yield a wealth of cool finds such as leather, glass, pottery, and beads, but other features can be equally important! During our small portion of the excavation season alone, we found drains, ditches, posts, walls, cobbled roads, ovens, and much more! You can’t put features like these behind glass – often we had to destroy them (after careful recording) to see what lay beneath! However, these discoveries are in a sense the real treasure. They inform us of how the Romans used a space, improving our understanding of the many construction phases and happenings at Vindolanda. We didn’t just use trowels and brushes either! When excavating a potsherd, uncovering a road surface, or sweeping the loose dust that inevitably gets kicked up while digging, these tools are invaluable. However, archeology includes the grunt work too. Whether we were mattocking large rocks out of a backfilled drain or spading up clay-filled soil in cubes to sift through later, all our work was a part of the process!

2. Rain can be a good thing.

While preparing for our trip, we were warned: “bring waterproof everything!”, and we expected to be poured on the whole time. We were therefore surprised and pleased to find that for the four weeks we were excavating, the weather in Northumberland was beautiful! However, the climate affects the archeology, not just the archeologists! On a daily level, lack of rain can make the soil very hard and fill the trenches with dust that blows around annoyingly. When drought continues for extended periods, as Tyler discussed in his post, Vindolanda’s valuable anaerobic conditions are put at risk. Over the course of our excavation period, we went from hoping for sunny days to being grateful for the few brief rain showers we did get!

1. Archaeology is for everyone.

As Cheyenne mentioned in her post, this is the motto of the Vindolanda Trust, and it isn’t just empty words! We’ve had the chance to work and learn alongside a host of awesome volunteers ages 18-78 from different countries, backgrounds, and career paths. Some were seasoned veterans, while others were brand new to archeology like most of us from Western. The Vindolanda team made us all feel welcome, not only teaching us the basics of excavation but also letting us try out other tasks such as washing, categorization, and location logging of finds. Vindolanda is pretty unique in letting untrained volunteers participate alongside the professionals, and the extra guidance and encouragement which the Vindolanda team provides in order to make this possible is very much appreciated!

I’d like to thank Dr. Greene and Dr. Meyer, whose planning and hard work made the field school a reality! Thank you for teaching and looking out for us for the past five weeks. Thanks also to Cheyenne for being an awesome TA, and for running our blog and social media accounts! Thank you to all of the generous donors whose contributions helped to make this amazing experience possible for us! Lastly, thank you to all of you who have been following our blog! We really appreciated your engagement and encouragement along our journey. We loved sharing these stories, so thank you for listening and supporting us!

AAAAnd that’s a wrap, folks!

Can I just say what a summer? We learned so many new techniques, met new people, and solidified our love for archaeology. Look at us… who would have thought?

The past five weeks have been so amazing! I want to thank the Vindolanda Charitable Trust for allowing us to experience this amazing site and all it has to offer. It is not every day you get to pull out 2000-year-old leather and it STILL smells like the tanning process of modern-day leather. Additionally, the work they are doing for the public and research is utterly profound for our field. Second, I want to thank Dr. Greene and Dr. Meyer for conducting and providing us the opportunity to even do this in the first place (and what a place may I add). Our professors have planned the perfect field school so that all of us students are able to learn almost everything we need to know in the field. That way if we come back to Vindolanda or to another site, we have a pretty good idea of what to do. This also helps us juxtapose how research is conducted with the artifacts excavated (going from an artifact in a certain area to a paper or publication about it). This is truly an art form that most of us (I mean me) are still grasping. Lastly, I want to thank you, the blog readers; what you do for us really makes a huge difference in our experience with public-facing writing along with the support you bring. While some may come back, some may go elsewhere, and some may never come back, what we do have is this amazing experience that a fraction of the world gets to engage in, and you are fully a part of that.

While this is not a goodbye but rather a “see you soon” vibe here. The next activity of blog postings will come from the Rome trip next summer. Then within the next year, the field school will be running again. So stay tuned for the 2025 season!

Again, thank you all so much.

Flowerwatching

Here are ten flowers from our travels that can tell you a little about where we’ve been!

I spotted this plant along the roadside while on the way to our cottages for the first time! It’s an iconic symbol of Scotland, but it also grows here in the north of England. I remember feeling relieved that my long day of travelling was almost done, and despite feeling a little sleep deprived I was amazed by the new English scenery. This drive was also the first glimpse I had of Hadrian’s Wall! It was very cool to spot the landforms caused by the original Roman vallum ditch running along the road beside us.

I spotted these cheerful flowers outside Hexham Abbey. We visited Hexham on our first weekend of the trip to stock up on groceries. After buying what we needed, we wandered around the town. The Abbey had Saxon crypt beneath it, where some of the exposed stones used to build it still bore visible Roman inscriptions! In the park nearby, I saw a local jazz band playing in a grandstand to celebrate the coronation. Overall, it was a great first visit to an English town!

I noticed this plant in our hosts’ garden next to our cottage. I was captivated by its vivid colour and unique leaf shape, and wondered what it could be. After some searching, I think it might be a Berberis. Feel free to correct me though! We’ve had a lovely time making these cottages our home away from home these past five weeks, and I’m very grateful that we’ve had such a beautiful place to stay. I’ve also loved seeing the wonderful collection of animals on the property, including goats, ducks, ponies, and even emus!

Even England has dandelions – you can’t escape them! They don’t seem to be as invasive here though. It’s always interesting to see which plants are common to both counties and which ones aren’t. I noticed these dandelions on one of our hikes along Hadrian’s Wall and the Whin Sill during our first week here. On this day, we walked from Birdoswald Roman Fort all the way back to our cottages! We had perfect weather for the hike, and the incredible views made this one of my favourite days from the trip.

I saw these flowers in the Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. This park was only a short walk from where we were staying. When you look up while walking through, you can see the castle looming overhead on its hill! There were plenty of spectacular flowers here, and even a floral clock whose face was made from living flowers! There was also a very impressive sculpted fountain. I’m not able to identify many of the plants I saw there, but I think I can confidently name these ones! I loved the variety and contrast of their colours.

These beautiful bushes were blooming all over Northumberland while we were here! I took this photo on one of my weekend visits to the town of Haltwhistle. Everyone I met here was very welcoming, and I admired all of the characterful old buildings! Haltwhistle is only a ten minute walk from where we are staying. The climb back up the hill on the return journey can be a little tiring, but the beautiful gardens of the roadside houses are a nice distraction.

Vindolanda is carefully curated to create the best possible experience for visitors! This includes not only the museum, guided tours, and opportunity to see the excavation itself, but also other amenities such as a cool gift shop and a cafe serving a variety of delicious foods. The grounds are beautiful, with a replica temple and an outdoor courtyard and fountain! These pansies were in a pot in the courtyard, placed there to add some extra decoration to the structure. Vindolanda is an amazing place, and I’m glad I got to spend so much time there.

Here is another plant spotted along the walk to Haltwhistle! This time there were a number of us walking in to get takeout (or takeaway, as they call it here) after a week of hard work excavating. We were glad for a chance to relax and watch a movie together. The pretty purple colour caught my eye while walking, and I stopped to take this picture!

A great thing about the countryside here is the number of public paths available to walkers. There’s one just along the road from our cottages that branches off into farmland. After climbing over the style, I found myself in a field filled with hills overlooking the landscape, with an incredible view in all directions! This was an ideal place to watch the sunset, which is about an hour later here than where I live in Ontario! I thought that these fluffy plants very lovely, and very aptly named!

Yet another Haltwhistle flower photo! However, these flowers grow wild all over the place, and I saw them while walking up by Hadrian’s Wall and on site at Vindolanda as well. They grow in Canada too, and were one of my favourite flowers when I was little! I love the patterns of their blooms that resemble lace doilies. It was interesting to see how much more widespread they are here in England, and this is only one of several photos I’ve taken of them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at a few snapshots of these beautiful British flowers. If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend coming to see them in person!

There’s probably a German word for that – Goodbye Vindo!

There came a time after a small find – which for reasons I’m not at liberty to discuss – where Cheyenne and I discussed the possibility of a word for the feeling of digging out something that was untouched for millennia, popping out of the ground looking like it could have just been made or purchased from some artisan at an open air market. Ca. 2000 years it spent sitting under the ground, locked in time. Older than you or me, anyone we’ve ever known, and older than any ancestors we could reasonably claim we were descended from, waiting in the ground to be uncovered. This connects to the idea of archaeology as a destructive practice and something that was stressed by Dr. Andrew Birley during his session wrap-up speeches. We are the only one’s who will ever be able to excavate our contexts. Archaeology is a destructive practice and no person will ever be able to get back into our trenches, stratigraphy intact, and uncover the details that help the supervisors make more broad conclusion about a site as a whole. Perhaps that’s why finding a word to describe that feeling has proven difficult, because its unique to every person who engages with the past in this way. How many times have I texted my parents, my partner, my friends with something I’d found and their response – while positive – is never quite as big as my expectations? And Several times when touring the Vindolanda Museum, Dr. Greene and Dr. Meyer would point out things out with an asterisk, noting that they’d been the one to find that item. Is archaeology no longer for everyone, just those whose find it was? Of course not. I think it stems with that personal engagement with the past, the intangible feeling of being a part of uncovering something that everyone recognizes is “interesting” or “cool”, but can’t be as excited as you are because they can’t go back in that trench and re-live that moment of something popping out of the ground before them.

On that note, I’d like to thank the supporters and followers of the Vindolanda Field School and blog, as well as the donors to the donor back Global Opportunities Awards who make participating in this experience during this time of inflation and economic turbulence more realistic for students. I’ve learned more than can be put into words throughout this experience, and I hope in the future I get the opportunity to join the team back at Vindolanda!

So long, farewell…

Hi everyone! Sadly, the time has come to say goodbye to Haltwhistle and Vindolanda. My experience here at field school has been unforgettable and I hope to be able to participate in more excavations in the future. As a final post, I thought I would briefly mention three of the highlights of the experience for me.

1. Finding a shoe

I’m not going to say too much about this one since I dedicated an entire post to it a few weeks ago, but this truly was one of the most memorable moments of the field school. Uncovering a shoe in the first week showed me how exciting archaeology can be.

2. Going from an Antonine road down to Period 4 anaerobic material over the course of two weeks

This might not seem that memorable, but it was really neat to get to work in the same area for several weeks and participate in the archaeological processes of excavating, exposing features, cleaning, 3D modeling, and then dropping down a level and repeating. Our end goal was to get down to anaerobic material, and we finally made it in the final week of field school. All our hard work was rewarded as we had some great finds over the course of the final few days including a shoe and the entire neck of a ring-necked flagon.

3. Working on wattle and daub fences

I spent the first week of field school working on exposing several wattle and daub fences with Myana, and it was a very satisfying and enjoyable task. The fences took several days to excavate; first, we looked for and tagged fence posts, then we traced out the top of the wattle fence, and then we dug down to see how deep the fence was. Seeing the progress we made after each day was really gratifying, and I was proud of how the fences looked by the end of the week.

Overall, I learned a lot about archaeology and the ins and outs of excavation these past five weeks, and I want to thank everyone who helps make this sort of experience possible. A special shout-out to Andy, Marta, and Penny, and their kindness, patience, and willingness to teach us.

Until next time!

Cashel

This is not a goodbye, but see you later!

Wow did 5 weeks fly by. Words cannot express how much fun I’ve had here at Vindolanda. It has been such an amazing opportunity being able to dig at one of the most famous Roman Britain sites and what a great way to kick off my archaeology career! I will miss many things about Vindolanda, namely the endless supply of biscuits. One of the highlights of the trip was being able to work on different areas of the site and understand how those areas fit into the entire fort as a whole. Excavating areas such as fire pits, calvary barracks and drainages was beyond surreal, especially finding the artifacts that came with it, such as glass bangles or stylus pens. Not to mention the amount of beautiful Samian ware or animals bones! A personal favorite was seeing all the stamped ceramics or the leather shoes!

I’ll definitely miss our post-excavation movie nights and strolls at dusk, and of course, a hard goodbye to all the sheep and horses. Oh, and remember that oven I had mentioned a few weeks ago? By the end of the field school, while it was not completely excavated, we were all able to trace its outline further and VOILA. It was a much bigger oven that previously anticipated!

I’m so appreciative to have had this opportunity to participate in the field school and could not be more grateful for those who contributed to our program! A special shout-out goes to Dr. Greene and Dr. Meyer who made this field school possible! Thank you all immensely. Hope you all enjoyed coming along for the ride with us and seeing our highlights, adventures and archaeological finds on the blog. Have a fantastic summer. Vale!

Best, Sydney

Goodbye Vindolanda!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 5 weeks away from home, and we have done so much in this time! From hiking along Hadrian’s Wall (with one or two rainy days followed by uncharacteristically dry ones!) to excavating a Roman fort as well as gaining invaluable knowledge from specialised lectures, we have been enriched by all these learning experiences.

Our last day of excavation was very bittersweet. We all wanted to experience as much as we possibly could on the last day on site, while leaving things neat for the next group of volunteers. We had some lucky finds on the last day, including a section of a ring necked flagon and a beautifully decorated samian pottery sherd.

As I had never excavated before, I had previously worried about whether I could pick up things easily, but everyone at the excavation site is so wonderful. I am grateful to those who run this site as their lovely encouragement made the experience that much more amazing! Having the rare opportunity to work on an archaeological site is one I will not soon forget.

As I head on to my next adventure (Hello from the Cliffs of Moher!), I want to give a final thank you to all those that have made running this field school possible, and all my friends and family for their support.

Knock Knock

What do interactive museum exhibits, monks, and toothbrushes have in common? The answer is in fact us, or the field schoolers in particular. As you can imagine, this experience has been overwhelmingly cool and you might have taken from these blog posts that we’ve all been running off our feet trying to make the most of the luck we’ve had. We do and see so much each day that it can be very difficult to focus and process one specific thing. Last weekend we journeyed to York and visited their Viking experience Yorvik. Natasha, Cashel, and I spent a fair amount of time in the very first room. The walls were painted like stratigraphic layers, there was a glass floor showcasing an excavation layer compete with drains, wattle and daub, and even trowels. They had some interactive stations where you could practice handling things like leather shoes, beads, and wooden artifacts. Much to our delight, we realized we knew the correct and logical steps to take when handling, cleaning, preserving, and presenting an item. Even though we’ve come across the Roman version of these items in our time abroad, we hadn’t realized we’d absorbed do much detailed information in regard to them. It was very exciting. At the Yorkshire museum, we were able to visit a Roman hoard and see all the incredible kids’ stations they had, like building a cathedral and dressing up in costume (monks were an option). We’ve toured quite a few museums recently so it was very fun to see the direct impact sharing information about an artifact has. We have lots of conversations about the advantages and disadvantages of sharing items with the public, the sensitivity surrounding certain items, and why we do the work we do. Suddenly while musing these things it hit us again: look at all the knowledge we’ve gained. Later in the week a few of us got the opportunity to wash several pieces of Samian Ware that came out of our area. That was the most surreal. We’re sitting there with little toothbrushes and what were effectively dental tools, cleaning and defining imagery last seen so so long ago. We actually got to piece together several pieces of the item and see a fairly cohesive image. We ended up having a rather lengthy conversation about why the artist would have designed it the way they did, what position it would have been in the ground to get broken this way, and how it got broken, which really created a whole life story for the piece. And felt like we actually had valid knowledge to rely on to do this. By no means do we feel like experts or even confident in ourselves yet, but this week was a very eye-opening week in regard to all that we gained on this trip. Even though you don’t feel it happening, day by day we’ve built up a foundation and are walking away with more experiences than we know what to do with. And that’s a really cool feeling. Ask anyone about trowel techniques, the best way to tell if something’s a rock (it’s always a rock), or what the impact of the work they’re doing actually means. I think I can safely say we feel like baby archaeologists, or certainly people who love to talk about archaeology. So all I can sum up with is this: Thank you to everyone who helped get us here. Every single thought, comment, and action has had a lasting impact on us and I cannot thank you enough for the support. Thanks for following along on our journey, and hey, the Vindolanda lottery opens in November.

Farewell Field School!

As much as I wish it did not end our 2023 field school has come to a close with a very bittersweet feeling. I am excited for new adventures but I will miss our 8:45 pick ups and our early morning jam sessions that hyped up such fantastic days of excavating! Thank you to everyone reading and to everyone who has made this opportunity possible for us. This was honestly an unforgettable time with some amazing people that has taught me so much about archaeology and Roman Britain. Now I am off to test my new found hiking expertise and muscles gained from the field school in the Isle of Skye!

Hope everyone has enjoyed reading our posts and all the best!

Final day photo of Syd and I with our oven!

– Myana

“Man’s Best Friend”: Zooarchaeology along Hadrian’s Wall

Since we have worked for the last four weeks in cavalry barracks, we thought we would introduce some of our favourite furry friends of Vindolanda to you, and other archaeological remains and depictions from surrounding forts along Hadrian’s Wall. Animals aren’t unknown in the Roman world, but what we found so interesting was both how people in antiquity viewed animals and lived with them stationed on the frontiers in the provinces. First, one of our favourite archaeological remains found in the Vindolanda museum was a fully intact horse chamfron. These were protective coverings for the horse’s face and, as you can see by the reconstruction in the photo below, they we’re highly decorated. We also noticed some really cool depictions of animals in other surrounding museums. At Housesteads, carvings of boars were used in certain instances as a symbol for military units. Interestingly, during our excavation we happened to find boar tusks and jaw bones! Someone was feasting well 1900 years ago. Boars weren’t the only bones we excavated. We found tons of bone ranging from all types of animals including cows, sheep, horses, goats and even an oyster shell! The Roman soldiers had quite the carnivorous diet.

And just like the Romans, we too love animals! On our daily walks down to Sainsbury’s for late night snacks, we would frequently stop to pets the horses. We also had the pleasure of being visited on multiple occasions by the local sheep, both near our cottages and along our hikes along Hadrian’s Wall, especially at the milecastles and fort gates. This field school has allowed us to not only interact with bones and zooarchaeology, but the animals themselves!

– Syd and Myana

Western Classics Abroad

The Blog of the Vindolanda Field School and the Rome Study Tour