
Welcome to our 13th season, at Saveock Water Archaeology. What we do.
Advantages of digging at Saveock Water Archaeology

Porthtowan Beach
4 miles from site
Non fiction by Jacqui Wood

Signed copies available
Click on the cover to see images from the book.
Signed copies available
Link to the Guardian Newspaper
April 2013 - August 2013
21st - 25th July
no longer available.
YES WE DO START THE WEEK ON A SUNDAY

Religion or Ritual ?

Witches of Cornwall !
Experimental Archaeologist
International Lecturer and Author
Papers & Articles by Jacqui

Mesolithic Studies in the North Sea Basin and Beyond: Proceedings of a conference held at Newcastle in 2003.

Archaeology Experiences Sprituality
Edited by Dragos Gheorghiu


Well we are just about to
start our 13th season at Saveock. During our April dig week last season we
were filming with National Geographic in partnership with Channel 5 for a
documentary about the site. The weather was horrendous, cold and very wet
and two of our local team members Ryan and Sarah assisted by Lottie tried to
excavate a pit each on camera. Unfortunately both pits turned out to be
empty so they are going to broadcast the video I made when I excavated the
Goat pit last year. The programme will be aired on Chanel 5 in the Autumn
and National Geographic Chanel in the new year.
We also
hosted a Council for British archaeology event at Saveock in March
demonstrating Ancient Cooking techniques primarily. BBC local TV filmed it
and the tasting of clay baked trout and water pit cooked lamb went down very
well with the public in our new roundhouse.
In fine Time Team tradition during
the last dig week of the 2011
season we excavated a Neolithic Leaf arrowhead and a number of fire cracked
stones indicating a cooking area. Both these items are a first at Saveock.
So we started digging that area to see if we were right that it might be a
feasting area next to the Neolithic ritual pool in trench A1. The arrowhead
could have been embedded in some meat being cooked by the firestones. This
is just an idea, and it will probably be something completely different!
That is the joy of digging here it is never predictable! Unfortunately last
season was so wet we could not do hardly any digging on the clay platform or
we would have damaged it so if it is dry this season we should be able to
continue what we started last season. So last season we opened up a
completely different area and as usual at Saveock were amazed and baffled at
what we found. Underneath an ancient soil layer dated to the Bronze Age from
pottery excavated in it there is some sort of furnace which we are thinking
might have been for tin smelting. We have a Bronze Age furnace on another
part of the site and when it is hot the area is covered with copper
sulphates but this furnace has no copper residue in it. Also above this
furnace is a hearth like feature that has large clusters of clear crystals
set into it. Again ritual comes to mind but this is the area we are going to
start the season digging so we will see.
We are now taking bookings
for next season, our prices are just a little up on last year £200 per week
and an optional extra £25 per week if you want lunches. Otherwise you can
bring a packed lunch.
You will also be able to
buy signed copies of my books
‘Prehistoric Cooking’ and ‘Tasting the
Past’ direct from me
using PayPal.
Again I feel I need to
emphasise that this dig is a training dig,
but it is training out in the
field not in a lecture room. Novice
diggers will for the first few
days be digging topsoil, but it will
be topsoil we have not dug before so
you will be doing real
archaeology from day one. If it is wet we will do
post excavation
work which is just as important to any dig as trowelling
is.
We believe that the best
place to learn is in the field doing what professional archaeologists do.
Class room teaching is no substitute for getting your hands dirty and
emptying buckets. We do have set features on site to teach section drawing
and planning but these are real features not made up ones. You will be
taught on a one to one basis how to plan on a very tricky part of the main
site and at the end of the day we lay your plan over the one we have
done of the feature so you can really learn how to plan. It is no good
telling someone their test plan is great and then they go to another dig
with a feeling they are brilliant at planning only to find they have a bit
more to learn about the subject. Learning excavation techniques is not
rocket science but after a bit of practice in the field everyone can
do it.
Once a week we do spend an
hour in my lecture room with a slide show of the other work I do which is
Experimental Archaeology. I worked on the ‘Ice Man’ ‘Otzi’ artefacts for the
museum where he is exhibited in
There is a tour of our
facilities page, so you can see we are not a Porta cabin in a muddy field.
We are a well equipped research excavation that believes archaeology should
be available to anyone who wants to learn how to dig. For those of you new
to the site for the first time here is a brief synopsis of the earlier phase
of the excavation in this sheltered river valley in Mid Cornwall. The site
covers a period from the Mesolithic to 17th century Pagan Swan feather pits
(more information about these can be found by clicking on the link in the
Feather Pits, and Goat pit sections on the right of this page).
In the Mesolithic the main
site trench was over a south facing peat bank on the bend of a river that
was between two shallow lakes. This entire site has been purposely covered
with various different coloured clays in an attempt to make the river bank a
suitable place for dwellings. In the area A/2 the first phase of the site,
is what we believe to be a Mesolithic dwelling platform covered with dense
green clay surrounded by stony yellow clay in which the stakes to support
the dwelling were driven. The next phase we believe (and the jury is still
out on this) is the use of the constant spring line to make some sort of
Neolithic ritual area. We say ritual because we cannot think of any
conceivable reason why people would make stone lined drains covered with
30cm of green admix clay. Then manufacture a large rectangular pool lined
with white quartz cores, unless it was for some ritual purpose. In season
five (2005) we found another rectangular pool next to the original this one
only fills with water from a spring in the bank at the back of it in mid
Winter.
These features are at
present unique in Cornish or from what we have researched British
archaeology. The only similar feature we have found is the Neolithic clay
platform that is underneath the Maeshowe monument on Orkney. A trench put
into this platform revealed a stone lined drain almost identical to ours. So
if you feel like a bit of adventure and learn how to dig at the same time
come and join us in our 13 th season.
Jacqui
Wood
