Hi everyone

well that takes care of my big intro lol, So Im off for a browse around the forum :face-thinks:

Regards
Jammy Johnny

Dum Spiro Spero

For ALL BAJR 07 people... free entry to Jorvik, DIG and the Hungate excavation on Saturday or Sunday... !!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to John Walker.! :face-approve:

So come on ... 45 places still left.... you know you want to!

email me info@bajr.org

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

In a hypothetical situation how far do you have to travel to be able to claim milage?

And is it fair for home based diggers to be constantly employed on a site by site basis with the site being put as the contracted place of work?

Is there a way for companies to claim milage back against tax from the government - am confused how some units give out 37.5p a mile but some still give nothing to diggers who are expected to travel almost a hundred miles a day?

A new tool store just opened it's virtual doors today...

http://www.pasthorizons.com/

Choose to either buy a large range of equipment from Drafting Film to Plumb Bobs... from Laser Measures to Birchwood Folding Rulers.. and of course... what you have all been waiting for... the 4" Wooden Handled WHS Archaeology trowel... Its there... and ready for sale.!

A strict Quality Control system is being implemented - Only the best is on sale here .. and Past Horizons only stocks equipment that has been used (& abused) in the field...! Tried and Tested.

So... pop along... have a look.... and perhaps spend some time browsing the hundreds of archaeology opportunities that have been collected for you from across the world. From Fiji to Mongolia and America to Scotland...

Enjoy... and let us know what you think.

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

http://www.bajr.org/conference/Poster2007.pdf

Download, print out and post up... there are plenty of places left (just now) so get yourselves along to a conference where talking is just the start... and action is what happens!

Previous conference update and introduction

Dr Peter Wardle Past, present and future of standards
Pat Watson (MLO ) Media as a Tool in Archaeological Preservation, Outreach and Education
Corinne Mills (OurPastHistory) Detecting standards, education and cooperation
Victoria McGuinness Standards in Archaeology Abroad
David Connolly (BAJR) Development Control - a personal view on standards
Mark Beattie-Edwards (NAS) New Standards for Maritime Archaeology
Mike Heyworth (CBA) Open debate on Standards
IFA / Diggers Forum may be able to attend

The Conference is free - but does not include accommodation (does include coffee!). Places are limited, so booking is essential. The entire conference will be recorded and be available as either a DVD or online as streaming video.. many thanks to MLO and Past Horizons Archaeology Equipment Store (http://www.pasthorizons.com). Be there and see the changes happen!

sign up by emailing me on info@bajr.org

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

Just a quickie.........
After being fortunate enough to have taken part in the dialogue on this site for a while, I would just like to thank everyone (without exception) for all your patience (in my rant mode) and for taking the time to correct some of my preconceptions.The Bajr empire is THE only real forum for heritage professionals and all who take an active interest in our little world.Its been really exciting to see how this forum has expanded into a hub where real issues are taken seriously-just a shame the two houses of parliament don`t operate in the same vein! A last hurah for me on this forum as I`m about to move permanently to the near/middle east and engage in a consultancy (yes I can hear you guffawing...) there. There is still so much work to be done in the UK and I think I`ve said and spat all I can say on many of the issues over the years. The one issue that I feel I should comment on before I step on the plane is this.....make the IFA reform itself.It could and should have an enormous role to play and frankly-tiz about time they did.Reform depends upon adequate, timely and appropriate consultation with the target profession. Its time to make the IFA listen to what we all have to say-not continue to listen to itself. We cant continue in an environment where developers are only required by "law" to do the bare minimum and we certainly cant continue to operate in a world where curators can be unbeleievably incompetent, standards are optional and un-policed and rogue cowboy units continue to trash archaeology unabated. Frankly-sod protecting the title "archaeologist"...we dont deserve that until we start protecting the archaeology first. Anyway, enough already.... to everyone-please accept my thanks for all your many words, I have learnt a lot from all of you. Heres wishing you all the very best of good fortune for the future in all you do. Right, now where did I put me shades...... would love to hear from you all if you ever get 5mins... liftingthelid@yahoo.co.uk Mr Hosty-I know I`ve said this before but please dont ever underestimate the importance of what you and your team have-and continue to do.Thankyou David. The Rt Hon David Connolly MP Secretary of state for heritage? God bless all of you (someone needs too) and I may see you on the beach one day............... si

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

Gilberts Farm Medieval Moated Manor House Chapel Lane, Bransford, Worcs

Open Days: Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th August 10:30am – 4:30pm

On Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th August the newly restored medieval moated manor house at Gilberts Farm will be open to the public before the new owners move in.

The manor house was acquired by Wolverley Homes in 2002 when the building was near to falling down. Over the last four years the building has been carefully and painstakingly restored and converted into a modern home to the highest conservation standards.

The house itself was first constructed in the fourteenth century as a cruck-framed hall house. Two additional wings were added in the Jacobean period.

Many original features survive such as bench seats, fireplaces and Jacobean wall panelling.

The work on the manor house has generated much local interest and the building will be open to the public for the weekend of the 18/19th August only.

Directions:

The site is located off of Chapel Lane, southeast of the Bank House Hotel Golf & Country Club, Bransford.

From M5: Exit M5 from J7 onto A4440. Continue on the A4440 across four roundabouts. At the fifth, take the first exit leading to the A4103 Hereford Road. After 1.7 miles turn left onto Chapel Lane, then 0.4 miles further on, turn left onto the Gilberts Farm track.



From New Road, Worcester: Head away from Worcester on the A44 / New Road, then go straight over at the roundabout on to the A4103 Hereford Road. After 1.7 miles turn left onto Chapel Lane, then 0.4 miles further on, turn left onto the Gilberts Farm track

See http://WWW.historicenvironment.co.uk for more details about the project

Peter Wardle

The Historic Environment Consultancy
38 Elvendon Rd, Goring on Thames, Oxfordshire, RG8 0DU
Tel: 01491 875584 Fax 01491 875239
Email drpeter@historicenvironment.co.uk

From a news release : NEWS RELEASE No: 8932 Forestry Commission

Interesting stuff this... thought you might like to be kept up to date (ish)

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele.nsf/...enDocument

Laser beams shone down from the sky are revealing archaeological and other treasures hidden in Britain's forests - by "seeing through" the trees.

Scientists, archaeologists and foresters are using pulses of laser energy beamed down from aircraft flying about 1000 metres (3300 feet) up to reveal forests' hidden secrets. These can include sites of ancient settlements, fortifications, farms and other signs of human activity which, in woodland, are often difficult to detect from the ground or the air with the naked eye.

Called lidar ('light detection and ranging'), the technology works by "bouncing" harmless laser energy off the forest in much the same way as radar ('radio detection and ranging') bounces radio waves off solid objects, and measuring the time it takes for the pulses to be reflected back to the recording instruments in the aircraft.

This produces data in the form of millions of three-dimensional co-ordinates. Many of these co-ordinates represent the pulses that "bounce" back off the trees themselves, but special computer applications can strip these out, leaving only the co-ordinates of the pulses that made it through the gaps in the vegetation to the forest floor. These data can then be fed into mapping computers that can convert them into images of the ground that look as if the trees had been stripped away.

By this means, any ground features that look as if they might have been made by humans rather than nature can easily be spotted and investigated to see whether they indicate the presence, or former presence, of buildings, trenches, fortifications, fields, charcoal platforms, mining sites or other features.

Lidar works best on deciduous forests in winter, when the leaves have fallen off the trees, giving the greatest number of laser pulses the best chance of reaching the ground rather than being reflected off leaves and needles. It works less well in evergreen conifer woodland such as spruce and pine forests, where the presence of needles on the trees all year round prevents of a lot of the laser energy from reaching the ground. Nevertheless, it can still reveal some archaeological features in well thinned conifer woods.

One of the first uses of lidar to find archaeological features in British forests was a survey of 280 square kilometres (108 square miles) of Gloucestershire, including most of the Forest of Dean. Carried out by scientists and archaeologists from the Forestry Commission and its Forest Research agency, Gloucestershire County Council, Cambridge University and English Heritage, it was the largest single heritage survey of woodland ever undertaken in Britain.

After eliminating known features, this survey revealed hundreds of features or areas of features that Jon Hoyle of Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service believes are worthy of further investigation and which have caused considerable excitement among archaeologists. These include industrial remains, parkland features, and what might be banks and terraces, enclosures, areas of coal extraction and areas of charcoal pits or platforms - a relic of the area's iron-mining days before coal replaced charcoal in the smelting process.

Also among them were a number of previously unknown "scowles", which are fissures in the ground from which iron ore has been extracted, and are a feature almost unique to the Forest of Dean.

A smaller survey of 42 square kilometres (16 square miles) of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire was also carried out to check the accuracy of lidar findings against known archaeological features and veteran trees. This also revealed hundreds of linear and multi-sided features that archaeologists want to check out. And in addition to built structures, lidar is also helping to map the many 'veteran' (very old) trees of Savernake.

Forestry Commission England archaeologist Tim Yarnell explains:

"Archaeologists have used aerial photography for decades to spot the sites of ancient human activity, which become much easier to identify from the air. But the archaeological maps made from aerial photographs always have gaps in them where there is woodland, because conventional cameras cannot see through the trees. It's not always easy to spot features from the ground either, even on open moorland and farmland, but especially so in woodland.

"This has been a great difficulty for archaeologists in general, and for the Forestry Commission in particular. That's because although we manage more scheduled ancient monuments than any other land manager in Britain, as well as thousands of other important features, there are undoubtedly many other archaeological sites in our woods and forests that we don't know about yet or which have been forgotten with the passage of time. Indeed, many archaeological features survive in woodland because they have been forgotten, or they've been protected by the woodland from being destroyed by intensive agriculture or development. These sites represent the history of woodland management and other land uses.

"Lidar technology gives us a wonderful opportunity to discover or rediscover some of these sites and, where appropriate, take steps to look after them and perhaps promote them to the public as places where they can learn more about our ancestors and their rich history. It can open up a whole new world to archaeology."

Meanwhile, lidar has other practical uses in forestry. Foresters can use it to accurately map forests in a way that distinguishes trees of different heights and ages (including 'veteran' trees). It can also inform harvesting plans, and it can show up forest tracks, drainage ditches, timber extraction routes and many other features. This information can be visualised in three dimensions to improve forest management activities, including the planning of operations such as harvesting, thinning and the construction of walking and cycling trails. As Tim Yarnell explains:

"It's one thing to find an archaeological feature, but its conservation and interpretation present new challenges. Lidar technology makes it much easier for our planning foresters to do things such as identify the size of features and plot footpath routes to the archaeological sites, because it can enable them to 'see' the forest floor so clearly."

Furher information about the use of lidar in forests is available from http://www.forestresearch.gov.uk.


"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

Well ... its time to fess up...

A Metal Detecting rally is to take place at Water Newton from 17-19th August - and will be televised on the One Show (BBC 7pm) with Neil Oliver.

What does it mean? why si it happening... why am I organising the largest archaeological recording? So far we have 5 FLOs, 2 Finds Experts, 4 pro Archaeologists, 1 Heritage expert, 7 student volunteers and 4 detecting volunteers and er... me! 250 detectorists will be conducting a legal rally, on an area which is a blank on the HER... plenty of potential for archaeology, but not much known... all artefacts will be recorded using GPS (5m accuracy) and only from the plough soil... a full report and finds database wil be created and presented to the HER and many finds donated to the local museum.

Normally in archaeology we go straight through the ploughsoil to untouched archaeology... so this will be recording the artefacts that we normally miss.. (or find in the spoil) and with grid ref data... This has not been easy... and I am not making money out of this... or trying to forward my career.. I'm just trying to show that we can work together... adn properly organised from the start (this was a learning exp!) useful archaeological data can be recovered....... its funny.... when we work on a pipeline... or a development site... we go in... strip the site... dig a sample and move on.... job done... mitigation sorted... here is community archaeology ... the real thing...

As I have said... this is a first... and much can be learnt... from contact with HER through to joining up with local groups to ensure joined up projects... If anyone is feeling like being on a first (and who knows... if it can't work.... the last I will eb involved in... though I would not do this if I thought it would fail) get in touch... Meet people who care passionately about heritage... talk... discuss... and work with me...

What do you feel ... think.... be frank... (I know you will) and I will defend... time to speakout

are we archaeologists or people who remove temporal contamination from the front of bulldozers??


"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

Hi all,
Would like to ask a question as I have confusion over this issue.

After setting up a baseline from which grids are to layed out from it, it must be surveyed in. This can be done by a series of offsets to a reference point for example a building. Once this is done it has therefore been surveyed into the current Ordnance Survey grid system.

Is this statment correct?

Thank you!