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+--- Thread: A handbook for new diggers? (/showthread.php?tid=4412)
A handbook for new diggers? - BAJR - 11th May 2012
ah ...fell into my trap... Iron Age in Scotland - very late. and I would be careful with pit dwellings in Scottish Weather
According to my wife, who is from a farm, the cattle drank whenever. and sheep the same. ... I will watch teh cattle and sheep over the road and tell you.
Depends on time of year... type of weather... so if it rains, the moisture comes from grass but hot days... they will head off to drink as much as possible.
( typing fast, with Maggie shouting at me... )
ref.. pers comm.. Maggie Struckmeier
A handbook for new diggers? - monty - 12th May 2012
Jack Wrote:Costing and tendering for work up here seems to be a black art of delusion and misdirection.
We seem to do a lot of preliminary works, but have the actual excavation work stolen by a certain company that miraculously can do the job cheaper (somehow).
Guess they must be using students as slave labour, not paying the going rate, not paying for travel time etc, or must be begging more money out of the client later, or they are just not recording all the archaeology.
It's not a major issue, just an annoyance and a bit of a mystery to me how their tenders always seem lower than ours........:face-huh:
Nowt new there......has always been the case around here.........
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 12th May 2012
BAJR - cheers, am just interested in what scale the water supply would need to be in a set-up where they're driving all the livestock into home-base at night (which seems to be the perceived model on a lot of Iron Age farmstead sites, judging by a lot of literature) - I've dug dozens of IA sites over the years and yet I can't ever recall seeing a well or water hole or dewpond or anything of the like (except for a couple of jobs where all the features were full of water all the time!). Some IA sites are located where there never seems to have been a handy stream or whatever - did they leave their tin-baths out to collect rainwater? Or did the cattle just go dry overnight and had to be driven elsewhere in the morning?
On pits - have just realised I've got a publication draft in my heap for a site where there are ENeo/LNeo pits, but there are several remarkably similar small IA pits mixed in - maybe extend the range from 'the invention of the shovel' to 'the Romans turning up and showing them the error of their ways'? And them we've got the 5th/6th AD pit pair (which got dated as dead-cert Neo features).....
A handbook for new diggers? - BAJR - 12th May 2012
I feel we may have to divert this to a new thread, as it is too interesting - though perhaps not relevant to the main thread. I will try to do that if you are ok with that.
Like you I have been at a loss to see wells etc. though I have seen several cistern like structures. ( rectangular cut through bedrock and must be filled by ground water. as they seem to be moist even now, or even at a site I did a couple of years back near St Abbs, where they were still full of water. HOwever, the 18th century dew ponds I have recorded are often farther from the farm than you would expect, and relate to stock far from the occupation. ( did stuff in Croatia where ponds are next to routes but not settlement. )
hmmmm fascinating. - or is it just us?
Maggie say De nada
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 12th May 2012
You think Unit would be able to resist discussing VAT on livestock? (or water...)
At the risk of being controversial, the only dew pond I've had hands-on experience with was right in front of the farmhouse - the owner had decided to use his JCB to clear it out and hadn't realised the layer of clay was kind of important, since the chalk underneath wasn't too water-retaining....ducks looked a bit XXXXXX-off }
A handbook for new diggers? - CARTOON REALITY - 12th May 2012
Quote:I've dug dozens of IA sites over the years and yet I can't ever recall seeing a well or water hole or dewpond or anything of the like
Good evidence of Iron Age camel farming surely?
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 12th May 2012
We never get any bone surviving up here so that's as good an explanation as any, I'll try and see if I can sneak it past the management in a report :face-approve:
and of course they wouldn't have been trying to steal the cider like pesky cows
A handbook for new diggers? - CARTOON REALITY - 12th May 2012
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how mad-as-s**t it might seem, must be the truth,' to quote Sherlock Holmes (approximately.)
A handbook for new diggers? - Dinosaur - 12th May 2012
Its becoming fashionable to begin papers with a quote, and that's a classic! Now just need to dig up something interesting and worthy of a paper :face-thinks:
A handbook for new diggers? - Jack - 14th May 2012
I'm sure with your recent obsession with pits you have enough material to write a book...........
How about 'On pits' as a title