Atlas of Hillforts ? 1 million well spent?

[Wax]

Kel you are right, visiting your average hill fort is not particularly dangerous but what I have issues with is the blatant "it's nothing to do with us if you have problems" as indicated in the disclaimer. In terms of legislation etc disclaimers when it comes to health and safety are meaningless. if you are asking someone to do something for you whether employee or volunteer you have duty of care that cannot be signed away. I would have thought their legal department might have pointed this out to them. There are some basic safety guidelines on the web site along with guidelines on gaining acess but in my honest opinion if you want volunteers to under take a task for you you need to think through what your responsibilities to them are.

And the countryside is dangerous many people die there each year. Risk assessments training and insurance are needed for volunteers same as for any other work force.

[BAJR]

You can't actually sign away your legal rights. ... that is true. according to my lawyer sister in law ... is true.

[RedEarth]

This does come across as a little bitter Mr BAJR as, you are yourself involved in a project looking at hillforts are you not (did you purposely post a thread on after this one to make the point?).

I would say there is some benefit in both approaches - getting a decent list of every one and categorising them based on extant earthworks, but also key hole or larger excavation to get some decent information about them. I can think of a few examples that have never even been properly surveyed. However, what the £1 million project doesn't seem to be covering is examples where they are recorded (in documentary sources or by other evidence such as place-names) but no standing remains survive. If those were taken into account it would probably give a more realistic idea of the actual number of such sites.

[BAJR]

titter ye not.

I am involved in a hillfort project. [edit] A very different exercise as it is a fieldschool and test pitting so it is not so much jealousy rather quizzical [end edit] but my question is less than bitter. it is a real baflement
question... without dates they will not learn anything... that we do not know already. and what about teh ploughed out ones? er... and the dates of each bank? so what we are doing is saying...er... what?

categorising them based on extant earthworks

and what is that category. given that each site is not built as a oner. they evolve... so just because hillfort a has three rampart does not mean it has anything to do with hillfort b which also has three banks


I am not not bitter just baffled

[Dinosaur]

These seem like an opportunity for a major OSL profiling programme to investigate both their dating and site-formation, but didn't notice any mention of this on my (admittedly brief) skim through the website - am I blind or has a golden opportunity (and funding) been missed?

[Oxbeast]

These seem like an opportunity for a major OSL profiling programme to investigate both their dating and site-formation, but didn't notice any mention of this on my (admittedly brief) skim through the website - am I blind or has a golden opportunity (and funding) been missed?

For one thing they are going to critically reassess the existing dating evidence, and re evaluate the statistical models used. When they did this for causewayed enclosures recently, it toally changed the chronological model of these monuments and how they were viewed as part of the development of the Neolithic. And that was just re-examining old dates, not taking new ones.

[Doug]

"You charged me 1k to dig a hole and find nothing! F$#*^ I could have had my grandkid do that."

"Why am I paying you 30k to play in the dirt? Did you not get enough of that as a kid?"

Any of this sound familiar to anyone here? I am guessing 99.9999% of anyone on BAJR, who has been paid to do archaeology, hears this grumble ALL the time. It may not be how I would spend the money AND I know lots of developers and others who would feel the same way. However, I think we should be glad they got the funding. It comes from the academic centres which means its from a general pool. If archaeologists didn't get the money it would go to interpretative dance (an exaggeration but it is a general pool for multiple disciplines). It is not a zero sum game, were their win means our loss.

I think its best to remember their win is a win for archaeology. I am not going to lie, if I got 1m I probably would not spend too much of it on archaeology}, as much as I love it.

[P Prentice]

looks like an excellent project to me. brilliant news for all of us that such funding is still available. i cant see why this will not benefit archaeology and i can see where it wil create more opportunity

that being said 'hillfort' is an evocative yet anachronsisticly ambivalent term that i cant help feeling will disappear in the conclusions to the study

[Jack]

Why would you think that its just a survey of what the public think a hillfort is? They do expressly mention that they want to know more about hillforts that are only known from cropmarks. Using volunteers is only one source of data: they are going to be using local and national datasets as well. If I were them, I would be directing the volunteers towards the sites about which sod all is known. As for using Google Earth, plenty of hillforts are covered in scrub. I can think of lots of examples where extra circuits of banks and ditches or other internal/external can be seen on early aerial photos which can't now be seen on Google Earth.

There is rather a lot of sour grapes and dog in the manger on this thread. I'm sure that it has occurred to the project team that they are going to need some kind of discussion about what hillforts are and aren't, and the difference between them and enclosures..

As for:


Nice to see archaeologists giving each other that kind of support. I'm sure your clients think the same about you, Jack.

maybe i should explain what I think.
Yes it's great someone has won funding to do some archaeology.
Yes its great to involve the public/ amateur archaeologists
Yes its great to encourage/ inspire people to get involved in, become interested in archaeology.
But what use will the data be?

Too many opinions and variability in 'measurement' of the monuments/ non-monuments, roundabouts, 19th century gardens, spoil tips........

use lidar data and google earth together supervised by someone who knows something about what your looking for and you get measurable results.

But am guessing that's not the point of the project.

[Oxbeast]

maybe i should explain what I think.
Yes it's great someone has won funding to do some archaeology.
Yes its great to involve the public/ amateur archaeologists
Yes its great to encourage/ inspire people to get involved in, become interested in archaeology.
But what use will the data be?

Too many opinions and variability in 'measurement' of the monuments/ non-monuments, roundabouts, 19th century gardens, spoil tips........

use lidar data and google earth together supervised by someone who knows something about what your looking for and you get measurable results.

But am guessing that's not the point of the project.

Well, you've changed your tune. I would say:

But then I realised that its just a survey of what the public think and see about what they think is a hill fort.
The only point I can see is to waste some money.

is a completely opposite point of view to

Yes it's great someone has won funding to do some archaeology.

As for

But what use will the data be?

What use is your data? Other than its use in getting someone planning permission. See Doug's post above.

As for doing it with lidar, I should think it would cost more than a million quid to fly some lidar of all the known hillforts at a decent resolution, process it and get someone to interpret it. Most of the existing lidar datasets are from the Environment Agency, which has flown them to look at flooding patterns. Lots of it is not flown in winter, and is only available as jpegs anyway. And even then, lidar is not some kind of magical technology: site visits are quite important for interpretation.

If there is lidar or a site, I reckon this project will be looking at it. They have a big GIS to bring it into.

Volunteers are going to need management and quality control, just like anyone else.

But am guessing that's not the point of the project.

Yes, its all a conspiracy against you.