Patc revealing the landscape stuart reddish

PATC Revealing the Landscape: Community Archaeology in Viking Sherwood Forest Stuart Reddish 28th April2017 SLIDE 1 Hello, Good Evening. Well Lynda has given you a quick but comprehensive overview of the story of Thynghowe and our part in it. Now I am going to look a little closer at archaeological work.

SLIDE 2 There are technical bits of information on the slides, and you can move through them quite quickly but you will be able to revisit all tonight's slides if you need any more information. And of course you can ask us questions online as well.

SLIDE 3 When these photographs were taken we really knew very little about what the site was all about. That was to evolve through the following years. What we did know was that the site had once been special – special to the people who lived close by – and as we found during our research – special within the evolution of the wider community.

SLIDE 4 The archaeology of the Thynghowe site and its significance through the ages right up to modern day events - is bound up in the power of borders and boundaries.

The constant use and re-use of certain sites create power and meaning in the landscape. It is crucial to the process of understanding the archaeology of this site to also try and understand the meaning of it to those who populated it.

What role did it play in the lives of the people? How did it support and direct society? How did it help define identity and how did it play a part in dispute resolution and the creation of law.

But also to recognise it was a working landscape. If hundreds of people attended an assembly they would need firewood, food and water – and somewhere to make camp and shelter their horses.

SLIDE 5 There are many excellent academic papers that describe the role of Thing sites across the Viking diaspora. Taking those findings we applied them to the topographical layout of the features of the site.

On the site there were the civil and administrative boundaries. Parish boundaries were created from the the time of the Anglo-Saxons. The kingdom boundaries of Mercia and Northumbria and before that Brigantia could have been placed on a much older boundary or border dating from the Bronze Age around 3000 years ago that ran through the site.

The finger stone or Birklands Forest Stone defines the main focal point. It appears to have been placed as a marker on what could be a Bronze Age Burial Mound. These mounds, built on the boundary, were often the place of burial for a powerful Chieftain and maintained influence over the landscape long after their death.

SLIDE 6 The Viking armies sought out these sites that already had power and magic and that were recognised as powerful landmarks by the existing communities, the Vikings then incorporated the sites authority and significance into their evolving ruling system.

This is where Thynghowe may have a unique place in the development of Thing sites and the future development of democratic law. It was essentially a Danish warrior farmer army that colonised Sherwood Forest. There is little evidence that Denmark had a system of Thing sites in the late 800's but there was an AngloSaxon system of moots and hundreds in England.

Because the invading Danish army were given land grants based on their military record there were no Chieftans as such with existing land rights - nor were there and kinship issues regarding ownership and title.

SLIDE 7 It appears that Thynghowe's development could have been at the root of a legislative system of law that later became known as the Danelaw and was further consolidated by Danish King Canute as King of England some 150 years later.

So, with this in mind we can now look at the orientation, the composition and the topography of the site.

Modern Ordnance Survey maps give the civil boundaries and contour height information. I was easy to detect the point where the three civil boundaries of Warsop, Budby and Edwinstowe met at the top of Thynghowe. What was more interesting was the civil boundary of Budby the farm of the booths. Given that the boundary could have been created over 12 hundred years ago - the boundary was carefully placed across the middle of the summit and then made a right angle that seemed to follow the line of the sand enclosure ditch.

SLIDE 8 Our landscape investigations and rescue archaeology had identified earthworks that suggested a number of banks and ditches at the top corner of the site and this was our next focus of attention. We needed to gain as much information as possible by the use of non invasive archaeological methods. The magnetometry carried out at the summit was used to identify areas of certain activities – like beacon fires – or camp fires SLIDE 9 As the mound was probably the oldest feature on the site and included the boundary stones, the forest stone and a possible burial mound the - data collection got a little intense.

SLIDE 10 We combined that information with the topography to try and understand how the site was constructed and adapted to function as court and an assembly – to become a landscape of governance. We had already begun to realise that as a Viking Assembly site it was probably the only one where you could stand on the exact spot where the Viking settlers had stood and see essentially the same landscape.

SLIDE 11 The purpose of a Thing site is for members of the community to meet on a regular basis to discuss matters of importance, resolve disputes, make laws and have those laws recited by the Law Speaker for all to hear – along with the verdicts of the court. This action was carried out by tradition at a place that was regarded as no man's land – a space where one could pass judgment without fear or favour from any other – a place that was not owned – a place where boundaries met – and ones decisions were open to the gods ......

SLIDE 12 The Law Speaker stood on the Law Rock .. the highest corner of the Thynghowe Enclosure site .. backed by the sky he spoke to the assembled people .. sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands, depending on the importance of the assembly.

So, we had started putting together the archaeological evidence that would detail the site. We established that the mound and the Birklands Forest stone was in the right place on the boundaries and it was possible a Bronze Age mound, it was built up higher to cover most of the finger stone and provide a stage for the Law Speaker to carry out his function. But, we also confirmed that the spoken word could be heard a hundred meters away and a shout could be heard across the forest.

SLIDE 13 Then the tangible evidence of the earthworks began to indicate the possibility of a circular feature that I named the court circle – this was based on my research of the layout of Viking Assembly proceedings. The first impressions were inconclusive but none the less it appeared that the boundaries which were also two sides of the enclosure fitted snugly around the circular earthwork feature.

The magnetometry pulled out that this site also had evidence of military use, the Ministry of Defence used the forest through the Second World War right up to the mid 1960's ... and we confirmed the location of an Ordnance Survey triangulation point ... There was no other indications of recent changes to the site.

SLIDE 14 The topographical survey confirmed much about the site and its relation to surrounding landscape .. it's position on the boundary, its natural amphitheatre acoustics .. the view-sheds indicated that it had a commanding view towards the Trent Valley and also the Viking winter camp at Torksey.

So, armed with this evidence we set forth to convince the academic and heritage communities that we had a significant Thing site and that we needed money to investigate the wider landscape and engage the community in looking for more archaeology in the forest.

SLIDE 15 We knew that the only way to obtain the kind of detailed information we required was to undertake a LiDAR survey. To have a plane fly over the forest and fire off a laser to record every detail of every tree and everything in the forest.

We acquired a partial LiDAR image captured by the Environment agency as part of their flood defence planning. It showed a tantalising corner of the Thynghowe site. This we presented to the funders and said “we would like some money so that a small community group of volunteers can undertake an ariel survey of one of the most famous forests in the world and we want the survey SLIDE 16 THIS BIG and we want 4 times more detail than the Environment Agency .. we want half meter detail. We asked for enough money to include everything within the black line ... we were only given enough to do the area within the blue line .. but hey four years later we are still working with that.

SLIDE 17 That we achieved and undertook the Lidar survey. That was amazing .... The full team along with the experts manipulated the data .. took away the trees and revealed the the Thynghowe site ... boundary ditches .. the full enclosure and entrance way and our first conclusive evidence of a complete circle constructed within it.

SLIDE18 We also revealed ancient trackways and holloways and routes that led to Thynghowe. DEEP scars in the landscape created by feet and horse hooves and carts stretching back through the centuries.

SLIDE 19 We checked measured and recorded every feature that we could find in the LiDAR data.

SLIDE 20 We took the trees out .. we put them back in.. we altered the direction of the light .. and tilted the image at different angles ...

SLIDE 21 And we compared our new data with old ariel photographs and maps and ..... finally when all the desktop work was done ...

SLIDE 22 We had a management plan that recorded and plotted all the possible archaeological sites of interest in the forest ... a heritage management plan that is constantly updated .. I will be back in the UK in three weeks time working with the LiDAR to decide on targets for the next years survey work....

SLIDE 23 And that survey work involves the members of the Friends of Thynghowe and the community .. we ground truth everything .... we go into the forest and carry out a process of determining whether something is a medieval earthwork, a second world war MOD ammunition dug out ... or a fallen tree .. by standing next to it and deciding if it as an archaeological feature or not.

SLIDE 24 Constantly refining and defining and recording all confirmed discoveries on to the Forestry commission management plan LiDAR records. This safeguards the sites from future impact by commercial forestry operations.

SLIDE 25 I just want to take a moment here to comment on my experience of community involvement ... the remit of our funders ...the Heritage Lottery Fund ... is to use profits from the National Lottery to create new heritage knowledge and community learning opportunities ... they paid for our LiDAR ... and we found creative ways of putting the rest of that research money back into the community ... the guys I am surveying with here are doing their community service order time for crimes and offences they have committed .. they are on probation ... they worked with us clearing the site of a Viking Track way called Nether Warsop Gate and they did it all with hand tools .. it was very hard work and took weeks ....

SLIDE 26 they did it so that these guys, other members of their community, could survey it and stand in it .... this is also the spot that Lynda showed with our Viking reenactors walking to Thynghowe ... a very evocative place where tangible and intangible cultural heritage comes together ..

SLIDE 27 So, after a year or so's work on the LiDAR .. we had a pretty comprehensive record of the features in the wider landscape that we could add to our earlier topographic work at the Thynghowe assembly site.

SLIDE 28 We now had this fantastic LiDAR image of our Viking Site with its circle ... and at the end of the project we had a little bit of money left in the interpretation budget ... so we went back to take a closer look at the circle.

Sherwood forest geology is sand - that is what had made the forest so natural for wood pasture hunting but also so poor for farming - until the Danish Viking Warrior Farmer that is .. who could farm it .. hold that thought ....

I chose a point on the east side of the enclosure that did not have a civil boundary ditch only an enclosure ditch .... it also had the Viking trackway Nether Warsop Gate running next to it .... we needed to see how the circle was constructed and if, by chance, we could find any dating evidence of its construction.

SLIDE 29 The question was now ... was the circle here when the Vikings arrived .... or did they build it ... or was it medieval ... but there was this obvious factor that it had been either placed in the top corner of the enclosure .. or the enclosure and the boundaries were bent round it because the circle predated the boundaries making the circle very old indeed.

SLIDE 30 The test trench revealed that the circle was constructed entirely of sand. It was sixty meters across and was encircled by a ditch .. it was not defensive .. it did not appear to have a function to contain live stock .. it seemed only to designate a space and indicate the desire to separate the inside from the out side. There were no artifacts and no clear indication as to its date or use. We now needed more money.

SLIDE 31 Which brings us to last years dig. The research brief evolved along the lines that we had no artifacts and no evidence about the construction time line ... except .. the stratigraphy of the sand itself ... if we placed two main trenches both across different parts of the circle but including the inside of circle bank, the out side of the circle ditch and the enclosure bank and ditch .. could we tell if the circle was there when the enclosure was put round it or was the circle put into the enclosure. And would we be able to gain more information on possible dating from trench fill etc.

SLIDE 32 We meticulously peeled away the sand .. recording at about 2 inch intervals ... we carefully removed roots and located infilled rabbit holes we sieved every grain of sand .. recorded every change in sand colour .. stood and deliberated .....

SLIDE 33 but a picture slowly began to emerge .. out of the sand ... the enclosure ditch and parish boundary ditch had in places cut into the circle ditch ... it was beginning to look as if the oldest feature on the site was the circle .. we did not have a date though for when the enclosure ditch was dug only conjecture that it happened when the parish boundary was created to contain the circle probably late Anglo-Saxon.

SLIDE 34 The next astonishing find was the location of a massive concentration of fire cracked pebbles. The site had been meticulously cleared of vegetation prior to the dig and when the volunteer archaeology team came on site we did a walk over .. a large number of fire cracked stones were noticed on the surface at one point on the site and a decision was made to put in a test pit .. to be dug by the volunteer that had noticed the stones .. through thermoluminescence testing these stone may give us some of the best dating evidence for activity on the site SLIDE 35 So ... we have all the site data .. we are investigating a now known Viking assembly site .. we have a law rock on the boundary of three parishes and two kingdoms ... we have a possible Bronze Age burial mound ... and we have huge sand circle with ditches ......

SLIDE 36 Whilst all this was happening I was carrying out a participant reflexive ethnographic study .. we had gathered feedback from the volunteers whilst they undertook archaeological training and some volunteers had been on visits to the forest .. that is the subject of another publication .... but those on site began to coalesce into three main groups ... those that just wanted to dig their trench on a Viking site and not engage too much with anything about the sense of place or use of the space ... to those members of the Friends of Thynghowe who had maintained and visited the site over the last few years and were not that bothered about digging as they were more engaged with the sense of place .... and those who really wanted to know more about the sites age and use through time.

SLIDE 37 As the dig went on and we all began to realise that this site was being defined by the lack of artifacts rather a clear indication of its occupation and use .... the conversations began to reflect on ' what if it was built by the Vikings' .. it would be an almost pristine viking site built out of sand ... the only one in the universe ... what if its older .. what if it is a sand circle built in the Bronze Age .. it would be the only one in the universe ...

We had no dating evidence to prove or disprove either theory.

SLIDE 38 And then we had something to get exited about ... a piece of flint ... flint does not occur naturally in Sherwood Forest .. small shards have been found at the Cresswell Craggs ice age refuge six miles away ... and they have been found to have been brought from France by the reindeer followers. This flint find is soft hammered and maybe mesolithic or early neolithic ....

SLIDE 39 we then found three more flint shards in trench one that were hard hammered and they are neolithic ... we also found a roman earthenware pot base ... but we found nothing else ... so pollen and soil samples were taken to help explain when it was built.

SLIDE 40 The pit with fire cracked pebbles ... well they just kept coming and coming .... something was going on inside the circle and this concentration of heated stones indicated that the heating of food or water took place here .... but when .. a thousand years ago .. Vikings ... three thousand years ago .. a bronze age burial feast .. 6000 years ago .. a mesolithic hill top camp .....? In this same trench we have also found a fragment of quern stone not far from the top .. used to grind grain and this could date from the iron age ... so are the fire cracked stones and pebbles below that older .. is this pit the debris of multiple layers of occupancy.

SLIDE 41 The community dig ended ... Training was given to over 80 volunteers .... the 1 week dig generated 150 volunteer days ... but we had not finished .. the money had been spent ... but our friends at Mercian Archaeological Services kept on going ... through the summer ... in their own time they extended the trenches ...

SLIDE 42 Trenches remained open from April to the end of August to facilitate the completion of recording soil and environmental samples under the profile of the ditches.

SLIDE 43 The structure was extensively photographed and measured at this point as there are no plans to open any more trenches on the circle in the future.

SLIDE 44 So, back to the environmental samples. We had hoped that a full report on the pot boilers and the environmental samples would have been available by now to include in this presentation ... but they are not finished yet ... when pushed for something to tell you ..... the answer by the expert on the team was .... we have found evidence of Rye seeds.

Let us return to our Danish Viking Farmer .... Rye seeds .... why is that special at the end of all this research ...... Rye started to make an appearance in Denmark in the late Bronze Age. The cereal probably came from the south with seed corn, and spread as a weed in the cornfields, before becoming accepted as bread grain.

During the Iron Age, both climate and agriculture changed - and in the Viking Age, rye became the predominant type of grain.

It is much more resistant to the winter cold, damp and drought than other types, and can be grown on less fertile soil or SAND. In conclusion ... as they say ... we do not have one yet ... The Danish Vikings were in Sherwood Forest .... and they used a large earthwork ... the site suggests it could have a history stretching back to the end of the Ice Age ... small pieces of evidence are being added together .. including the Rye seeds .. they are giving detail to the story .. but we do have a definitive piece of archaeological evidence ... yet.

But the success of this project is recorded in the process of archaeological discovery .. and that has been enormously successful .. the collaboration between academic experts, professionals, informed volunteers, land owners, forestry managers and most of all, the community has been phenomenal ... so all that is left to say is ...

THANK YOU for accessing this presentation.