BAS AAG in the press

Today's Buckingham and Winslow Advertiser is running the following story on its village pages.
(Apologies for the poor scan!)
Barbara

Filled to the brim with girlish glee - BAS ladies at Maids Moreton Mound excavation (photos)

Louise

Rhian

Jenny

Glynis

Barbara

A visit to Maids Moreton Mound

We visited the dig at “Maids Moreton Mound” on a warm and sunny morning, Monday 17 August, the first day of the second and final week of the dig.  The first thing we learned was - it isn’t a mound, it’s a platform!  Tim Upton-Smith kindly gave us an overview of the findings so far, explaining that they had uncovered a (6 metre?) square of yard stone and had chosen to dig 4 sondages at strategic points, guided by the geo-physical scan previously conducted. 

8 or 9 volunteers were hard at work in those sondages with various sizes of trowel, meticulously clearing the soil away.  In one corner, Barbara (bottom right in picture) was excavating a previously identified deep pit - she was already over a metre down and there was clear evidence that the pit was lined with stone but the purpose of the pit remained unclear.  In another corner (top centre of picture), Lynn, Rhian and Glynis had uncovered a large flat stone and some pink soil, which was an indication of (???)

The round bowl (ignore the green mat)

In one of the other sondages we were fascinated to see them slowly and tentatively unearthing a round bowl which was buried just below the yard stone level and contained clear evidence that it had been used to burn something, as yet unidentified. 

A few meters away someone else was meticulously sieving the soil which had already been removed. 

This dig is the second of two (so far) at this site.  Sadly, we had just missed an exhibition at Buckingham Old Gaol Museum, where all the findings in the two trenches dug on the earlier dig last year had been displayed.  We were told that all those findings had been mediaeval and that the yard stone had been laid down immediately on top, so was also of around that era. 

We felt privileged to have witnessed the work at close hand and are very grateful for the warm welcome we received.

Linda Knights and Bronwen Lee

AAG Autumn and Winter Meetings Programme

The Active Archaeology Group's programme of meetings for Autumn 2015 and Winter 2016 is now finalised. All will be at the County Museum in Aylesbury, starting at 7.30pm. So put these dates in your diaries:

Tuesday 15 September:
EXCAVATING THE ICKNIELD WAY AT ASTON CLINTON
Matthew Morris of Leicester University

Tuesday 20 October:
SUMMER FINDS AT MAIDS MORETON, NEAR BUCKINGHAM
Dr Susan Sorek

Tuesday 17 November:
ASHRIDGE: SEARCHING FOR THE MONASTIC CHURCH
Ken Wallis of Berkhamsted Archaeology Society

Tuesday 15 December:
INVESTIGATIONS AT WARREN WOOD, LITTLE MARLOW
Andy Ford of Archaeology in Marlow

Tuesday 19 January 2016:
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE'S OLD BONES: INVESTIGATIONS IN THE MUSEUM STORE 
Jean Savigar

Tuesday 16 February:
SMALL FINDS, BIG STORIES: THE 'PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES SCHEME'
Rose Tyrrell, Buckinghamshire Finds Liaison Officer

Tuesday 15 March:
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE POTS, POTTERS AND POTTERIES 1200-1900
Mike Farley and Barbara Hurman

• All meetings are in the Learning Zone at the Bucks County Museum in Church Street, Aylesbury, starting at 7.30pm. Entrance is from the footpath at the side of the building facing the churchyard. 

Archaeology day and weekend courses at Oxford

There's a good crop of archaeology courses this autumn and winter in the new Oxford University Continuing Education programme, which is just out. Here are a few examples:

• How about Understanding Prehistoric Stone Tools, a two-day weekend course on 31 October and 1 November with a chance to handle Stone-Age objects in the Ashmolean Museum?
• Or The Hillforts of Britain and Ireland: When, where and why? This should appeal to those working on our own AAG Hillforts Project. Again it's a weekend but with a Friday evening start, on 27-29 November. 
• Then there's a day school on The Romano-British Countryside, with some local settlements as examples. That's on Saturday 16 January 2016.
• And the one I'm planning to go for: East Oxford: A Thames Valley landscape, which promises to show how a community project of test pits, geophysics, place names and old maps all helped identify a historic landscape.

That's just four out of 14 in the Archaeology and six in the Local History list, among many others. Most courses are at Rewley House in Oxford itself, and fees vary. You can view all their courses on-line at OUCE courses list - and even enrol and pay for them too.

Peter Marsden

Hogshaw earthworks survey completed

The final sections of the Hogshaw earthworks survey were measured and recorded on Tuesday 28 July by five members of the AAG. The high wind, which had caused a previous survey to be called off, faded as the day progressed and, with good weather, the last measurements were done before 6pm.

The measurements covered the area around the two mounds which we have tentatively identified as the gateway of the former Knights Hospitallers’ precinct. With the moat and other former water channels, and the ‘formal garden’, the large field to north and east of the Ox House and the small paddock north of the drive have now been fully surveyed.

Seven members of the group completed the work: Bronwen Lee, David Bishop, Janet Dineen, Kate Davies, Pauline Hey, Peter Marsden and Rhian Morgan. David will now draw up the results.

The next step at Hogshaw will be to produce a short report of the geophysical survey results so far for English Heritage, in order to request an extension of our geophysical survey licence so we can complete this. It is a scheduled site.    

Peter M

'Open the Box'

(From Day of Archaeology website)

Some of you may, like me  be old enough to remember a game show, hosted by Michael Miles where contestants had to decide to  "take the money or open the box". The box might hold a booby prize, a £1 premium bond or some fabulous prize. Well , there have been echoes of this at Bucks county museum stores over the past few months. 

Three members of the Active archaeology group-Jean, Jeanie and Glynis have been helping two osteoarchaeologists -Diane and Suzy to describe, identify material suitable for scientific tests, catalogue and repack the museum's skeletons. 

When we choose a box to open we have little idea of what might be inside- a bronze age warrior, a saxon "princess", sometimes a jumble  of bones from several different skeletons, sometimes with animal bones or pottery or pieces of stone mixed in. Trawling the archives to discover what information is available about the remains is also part of the project. 

To find out more about this project keep an eye on the programme for the AAG meetings. We are now about halfway through the 200 boxes of human remains, so we will continue to "open the box" and no, "take the money" is not an option!

Glynis