Shovel pit testing at Acton Scott - the archaeologist's view

The first shovel pit testing trial at Acton Scott (image) [+]

July 2007 saw volunteers gather at Acton Scott Historic Working Farm to discover the wonders of “shovel pit testing.” This would be the first trial of this archaeological methodology in Shropshire, though it has been widely used in the U.S.A. County Archaeologist, Hugh Hannaford sets the stage:

“Field-walking is a method of archaeological investigation which involves groups of fieldworkers walking across ploughed land on a systematic basis, collecting and recording surface finds. The obvious drawback to this method of investigation is its dependence on the availability of suitable ground. It's not a technique that can be used on pasture land or on arable land once the crops have begun to grow. The results also depend heavily on the prevailing weather conditions, and the experience (and eyesight!) of the fieldworkers. It can also be surprisingly tough on the back – most of the time the fieldworker is at best walking with a stoop, scanning the ground and occasionally (very occasionally in Shropshire!) bending down to pick up a piece of brick or interesting-looking stone.

“When the Acton Scott Heritage Project was first devised, the fields that held two of the known archaeological sites (the Iron Age/ Romano-British farmstead enclosure and the Roman villa adjacent to the museum site) were under arable cultivation. It was originally intended to carry out a programme of field-walking on these two fields to attempt to locate possible further structures or features associated with either site. However, it now appears that these fields will, for the foreseeable future, be given over to pasture, and so they will not be available for field-walking.

“So when Phil suggested using shovel-pit testing as an alternative to field-walking I was very interested. Shovel-pit testing is a technique relatively new to this country. It was devised in the USA to investigate sites which might only be located as discrete artefact scatters within large areas of uncultivated ground. The method involves digging small trial pits at regular intervals and sieving the soil to remove and record any artefacts.

“From my point of view as a field archaeologist, I can see a number of advantages with this method. Most important is that the method can be used on almost any type of arable or pasture land – and on other areas too for that matter, e.g. heathland. Any finds located and recorded will also provide more scientific data, because their findspot can be located more precisely and the data gathered will be more statistically useful. The technique should also be easier on the back – particularly with the aid of the custom-built sieving frames Phil has provided for the Acton Scott project!

“The experience from our days of shovel-pit testing at Acton Scott has also highlighted another advantage of this method – shovel-pit testing can be a much more sociable activity than field-walking—most important when the archaeological finds may be few and far between!”