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Working with the tide
Working with the tide is never easy. Time limits on a tide-threatened site are very strict and the whole process can be extremely dangerous. Working with Martin Bell's team from Reading University, Time Team struggled against the elements at Goldcliff, on the Severn estuary, to rescue a piece of Mesolithic foreshore.
Squares in the clay
With only a few hours available each day when the site was not under water, the key to this excavation was to take the beach back to dry land. In order to do this, 25-centimetre blocks of clay foreshore were marked and then removed using special steel tins (a bit like cake tins).
Back on land, each block was then rebuilt, like a jigsaw, into one-metre square sections on tabletops at an excavating station set up by the incident room. Each square could then be carefully excavated by hand and all the spoil wet sieved and floated to search for organic remains.
Evidence for Mesolithic life
Additional trenches were opened further up the shore to try to find the elusive evidence that typifies the Mesolithic period: tiny flint tools (microliths) and charred grains. This was a period when people didn't make use of permanent structures, or even pottery, so looking for evidence of their presence is like finding a needle in a haystack.
The painstaking work of the Team paid off. Stone-cutting tools and a flint point were discovered together with charred elderberry and raspberry seeds, indicating that the site was used seasonally and usually in the autumn. Together with the wonderful snapshot of the past provided by 8,000-year-old human footprints preserved in the clay, these finds helped to paint an intriguing picture of life on this site some eight millennia ago.
Geological map
The geological map of the area featured in the programme is Geological Map Sheet 263, Cardiff (S&D) 1:50 000, 1998. Reproduced by permission of the British Geological Survey. © NERC. Copyright permission number IPR/50-48C. All rights reserved.
Catalogues of BGS's maps, books and other publications are available on request from:
Sales Desk
British Geological Survey
Kingsley Dunham Centre
Keyworth
Nottingham, NG12 5GG
Tel: 0115 936 3241
Fax: 0115 936 3488.
Examples of the publications can been seen on the BGS website at: http://www.bgs.ac.uk.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Painstaking search
Searching back over 8,000 years to the Mesolithic period can be a painstaking job. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the time leaves little evidence as people lived mobile lives not requiring permanent structures or long-term settlement. The evidence left is often very scant with large volumes of soil producing just a few fish bones and the odd small flint tool (called microliths) that are synonymous with this period.
'The word microlith comes from "micro" meaning small, and "litho" meaning stone,' says flint expert and Time Team regular Phil Harding. 'These small tools are very versatile and were used in a variety of ways.'
New digging technique
To excavate the site on the foreshore at Goldcliff Time Team used a new technique. Regular digger Dan Dodds explains: 'Time was limited on site because of the tide. We only had a small window of opportunity, so we used a technique that involved removing blocks of clay from the site, and then excavating them later back at our base near the incident room.'
Using metal tins to contain the clay, the blocks were recorded in situ and then removed. At the base they were set out on a table within a grid to accurately reconstruct the original surface. Each block was then carefully excavated to try to find traces of Mesolithic material. After the blocks had been completely excavated away, the clay spoil was then processed by flotation to look for further evidence.
'We could only get onto site between 1pm and 3pm,' continues Dan. 'So much of the morning was spent drinking tea and having a natter.'
Hidden in the silt
Hidden in the laminated silts of the Severn estuary foreshore at Goldcliff are amazing finds: 8,000-year-old human footprints. Specialist Rachel Scales has been painstakingly excavating these silts to uncover the fleeting snapshots of past human activity.
'There are a large number of human footprint-tracks at Goldcliff,' says Rachel. 'They represent a range of individuals, from children as young as three years old to teenagers and adults. Several "trails" have been recorded, including one that revealed footprints of four children walking towards Goldcliff island.'
Limited access
Because she only has limited access to the site at low tide, Rachel has developed a number of methods that enable her to record the evidence quickly before it is lost to the tide and erosion. The first of these involves tracing the footprints on clear plastic to capture details and record their alignment. Another method used to rescue decaying prints is to lift them in a block so they can be taken away and excavated off-site. A third method involves taking casts of the impressions so that they can be studied back in the laboratory.
'Goldcliff is an exceptional site in terms of footprint tracks,' concludes Rachel. 'It offers great promise for research into man-animal relationships during the Mesolithic, and their study can contribute to a number of archaeological topics, such as population composition, husbandry practices, coastal exploitation and the dynamics of past landscapes.'
Soils can hold a huge amount of archaeological evidence in their make-up. This includes not only the obvious flecks of charcoal or chips of flint that indicate past human activity, but also organic remains of plants and pollen grains, or even animal bones, which can help to identify the flora and fauna once dominant in the prehistoric landscape. All of this evidence can be used to help to reconstruct the environment that the people who left their footprints at Goldcliff 8,000 years ago would have known and lived in.
In order to retrieve as much material as possible, Time Team used flotation tanks. These are barrels that are pumped with a constant flow of water. A fine net is suspended just below the surface and the soil is dropped onto the netting. As the soil is broken down in the water the organic particles float to the surface and are then caught by successively smaller sieves at a run-off point to grade the evidence by size.
'This can be really useful for getting a picture of the prehistoric environment,' says Time Team's Goldcliff site supervisor Kerry Ely. 'A lot of the material we've picked up belongs to riverside reeds, but all the samples will be thoroughly checked out under a microscope and then we can really see what we've got.'
Varied diet – but not for veggie Mick
Food Historian Jacqui Wood brought a selection of foods with her to demonstrate what hunter-gatherer people would have eaten. 'The diet is quite varied,' said Jacqui. 'Lots of foods that you'd find near the shore; salmon; duck, which could be stuffed with berries; goose stuffed with crab apples; and venison soaked in wild thyme honey.'
Mick Aston was a little more concerned about his vegetarian dietary requirements: 'The vegetarian option is a little bit scarce,' he said with a smile. 'I shouldn't have thought that many vegetarians were about in the Mesolithic period.'
Cooking without pots
The mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle didn't suit the use of fragile pottery either. So people didn't make pottery in any quantity until they started farming and living in settlements. How, then, did you cook things in an age before people started using domestic pottery?
'It is difficult if you're thinking of conventional cooking methods,' says Jacqui Wood. 'The key is that people used means other than boiling or baking things in pots. Many foods were clay baked. This means that they are wrapped in grass (to protect the food from the clay) and then covered in fine, silty clay. They're then laid in a fire and baked. When they're ready the clay is broken off and the food can be eaten. Lots of food was also smoked over a fire.'
The Time Team excavations at Goldcliff didn't find any burnt clay from food preparation, but there is a reason for that: 'Though the clay is baked,' says Jacqui, 'it isn't really fired like pottery. Once it's broken open and discarded it literally just turns to dust and then can't really be identified archaeologically.'
Prehistoric Cooking by Jacqui Wood (Tempus, 2002) paperback £15.99
Based on experimental archaeology at the author's world-famous research settlement in Cornwall, this book describes the ingredients of prehistoric cooking and the methods of food preparation. A general overview of the lifestyle of our prehistoric ancestors is followed by detailed sections (plus cookbook-style recipes) on: bread, dairy foods, stews, water pits and hunting foods, clay-baked food, the seashore menu, beans and lentils, herbs and spices, vegetables, wine, beer and teas, sweets and puddings. See: Prehistoric cooking, and some sample recipes from the book.
Farmers in Prehistoric Britain by Francis Pryor (Tempus, 1998) hardback £18.99
Wearing both his hats as archaeologist and farmer, Pryor has produced an empathic work on the life and methods of prehistoric farmers. Often what survives is just a few cropmarks, but this work brings what is now obscure into vivid reality.
Prehistoric Settlements by Bob Bewley (Batsford/English Heritage, 1994) paperback £15.99
This book traces the variety and development of prehistoric settlements in Britain through 8,000 years, from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic to the tribes of the Iron Age in the years before the Roman invasion. Examining key sites such as Star Carr, Bodmin Moor, the Dartmoor reaves, and hillforts and farmsteads, Bewley concentrates on two central themes: the close relationship between the individual settlement site and the wider landscape; and the ways in which archaeologists discover, interpret, and reinterpret prehistoric settlements.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Museum of Antiquities
http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/search_index/
Mesolithic%20Britain.htm
Newcastle-upon-Tyne's Museum of Antiquities runs an 'online museum', which includes various, well-illustrated web pages providing information about the Mesolithic era. This link tells you what they've got.
Mesolithic Britain
mesobrit.tripod.com
Includes sections explaining what is the Mesolithic era; the British evidence from the period; British Mesolithic sites; and Mesolithic diet.
Saveock Water Archaeology
Saveock Mill
Greenbottom
Chacewater
Cornwall TR4 8QQ
Tel: 01872 560351
Website: currently being prepared
E-mail: jacqui.m.wood@btopenworld.com for further information
Time Team contributor and Prehistoric cooking author Jacqui Wood has directed an excavation on her land for the past three years teaching 'A' level and university students. The site ranges from a Mesolithic house to a pagan votive spring. This summer she plans to run full training digs during July and August, as well as very basic, introductory day schools on excavation techniques. All income from training digs will support dating and other analysis of finds.