Fieldwalking

  Fieldwalking is a much used technique which can locate archaeological sites and areas of past activity. The technique can detect new sites and past land-uses across a landscape. It is often used before a major excavation, or it can be simply used on its own if further work is too costly or time-consuming or perhaps a significant interest is not shown by the exercise. It at least identifies if there is the possibility of an archaeological interest in an area and its possible character (e.g. a settlement, temple or industrial area), and the technique can pin-point the approximate date of activity (e.g. Mesolithic, Iron Age, Roman, etc). It may also indicate what that activity may have been (e.g. habitation, tool-making, worship, etc.).

  It is a simple technique, but one which provides a wealth of information upon which further investigations or excavations can be planned efficiently. It will only be of archaeological use if it is carried out properly. It has to be well organised and a grid laid out and surveyed in before any ‘walking’ can be done. It is then a matter of walking over the area to be investigated in an orderly sequence, locating items ‘of interest’.

Fieldwalking ‘hit list’ :

A good fieldwalking exercise should:

Timing

Fieldwalking is best carried out in Autumn or Spring when vegetation is lowest and fields have been ploughed. It is best not to walk a freshly ploughed field, as although many artefacts may be visible at that time, there will be a larger amount visible once the clods of earth have time to break down and rain gently cleans some of the artefacts. If winter cereals are to be planted in the field then the fieldwalking is best done in October to November – after sowing, but before the crop appears. In spring crops such as spring cereals or potatoes, the fieldwalking can be done early spring. The best weather conditions are cloudy, but bright days after rain. A bright, sunny day may be pleasant for the fieldwalkers, but ubnfortunately prevents many artefacts from being seen!

The grid

The area under investigation is marked on a map by a large grid; the grid is then subdivided into smaller, more easily workable grids. The working grids are often 20 m x 20 m, but this can vary according to the individual project. Each walker is given a 2 metre wide strip, which by walking down the centre line and scanning 1 m either side can, at a slow pace, yield a good number of artefacts seen at the surface in a short period of time. The artefacts are marked by pea-sticks until the line is completed. Then the artefacts must be collected, bagged and labelled according to the grid system. With this technique, any item found can be assigned an accurate position within the grid. This will very quickly show up clusters of finds. The clusters give a good indication of the approximate location of sites and the extent of the interest.

There are essentially three methods of field-walking:

1. Grid-walking. This is the method described above which involves the group surveying 100% of the available field surface and grid. The finds are thus compared between the different grid squares.
2. Linear walking. This involves walking a smaller percentage of the field. The transects, or lines, are marked out and mapped in by a surveyor. Transects can be a variable distance apart, past surveys seen recently use anything between 10 m and 40 m distances between the transect lines. Finds are compared between transects. The advantage is clear where few field-walkers are available, but not all the ground is covered by the method.
3. Reconnaissance-walking. This is simply walking over areas of disturbed soil, such as ploughed fields, without any method. Reconnaissance is best restricted to the initial surveying of an area. It is basically a ‘look and see’ exercise to aid planning of a future project. It goes without saying that, if anything of archaeological importance is found, then it should only be removed if the position is marked by an item which is then surveyed in as soon as possible.

Artefacts

The artefacts ‘of interest’ will vary according to many factors. Firstly, the fieldwalk area has not been chosen at random! There will already be a history of finds coming from that area or research has indicated a potential site on that land. The Site Director will therefore have a particular purpose in mind – to investigate the main feature (e.g. potential Roman villa, Iron Age settlement, Medieval church location, etc). However, although the main aim of the project may be to investigate the Roman villa, most site directors will not ignore the location of stone age tools on the site, or artefacts from other eras. Sites often incorporate a mixed stratigraphy at some upper horizons and many sites are multi-phase. There will be strict instructions set up on what is the ‘main item of interest’ and what ‘may be collectable’ if encountered. The usual instruction is to collect anything man-made, which will inevitably include some items which will not be required such as modern pottery. This is a safe method to use if the field-walkers are inexperienced as they will not necessarily know modern from, say, medieval pot. The usually collected items will include: pottery, building materials, worked flint, glass fragments, bone and metal.

There will similarly be a listing of what not to collect. The ‘what not to collects’ are usually bulk items such as burnt flints and modern tile or brick, but this instruction will vary according to the reason for the walk, the budget and the number of people working on the site. For instance, if the project was to attempt to identify a Mesolithic or Neolithic settlement area, the burnt flints will be collected, as they will show locations of fires and potential habitation sites.

Another non-collectable item is often one or more types of glazed pottery. Almost every field in England will have a sparse scatter of medieval pottery and the ubiquitous blue-white glazed pottery. These are present everywhere due to the practice of muck-spreading from people’s cess pits. Fertiliser was an expensive commodity of which there was insufficient for farming use. Collection of waste from cess pits was common everywhere. Of course, the pottery was not a required part of the cess pit contents, but while there was a free collection for ‘refuse’, people took advantage and broken items were discarded in the cess pit to get rid of them from the house. In this way, pottery became scattered from the towns to field systems all over England . This is usually not collected.

Finds identification

Site supervisors may be able to whittle out all the non-collectable items on site. The remaining items will be labelled and bagged carefully and collected at the side of the field. Later on they will all need to be cleaned, sorted by type and classified as soon as possible. Only then can an analysis be undertaken and recommendations for future fieldwork can be put forward.

Analysing the survey

The following will be calculated/recorded in any report arising from a fieldwalking survey analysis: