Rockbourne Roman Villa Oral History Day

The Hampshire Museum and Arts Service is looking for willing interviewees for its Rockbourne Roman Villa oral history day on 28th March at Western Downland School, Rockbourne. They are collecting memories and stories of people’s own discovery of the villa, so this may be visiting the site as a child or actually being involved in the early excavatations of the site.
The interviews will take place at 1.30pm, and will be conducted by the school’s year 6 pupils who are being trained by a professional oral historian. Clips of the interviews will form part of a display on site later in the year, to mark the 70th annivsary of its discovery.
If you think you can contribute, please contact Laura Bullivant, Learning and Community Engagement Officer at the Hampshire Museum and Arts Service, who can be reached by phone on 07717 758111 or 01590 676969. Alternatively, use the ‘Contact Us’ page on the main menu above and we will put you in touch by email.

Mary Rose Evening, Thursday March 15th, Downton

The Downton Society is thrilled to announce that the Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust, Rear Admiral John Lippiett CBE MBE, has agreed to come and talk about the Mary Rose at Trafalgar House on Thursday March 15^th, 7.30pm for 8 pm.

Wine and soft drinks will be available and proceeds will go to the Mary Rose Trust. Tickets are £7.50 per person.  If you would like to attend, please follow the instructions in the following link:

Mary Rose invite.pdf

(Note – if you are unable to open the PDF file, you can download Adobe Reader from this link to view it.  Alternatively, request further information by using the ‘Contact Us’ page).

Original Ordnance Survey map drawings available online

The British Library posted a link on Twitter today to the maps section on their website.  They have just launched a new project which aims to get the public to help georeference (match to a modern map) their collection of digital maps.  Of interest is the first set of maps chosen for the project – a set of 351 original Ordnance Survey surveyors’ maps which were drawn in advance of the first one-inch series of maps.  They cover most of England south of a line between Liverpool and Hull, and were compiled between the 1780′s and 1840.  The preliminary drawings are at a larger scale than that of the printed maps, and therefore show much more detail, including field boundaries.  An extract is shown below for Ringwood.

There is a search page allowing you to search the collection here, where there is also some background information about the collection.  Each map

Online resources at the Archaeology Data Service

I was recently looking at the Archaeology Data Service website, and was impressed by the wealth of archaeological literature which is made available by this site.  As well as providing access to hundreds of unpublished archaeological reports and excavation archives, the site also hosts a growing number of books, periodicals and reports which have previously been published.

For example, for anyone interested in Palaeolithic archaeology, the site makes available the classic text by Wymer, ‘The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain‘, available as two volumes in PDF format.  It is also possible to download the complete database of sites discussed in the book. This key text provides a comprehensive account of the elusive evidence of the Lower Palaeolithic in Britain. Of relevance to the Avon Valley is section 3.5 in Volume 1, ‘Solent and Avon drainage’, and in particular, section 3.5.5 which describes the Avon Valley. Maps 23, 29 and 30 in Volume 2 show the geographic distribution of the evidence for the Avon Valley.

The map above from the book shows the significant number of Palaeolithic finds from the gravels around Bournemouth and

Field walking at Blashford, Ringwood, 27 Nov 2011

Today, a group of AVAS members gathered at Mark’s farm at Blashford near Ringwood for a day of field walking.  We were blessed with a glorious November day, warm and sunny, as we marched out to the first field.  Steve took charge of setting out the ranging poles and showing us a selection of flints we might be lucky enough to find on the field.

We all took our places on the starting grid, and Steve allocated us a ranging pole to aim for.  We then moved slowly up the field, our eyes peeled for flint, pottery or any other finds.  Almost immediately there were rumours

Salisbury Museum Lectures

I was recently looking at the Salisbury Museum website, and noticed the museum’s lecture programme.  Some of the lectures may be of interest to AVAS members, including:

October 2011: 

‘The Knowlton Prehistoric Landscape Project – We know a lot about Round Barrows don’t we?’  John Gale, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Bournemouth University

November 2011:

‘Damerham Archaeology Project: more to find in the Wessex heartlands?’  Dr Helen Wickstead, Kingston University and Martyn Barber, Aerial Survey, English Heritage.

December 2011:

Aerial photography update

Since the last air-pic post, we have been busy on the farm baling the winter feed. As the mowing has progressed, it has been possible to continue taking photos with the model under changing conditions of weather, ground cover and soil moisture content.

On the right of the above photo, there appears to be a large square enclosure in the

September 2011 AVAS meeting – West Kennet Long Barrow

At the September meeting of AVAS, Peter Knight kindly stepped in at the last moment to give a fascinating talk on West Kennet long barrow.  Peter demonstrated his clear passion for the monument, and mentioned he has actually moved house to be close to the monument – that is dedication!

The structure of the talk followed Peter’s recent book on West Kennet, which he stressed is the first accessible book to focus solely on the monument.  As Peter was the first to admit, his views and theories on the monument do not conform to those of traditional archaeologists.  Despite this, the gathered audience was clearly fascinated by his talk, which included the acoustic qualities of the chambers, the lighting of the chambers by important sunrise and sunset events, and

AVAS Winter meetings 2011-12 – full programme

Following on from a previous post announcing the first few lectures, the full programme for the AVAS Winter meetings can be confirmed, as shown below:

2011

Sept. 7th: West Kennet Long Barrow: Landscape, the Shamens and the Cosmos – ( title of new book)
Speaker: Peter Knight, Author and archaologist,

Oct. 5th: The Swash Channel Wreck
Speaker: Paola Palma BA, MA, MIFA, FLS, Programme Coordinator MSc Maritime Archaeology Bournemouth University

Nov. 2nd: The Leper Hospital at Magdalen Hill, Winchester
Speaker: Dr Simon Roffey BA(Hons), MRes, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Winchester

Dec. 7th: The Parkers of

September Meeting 2011 – change of speaker

In a previous post, the Winter lecture programme for 2011-12 was announced.  We have had to make a late change to the programme – the speaker on 7th September at 7.30pm will now be Peter Knight.  The title of his talk is ‘West Kennet Long Barrow: Landscape, Shamans and the Cosmos’, which is also the title of Peter`s recently published new book.

West Kennet Aerial Photo

The talk will cover the excavations at the monument, the surrounding sites (such as