Friday, 28 March 2014

beginners archaeology,worms and rambling yes it's friday afternoon

I started my book 'Archaeology is Rubbish' yesterday. Very good so far. I've found it interesting just learning more about the history of what lies beneath our feet such as pottery, brick and glass. I think next time I'm out I'll try to take more notice of the non-metal stuff and bring back some of the bits I find to research some more.

In regards to detecting I'm pondering if it's wrong to think that if I can learn more about how to get a picture of the land I'm detecting then I might be able to find more 'metal' stuff. Maybe the benefits of learning more about non metal stuff and the importance of knowing when to stop digging might outweigh this 'wrongness' for want of a better phrase!

Anyway had a little 'Google' of 'Archaeology for beginners' and read this article from the Guardian. I found the below quote very interesting as always wondered why objects dropped got where they did.

Anything on the ground surface left alone for long enough will sink down 10–30cm beneath an accumulation of earthworm casts. Charles Darwin demonstrated this process in his best-selling book of his lifetime, Vegetable Mould & Earth-worms (1881).

If you're twiddling your fingers then the original Darwin text can be found here (look for pages 129 re the burying effect of a worm!)

I do appreciate that my attempts to learn more about archaeology are probably giving some proper archaeologists apoplexy.

For some reason I felt the need to insert a cat into my blog as such here's a picture of one of the aforementioned archaeologist's cats giving me a disapproving look.


Stop digging. NOW!
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3 comments:

  1. Paul Barford28 March 2014 at 07:08

    "I do appreciate that my attempts to learn more about archaeology are probably giving some proper archaeologists apoplexy. "

    I can't see why. Getting people to find out more about archaeology is precisely what the PAS was set up for.
    The worm sinkage is why many artefacts on pasture or in a buried soil are down at a depth, and usually in a pebble band caused by the same effect.
    I've got an 1881 edition of the original Darwin book.

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  2. Detectorbloke28 March 2014 at 07:16

    True, was just thinking about the haphazard way i'm going about it, bit of a book here, bit of PAS there, bit of wikipedia there!

    Was having visions of archaeologists shouting at me to go on a course :)

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  3. Caryl Anne22 July 2014 at 13:05

    It is interesting to think what could be below our feet! There are new and exciting discoveries everyday! Thanks for sharing your adventure and post!

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