Recent work by Wessex Archaeology in the Thames Estuary has been captured in two BBC programmes Thames Shipwrecks: a race against time. The programmes have been produced by Touch Productions and broadcast on BBC2 on Tuesday 26 August and Tuesday 2 September 2008.
The programmes examine a series of wrecks within the main navigation channels looked after by the Port of London Authority (PLA). The port is very busy, with major plans for expansion that include new dredging in existing channels.
Since 2003, Wessex Archaeology’s Coastal and Marine section has been advising the PLA on how best to safeguard the archaeological and historical interest in wrecks that lie in these channels. We have carried out an extensive range of investigations, including desk-based research, marine geophysical surveys, and archaeological diving. Each programme of work has been agreed with English Heritage and includes provision for reporting, handling of recovered material, and publication. Further archaeological work is being planned to accompany future wreck clearance and dredging.
Here on Splash, Wessex Archaeology’s Coastal and Marine website, you can find out more about our shipwreck investigations.
The recent discovery of Palaeolithic handaxes in the North Sea has underlined the link between aggregate dredging and archaeology.
To help let aggregate companies know where prehistoric remains might be found, and to target new surveys, Wessex Archaeology has been looking again at old records of artefacts found at sea and on the coast.
Often, little of the information about such discoveries was recorded at the time because people were not so interested in marine archaeology. Today, this information can be very valuable, once it has been tidied up in a way that can be easily accessed through computerised records.
Wessex Archaeology’s ALSF project Artefacts from the Sea concentrated on making information about old discoveries more easily available through the National Monuments Record (the NMR, maintained by English Heritage) and through Historic Environment Records (HERs, maintained by local authorities).
Our project looked at two areas: the Yorkshire coast between the Humber and the Tees, and the Solent in southern England. Records of hundreds of discoveries were added or improved in each area.
As well as re-examining finds made at the coast, the project also catalogued a very important collection of prehistoric finds held by fisherman Michael White. Almost 300 finds from 59 different places in the Solent were catalogued, ranging from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age.
The Artefacts from the Sea project successfully demonstrated the value of re-examining previous discoveries as a cost-effective way of improving our knowledge of the likely presence of prehistoric material offshore.
Our new pages detailing the methods and results of the project can be found here.
The reports from Wessex Archaeology’s ALSF Seabed Prehistory Project have been made available online via Scribd, where they can be viewed or downloaded as pdfs.
The reports set out details of marine geophysical, geoarchaeological and palaeo-environmental studies.
There are eight volumes covering five study areas, plus an Introduction and Results and Conclusions.
Further details of the Seabed Prehistory project can be found here.
To see the online reports, click on the links below:
Seabed Prehistory: Gauging the Effects of Marine Aggregate Dredging
Volume I: Introduction (Ref: 57422.31, February 2008)
Volume II: Arun (text and graphics) (Ref: 57422.32, February 2008)
Volume III: Arun Additional Grabbing (Ref: 57422.33, February 2008)
Volume IV: Great Yarmouth (Ref: 57422.34, February 2008)
Volume V: Eastern English Channel (Ref: 57422.35, February 2008)
Volume VI: Humber (Ref: 57422.36, February 2008)
Volume VII: Happisburgh and Pakefield Exposures (Ref: 57422.37, February 2008)
Volume VIII: Results and Conclusions (Ref: 57422.38, February 2008)
It is quite rare for all WA Coastal & Marine staff to be in one place at one time, so we took a recent opportunity to get a photograph of us all together outside our offices near Salisbury.
From left to right: Cristina, Antony, Jack, Kevin, Niall, Euan, Paul, Gemma, Steph, Dee, Matt, Stuart, John, Graham, Andrea, Moura, Vicki, Louise, Steve (hiding), Dan and Nic.
England’s Shipping is an ALSF project that we completed in 2004. The project developed a method that would make documentary records of pre-1730 shipping activity more accessible, so they could be used in assessing the archaeological potential of offshore areas. We’ve recently been reviewing some of our older project pages and making updates. The updated pages can be found here.
An amazing collection of 28 flint Neanderthal hand-axes has been unearthed in gravel from a licensed marine aggregate dredging area 13km off Great Yarmouth.
The find was made by a Dutch amateur archaeologist who regularly searches for mammoth bones and fossils in marine sand and gravel delivered by Hanson Aggregates Marine Ltd to a wharf at Flushing, near Antwerp.
For full story, click here.
The British Marine Aggregate Producers Association (BMAPA) and WA continued their long-standing collaboration by making a joint presentation to the CEDA Dredging Days conference in Rotterdam, November 2007.
The paper - Working alongside the Historic Environment: an aggregate dredging industry perspective - has been published digitially and can be downloaded here (2.09Mb):
CEDA24: Russell and Firth 2007
CEDA - the Central Dredging Association - is the professional society for those involved in activities related to dredging and who live or work in Europe, Africa or the Middle-East. Its ‘Dredging Days’ conference in 2007 focussed on environmental aspects of dredging.
The BMAPA / WA presentation set out the benefits to industry and to archaeology of taking a pro-active approach to the historic environment.
More information about BMAPA can be found here.
Details of WA’s work with the marine aggregates industry can be found here.
Wessex Archaeology has been re-appointed as the Government’s contractor for Archaeological Services in relation to the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. The contract, managed by English Heritage for DCMS, runs from the 1st April 2008 to the 31st March 2011.
The principle aim of the contract is to supply advice to English Heritage, Historic Scotland, Cadw, and the Environment and Heritage Service Northern Ireland to enable them to advise their respective Secretary of State, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland Ministers, as appropriate, about issues of designation and licensing under the PWA 1973.
We are really pleased to have been re-appointed, and we’re looking forward to working with the heritage agencies, licensee teams and other stakeholders over the next three years.
More information about designated sites can be found here. News of WA investigations on wreck sites can be found on our shipwrecks page.
The Princes Channel Wreck is a medium-sized armed merchant ship linked to the Elizabethan financier Thomas Gresham, which was found in the Thames in 2003. We carried out a series of investigations that resulted in the recovery of the surviving hull structure and a range of artefacts in 2004.
An interim report on the Princes Channel will be published in Post-Medieval Archaeology in 2008. More details of our investigations can be found here.
Our Phase III report, which was prepared following recovery of hull structure, can be downloaded here (3.75 MB):
princes-channel-wreck-phase-iii-report-lo-res.pdf
We are recruiting an Education and Outreach Officer to join our Coastal and Marine section to deliver a project part-funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The project is called ‘Timetravelling by Water’ and it aims to improve people’s access to the huge amount of information that is now being generated by archaeological projects at the coast and underwater.
Continue reading ‘Timetravellers wanted …’