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Digging
for Treasure
with thanks to Penny Bysshe
(8 May 2005)
Click on photo for larger image
Penny Bysshe tells us about her experience of one of the WEA courses that was held at Cookham Dean Village Hall for 2004-2005. The WEA courses for 2005-2006 are now available for anyone who would like to join in and learn something new. Click here for course details.
The
Field Trip was part of the WEA course An Introduction to Archaeology given
by Jill Eyers an open university lecturer and the author of many
books.
The aim of the course was the introduce the methods of archaeology and to find out how we can use them to discover our past.
During the lessons we looked at slides of sites, had hands-on experience of real artefacts to work out their uses and ages and tried out some geophysical equipment.
The
field trip was on Sunday 3rd April. We met in Marlow and walked beside the
river looking for signs of how the river had changed its course and level
over the years and for riverside settlements. We used an augur, an
instrument used to remove soil from below
the surface which works like a screw. Jill is using the augur in the
photo on the left (it looks as
though she is pushing a spade into the ground).
We met for a picnic lunch on Winter Hill then we walked down what Jill thinks might have originally been a Roman road and on to Cockmarsh to look at the ancient burial mounds.
It was a
great Field Trip. Some of the people who went on the course have joined
the Marlow Archaeological Society and have already helped in a preliminary
investigation at Bisham Abbey to try to discover the whereabouts of the
ancient abbey.
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