Events coming upExploring Archives – School Records, log books, attendance records and punishment books are just some of the sources we’ll explore in the latest historic sources workshop. Wed 18 June, 10am-12pm, £6.Behind the Scenes Tour – visit our archive storerooms, handle archaeological objects and see our conservator in action. Wed 16 July 2:00-3:30pm, £5.Meet the Archaeologist – a talk by Rob Hedge, our community archaeologist. Thu 24 July 7pm, Free.Details and booking forms from explorethepast@worcestershire.gov.uk or ring 01905 766352

Explore the Past

newsletter No.32: June 2014

Find out more online:www.worcestershire.gov.uk/waas

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service

Palaeolithic Worcestershire

Over the last 12 months WAAS has been working on an English Heritage project to enhance the Palaeolithic information within the County’s Historic Environment Record. The Palaeolithic period extends from the first appearance of tool-making human ancestors, which occurs in Worcestershire around 500,000 years ago, through to the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. This is a fascinating period, during which multiple species of the human family occupied the area in conditions which ranged from icy tundra to periods of Mediterranean-style climate, leaving their traces in the form of characteristic stone tools.

The project involved visiting museum collections of lithic (stone) objects, such as handaxes, and reassessing their age and typology. In total 304 lithic objects were studied and 79% of them were found to be of Palaeolithic date. Most of these objects have been collected from active quarry sites during the extraction of glacial sands and gravels. Dr Andrew Shaw, of Southampton University, carried out the assessments and believes that these collections show that Worcestershire has the potential to be of national importance in our understanding of human development, migration and landscape interaction.

As well as lithic artefacts a large catalogue of Palaeolithic animal remains was found, recording over 2000 examples, including lion, woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and giant deer. One entry records a “butchered and gnawed fragment” within 32000-26000 year old deposits from Bredon Pit. If correct, this is the earliest evidence of human activity from Worcestershire.

More information can be found at www.worcestershire.gov.uk/archaeology/palaeolithicguidance

Oliver Russell

Accreditation Success

We were really pleased that The National Archives have made Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service one of the first Accredited Archives in the country. This is a new system to ensure that archives across the country meet rigorous standards.

Lisa Snook, User Services Manager, said “We are really pleased to be one of the first accredited archive services. The application was a true team effort, with all areas of the service inputting information required from the Accreditation Panel. It is a great accolade, and a national recognition of the service that the team provide at The Hive, from managing and conserving the archive collections, making them available to our customers on site and taking them out to school and community groups.”

Pick a Peck of Pollen...

Suzi Richer has been working in the Finds and Environment team at WAAS since January this year as our in house palynologist (pollen specialist). Suzi examines pollen grains that have been preserved in waterlogged deposits, such as ditches, ponds, peat, moats, wells or ancient river channels. These reveal which trees and plants were growing in the past, allowing us to provide an environmental context for archaeological sites. Sometimes we can also get an idea of what activities were occurring too. This is especially useful if there aren’t many structural or material remains.

For example, pollen will reveal:

• a deforested landscape (there is a decline in tree pollen),

• an agricultural area (there are cereal pollen grains),

• an activity like hemp or flax retting (lots of pollen grains from hemp/flax, usually combined with a site where there was a water supply, such as a pond or a stream.

If you are part of a local archaeology group, community group or if you would just like to know a little more about what pollen can tell you, please contact Suzi at sricher@worcestershire.gov.uk

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service

A palaeolithic handaxe from Bredon

A view of palaeolithic hunters in ancient Worcestershire . Illustrated by Steve Rigby and based on archaeological evidence from the County

Suzi taking core samples

Manorial Documents

The manor was an institution that touched the lives of people in many walks of life from before the Norman Conquest through to the twentieth century. Archives in the UK hold thousands of documents arising from the administration of manors, and Worcestershire Archive is no exception.

In Worcestershire these documents, including court rolls, accounts and surveys, survive from the thirteenth century onwards. Local and family historians will find names of manorial inhabitants, often with details of occupations and family relations.

The records shed light on economic development, including markets, land values and the ability of tenants to pay the various rents they owed the lord. They reveal a great deal about social and community relations, public order and petty crime, such as gambling or brawling, and the punishments meted out to offenders. They help us decipher the historic environment, particularly the way the land was farmed, exploitation of natural resources such as minerals, and the presence of mills, fishponds, ditches, and roads.

Because of the way landholding developed over centuries, manorial documents relating to a county are held not only in the county archives, but in repositories across England, Wales and elsewhere. For example, records for Worcestershire manors may be found in Kent, Oxford colleges and The National Archives (TNA).

The Manorial Documents Register (MDR), the official register of manorial documents for England and Wales, contains information about the nature and location of surviving documents, and is useful for tracking down scattered records.

The registers are held as card indexes at TNA, so TNA is running a project to update and computerise the MDR for each county. Worcestershire Archives is working jointly with Herefordshire Archives to complete their sections. By the end of this project they will be available to search online. For further information, see www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mdr

Bethany Hamblen

Worcestershire Historic Environment Action

WAAS has recently completed a pilot study, funded by English Heritage, which aimed to develop a methodology for ‘Historic Environment Action Plans’ within Worcestershire. These are documents used to promote, protect and enhance important areas or types of landscape within the county.

The project looked at four case studies:-

• the parishes of Alvechurch and Kempsey, to show how Neighbourhood Planning, community engagement, development control and flood risk management can protect landscapes

• the Wyre Forest and its setting - to highlight where a range of partnerships can enable good management of a highly distinctive landscape and deliver a wide range of objectives relating to archaeology, ecology, tourism and business

• Unenclosed lands, commons and open hill pasture have been identified as rare and ‘at risk’ by the Worcestershire Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) project . This case study showed how land management partnerships between specialists could be successful in conserving these important landscapes.

The project provided improved perspectives on the use of historic characterisation and ‘historic environmentalism’ in areas including urban design, landscape management strategies, Conservation Area appraisal, and Neighbourhood Planning amongst others. The method allows for the diverse resources and expertise we hold in landscape characterisation to be utilised in a more efficient, cost-effective and accessible format.

Further information can be found in the project report http://public.worcestershire.gov.uk/sites/archaeology/Reports/SWR22703.pdf

Jack Hanson

Hanley Castle Community Dig

In 2012 we worked with The Hanley’s Society on an archaeological excavation. Instead of a written archaeological report we put the excavation results on-line, using an interactive map to link information, finds and photos. Take a look and see the results for yourself. http://gis.worcestershire.gov.uk/website/HanleyCastleCommunityProject/

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service

Court roll for the manor of Kempsey, dating from 20th May, 1485 (Ref. b705:4/BA54b).

The view from the trenches at Hanley Castle.

The Great Roman Bake Off

Those of you who came to The Butts excavation on the site where The Hive now stands, may remember the puzzling pottery fragments which we found. Similar pieces had been found before, but we did not know what they were. At The Butts however, over 117kg of fragments were found, many in their original positions, and our archaeologists realised that they were pieces of beehive shaped ovens, transforming our understanding of this pottery and the site.

Since then we have continued to work on the analysis of these finds at The Hive, only a few metres away from where they were originally used. This has included talking to archaeologists elsewhere in the country to compare our ovens with similar discoveries.

Jane Evans has given a number of talks at conferences about the ovens, producing a poster which brings together a summary of the findings and explaining how we think they worked. We will attach a copy of the poster with the email version of this newsletter.

Student Placements

We’ve recently been lucky enough to have had several students working with us on placements from university taking part in interesting and important archaeological work. Kathryn Ayling-Randall, an Archaeology student at the University of Worcester, is currently cataloguing a collection of finds with an unusual history. Excavated

from a gravel quarry near Broadway in the 1930s by archaeologist John Morris, the finds ended up in a garage, where they remained until recently discovered by the excavator’s grandson, still wrapped in 1930s copies of The Times and stacked inside wooden boxes bearing the decals of ‘Lifebuoy’ and ‘Hudson’ soaps. Kathryn and our Finds Volunteers have been painstakingly cleaning, marking and sorting the material, including the packaging, which in this case is a historic assemblage in its own right!

Nina Bradbury, a former member of Worcestershire Young Archaeologists’ Club now studying Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge University, has been working with archaeobotanist Liz Pearson on the identification of plant remains. These are from our excavation of the ‘City Ditch’, opposite The Hive. She is also cataloguing our animal bone reference collection, processing some delicate Roman burials uncovered during construction works, and setting up a replica Saxon warp-weighted loom.

Rob Hedge

For further information contact our General Enquiries:By telephone: 01905 765560 By post:Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology ServiceThe Hive, Sawmill Walk, The ButtsWorcester, WR1 3PD

By email: archaeology@worcestershire.gov.uk

This document can be made available in other languages (including British Sign Language) and alternative formats (large print, audio tape, computer disk and Braille) on request from Corporate Diversity Manager on01905 766938 or at diversity@worcestershire.gov.uk

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service is the main contact point for all information about archaeology and history in the county. To keep up to date with our latest news and events through the year you can follow us in the following ways:

Blog: www.worcestershirearchives.blogspot.co.uk/Twitter: @explorethepast Facebook: www.facebook.com/Worcestershire-Archaeology/Find out more about our work during 2012-13 in our Annual Report www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/pdf/WAAS-Annual-Report-2012-13-v4.pdf

To receive your newsletter by email as a PDF, please send an email to our address with the subject ‘NEWSLETTER PLEASE’.

Unless otherwise stated all photographs and images are ©Worcestershire County Council.Cover photos: Main - Glynis doing some finds illustration at Hanley Castle; centre - a welcome cake break at Hanley Castle; right - Community ‘Walkabout’, Kempsey.

top - the surprise finds from broadway and below Nina setting up the Saxon loom