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the Roman Gask Project

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Thann Lowery
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« Reply #15 on: September 02, 2007, 03:25:51 pm »

Air Photography
2005 was a mixed cropmark season.  Some areas were unresponsive, with some "old faithful" sites not showing at all.  On the other hand, other areas were better than we had ever seen them and we were able to make a number of productive flights, which resulted in some 1,900 new photographs.  As ever, new discoveries were made, although we won't know how many until the pictures are fully catalogued.   As in previous years, our flights were made from Scone airfield, and we are, as always, immensely grateful to Bill Fuller for volunteering his services as pilot.  Bill has also, this year, created a searchable computer database of all of our air photos to date, which is far more flexible than our existing paper based index, and should make our rapidly growing archive easier and more productive for both ourselves and outsiders to use.

During the year, we also have managed to catalogue the whole of the bumper harvest of aerial pictures taken in 2004.  In all, some 2,100 photographs were analysed, digitised and catalogued, and CD-R sets have been distributed to the Project's members and sponsors, and to other interested bodies.  Now that this process is complete, we have a record final total of over 100 new sites found in that year: ranging from indeterminate cropmarks, to souterrains, pit alignments, Highland clearance ruins and many ring features, which appear to represent Iron Age settlement.  That such a rich harvest is still possible in an area that has been flown for more than 60 years might require some explanation.  Part of it is no doubt due to the notoriously capricious nature of archaeological cropmarks.  Certain features simply do not show very often and, of our new sites, some may never have shown before, whilst for others, the luck of the draw may have meant that they were missed on any previous showings, either because no one flew over them at the right time, or because any workers who did fly over, failed to spot them.  The bulk of our growing haul, however, both in this year and others, probably reflects the way that we fly, rather than the archaeology itself.  In the past, most of the archaeological flying within the Gask Project's study area was done by two national bodies: the Cambridge University Air Photographic Unit (CUCAP) and the RCAHMS.   The contribution of both organisations has been immeasurable and we have boundless respect for both, but their work has suffered from a few slight problems which were mostly not of their making.  Firstly, both had vast areas to cover with the limited amount of flying time that could be mounted within the bounds set by the short length of the cropmark season and their available funding, which means that their attentions have been spread fairly thin.  Secondly, in order to maximise the returns on their flying, there has been a long-standing temptation (common to all aerial archaeologists) to fly known, so called "honeypot", areas again and again, where the soils are such that the crops are particularly responsive.  For example, the RCAHMS's GPS recorded flight tracks for the decade from 1993-2003 have recently been published and show a high level of consistency over that period, with some areas flown many times, but with obvious gaps elsewhere.  The appeal of such an approach is obvious and, to a degree it is perfectly sensible.  From a purely cost/benefit point of view, for example, it gets a guaranteed and relatively predictable return from the limited resources available.  It does, however, mean that other areas can become relatively (or even completely) neglected, simply because they do not (or are simply not known to) produce above average levels of cropmarks, which in turn gives an obvious potential towards biasing the data.  For, the resulting site distribution maps will tend to reflect the distribution of aerial attention and, less directly, of certain soil types and agricultural regimes, which may or may not reflect actual ancient realities.   One of the great strengths of a flying program such as our own, which is restricted to a fairly tightly defined study region, is that we do not need to take this approach.  We too have a very limited time in the air, around 12 hours per annum, and there is certainly a great temptation for us too to stick to the honeypots, with their guaranteed returns.  This would, however, put us in a position where we were doing little more than duplicating the efforts of others and so, when we formulate flight plans, the question "where haven't we been before" is given particular weight.  We do, of course, still fly the especially productive areas, but they are not given undue priority.  Instead, we aim more towards building total coverage, albeit cumulatively over many years.  As a result, a lot of our new sites are found in areas that are rarely if ever flown by other archaeologists and although we may, quite predictably, see fewer sites per unit of flying time in such areas, a far higher proportion of those we do see are new discoveries.

We have also tried to combat another bias whose potential is built into the Project's very soul.  Since the dawn of aerial archaeology in our study area, with figures such as O.G.S. Crawford and Eric Bradley, during and just prior to WWII, there has been a marked tendency for Scottish aerial archaeology to be dominated by workers whose primary interest lay with Roman sites.  The Cambridge unit's work was for decades dominated by its founder, the Romanist Prof J.K. St.Joseph, and much of the RCAHMS's work was led by another Romanist, G.S. Maxwell.  Both men were giants in their field and it would be grossly unfair not to stress that both have contributed enormously to aerial studies of other periods.  Nevertheless, their flying patterns often seem to have concentrated on areas which were known to have seen Roman occupation, and where Roman sites were either known, or might reasonably be expected.  As the Roman Gask Project, it would be absurd not to admit that we too have a particular bias towards the Roman period, but it long ago became obvious that this cannot be understood by looking at Roman sites alone.  An understanding of the contemporary Iron Age population is at least as important and, just as our excavation program takes in native sites, so must our aerial work: which thus requires wider coverage.  In the process, we are also likely to create a broader picture for many other periods, but in a way that is simply to claim a virtue of what is anyway necessary for our own research priorities.  The results seem to prove the theory, for we are gradually putting large numbers of Iron Age (and other) sites onto the map in areas which were previously almost blank, and, as a result, we feel that we justify the time spent and the funding provided by our sponsors, far better than we would have done by flying exactly the same areas as everyone else.

In addition to the new sites, we also obtained better views of numerous known sites, which have added important extra details.  Of the latter, one of the most interesting was some particularly clear images of a double-ditched enclosure at Woodhead, between Perth and the Roman fort of Cargill.  The site has been known for many years, and classified, simply as an enclosure; but the new pictures make it appear all but identical to the southern, double-ditched watchtowers on the Gask frontier.  As yet there has never been any indication that the Gask towers continued north of the fort of Bertha, on the Tay, but it is possible that this site might be a first hint.  For the moment, this is little more than speculation, but the site does have a quite superb field of view over the Tay valley and is thus an ideal watchtower position.  It also lies close to the line of a possible Roman road, recorded by a number of 18th century antiquarian writers and this, combined with the new aerial images, is enough to encourage us to conduct surface investigations in the near future.   We also photographed what seems to be a previously unrecorded "titulus" type gate at the Roman camp of Lintrose and we have obtained much clearer images of a particular pet site of ours: the supposed temporary camp of Dun on the Montrose Basin.  We have had this site under observation for years, and suspect that it might actually have been a more permanent, fortified landing or port installation.  Indeed at some point, we would like to excavate here.  In the meantime, however, this year's photography gave us a clearer image of the site itself, but still more so, of a spread of native sites inside and immediately around it.  Lastly, we have also been able to add good pictures to our archive of a number of long known sites which had not shown before during our own flights, of which the best example is the Roman fort of Malling (cover photo) on the Lake on Menteith, which we have over flown many times in the past without result.

With a little help from our long standing private sector sponsor, we have also been able to add another top quality camera to complete our aerial arsenal, and replace the last of the Olympus OM series cameras that we used to fly with (and still use for excavation photography).  The newcomer, a Contax 167MT is without doubt the best designed 35mm SLR camera we have ever come across for aerial work and its superb Zeiss lenses make an appreciable difference to the fine resolution of our pictures.   We have also acquired a Leica MP, probably the best rangefinder camera ever made, courtesy of Amateur Photographer magazine.  This leaves our 8MP digital camera looking more exposed than ever for its lack of resolution but, barring accidents, we might never need to buy another film camera during the Project's life.

Collaborations
The Gask Project has again been able to work with a number of other scholars to gain additional information from our own sites and those of others.  Dr's J. Huntley and S. Ramsay have continued to handle our environmental evidence and we have also worked with pottery expert Felicity Wild, lithics specialist Abi Finnegan and numismatist, David Shotter.  As in previous years, we have tried to involve interested local people in our field work.  Quite a number of local volunteers helped with our excavation at East Coldoch, some for the entire duration, whilst others helped with the Cargill survey.  In particular, we had obtained permission from Historic Scotland to metal detect, just the plough soil over and around the site, in order to save material from destruction by the plough, without touching anything that remained in its original context.  Here we received enormous help from a group of very able local detectorists, including our long-standing allies, Bill McIntosh, Paul Smith and Bill Kerr.  The sheer discipline involved in such a brief can be considerable, as it involves sometimes not following up tempting signals because they originate below the plough soil, as well as all the normal paperwork of archaeological finds recording, including GPS positioning of all signals.  But this group proved fully up to the job and recovered all of the coins mentioned above, along with a good many other finds which are still being analysed.

Publications and Publicity
As always, 2005 has seen a number of Gask Project publications.  Birgitta had a paper in the Arbeia Journal on Roman clay sling bullets, including our own 2004 finds from Drumquhassle fort.  The piece also detailed work on the capabilities of these weapons, done in concert with an experimental group in the US.  This showed Roman slings to be more effective than we had expected, especially if the clay projectiles were heated before being slung.  Indeed, on one occasion, firing a red hot clay sling shot at a water barrel, caused it to explode.  In addition, David and Birgitta jointly published the report on our 2004 excavations at the Innerpeffray Roman road cutting in TAFAJ.  Our jointly written information guide  "The Romans in Perthshire" was published by Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust and emerged from the press as a beautifully produced and illustrated, 26 page, A5 booklet and yet still went on sale for a remarkably cheap £2.  We had the usual short notes on our field work in "Britannia" and "DES" and an interim report for the 2004 East Coldoch season was produced for our web site and also submitted to Historic Scotland, as part of the statutory Data Structure Report.  David's paper on the wisdom, (or otherwise) of relying on digital photography for primary archaeological recording was published on line, on the Institute of Field Archaeologists' web site and Birgitta's book on the Roman fort of Cardean continued to make its way through a somewhat lengthy editorial procedure prior to publication by SAIR.

The year has also seen quite a lot of work prepared for publication.  The most significant was our new book on the Gask, entitled "Rome's first frontier".  By the end of the year, the copious (over 120) illustrations were completed and we had a full first draft of the 80,000 word text, so we will just need to polish the English a little before sending it off, and the book is due to be published by Tempus in May or June 2006.  In addition we have continued to write up the results of our geophysical surveys, which will be published as another book once the program is complete.  Both Directors also submitted papers to the Hadrianic Society Bulletin (which Birgitta has recently taken over as editor).  Birgitta's concerns the Romans' use of luxury goods as diplomatic gifts in the lead up to the invasion of Scotland, whilst David's discusses Roman/native interactions during the occupation.

We have continued to attract media interest and during the year we have appeared in most of the Scottish and UK nationals, plus many local papers, and magazines such as "Country Life", along with the BBC Scotland, TV and Radio news.  The year also saw repeats of some of our older TV appearances, and the recording of new ones.  A piece on our East Coldoch excavation was filmed and transmitted as part of "Time Team's" "Big Roman Dig", whilst Birgitta took part in a "Time Team" excavation on a sunken Roman river barge in the Netherlands, which will be broadcast in 2006.

As ever, the Directors have continued to give lectures to a variety of academic, student and amateur bodies.  Both gave papers to the annual Roman Army School at the University of Durham.  Birgitta gave a paper in Melrose, and David spoke in Liverpool, Wigan, Montrose, Wilmslow, Drymen and Parbold, as well addressing the "Roman Northern Frontier Seminar" and giving the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland's annual Buchan lecture, at Dundee University (complete with full military escort, courtesy of the Antonine Guard).

Sponsorship and Acknowledgements
The Project continues to be sponsored by the Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust, whose support has, as ever, been indispensable and very much appreciated.  In 2005 the Trust funded our air photographic program, the purchase of additional, third party air photographs and almost all of our specialist reports.  It also published our "The Romans in Perthshire" booklet.




In addition to this long term funding, we must also express our gratitude to our long standing corporate sponsor (which continues to insist on anonymity).  This has again provided material support, this year in the form of long loans of a new computer, professional quality A3 and 35mm film scanners and our new Contax camera.  We have also received a number of smaller donations from speaking engagements, voluntary bodies and private individuals.

Finally, the Project continues to owe thanks to the farmers and land owners who allowed us access to sites, to Dr David Simpson, who again provided medical services during our fieldwork, and to Peter Green who has continued to do a wonderful job of updating our web site.  Tayflite Ltd let us play with their aeroplanes.  Mrs Hillary Fuller spoilt us rotten whenever we flew.  Andy and Eleanor Graham continued to provide us with dig accommodation and, as always, we are grateful to our many field volunteers, especially our long-standing trench supervisor, Keith Miller and geophysicists extraordinaire: David Hodgson,  Susie Moore and Rachel Hunt.

The Future
2006 is our 10th anniversary season and will be another busy year.  Now that the East Coldoch excavation is complete, we can turn our attention to other sites.  Next summer we hope to conduct a long postponed piece of work outside the Roman fort of Bochastle.  There is a temporary camp here, with a number of odd features.  For example, it may have had multiple occupations, as there are aerial indications of up to three sets of western defences.  It also shows signs of having an annexe.  This is not in itself particularly unusual, for quite a number of temporary camps in the area have such annexes, but all of these have titulus type gates, which are thought to date to the 2nd-century or later.  The Bochastle camp has claviculate, "Stracathro" type gates, which are thought to be 1st-century, and an annex on such a site would be unique.  We plan to conduct excavations on the camp to disentangle the situation, as part of a wider study of the northern camps.  These will be accompanied by another of our large scale geophysical surveys, which will cover Bochastle fort itself, along with its close surroundings, where signs of a native settlement have been seen from the air, comparable to similar settlements found by our surveys around other Roman forts in the region.  In addition, we hope to conduct trial trenching and resistivity work at our possible tower site at Woodhead, near Perth, with a view to possible larger scale work in a following season if the results are encouraging.  Finally, our air photographic program will continue and we plan, amongst other things, to make an intensive search of the area between Bertha and Cargill to see if any further possible towers or Roman road traces might emerge, which might make the Woodhead site look like part of a continuing Gask chain.

Out of the field, the new book should be completed and published.  The Data Structure and excavation reports for East Coldoch will be prepared, along with reports on our other fieldwork, and our web site will be kept up to date.  Work has already begun on cataloguing 2005's crop of air photographs and incorporating them into our aerial archive, which now contains well over 8,000 images.  We are also co-organising an exhibition on our results, for display in Aschaffenburg Museum, which lies on the Roman frontier in Germany.  This will form part of their twin town relationship with Perth and will be accompanied by lectures by our German speaking Director, Birgitta, and a German language exhibition guide book.  The Directors will also continue to give public lectures where invited.  Several have already been booked, including papers (which will later be published) by both of us at the Roman Army School in Durham, and the International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies, to be held in Spain.  We also have public lectures booked in Perth, Abercromby and Auchterarder, and others will no doubt be scheduled as the year progresses.

D.J. Woolliscroft and B.Hoffmann.
Directors:  The Roman Gask Project.
SACE
University of Liverpool
http://www.romangask.org.uk

http://www.theromangaskproject.org.uk/Pages/Introduction/AnnualReport05.html
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