Hello again, my name is Keith Parfitt. I am a Field Officer with Canterbury Archaeological Trust and I will be directing the 2006 season of excavations at Ringlemere with my colleague Dr Stuart Needham from the British Museum. We will be assisted by our two stalwart supervisors, Grant Shand and Barry Corke, together with a willing band of hard-working volunteers. For the last two years we have put the Director’s excavation diary [2004] [2005] on the Canterbury Trust’s web-site and this has proved to be so popular, that we thought we would do the same thing again this season.

We are running annual excavations to investigate this important archaeological site which was only discovered in November 2001, when local metal-detectorist Cliff Bradshaw was searching a recently harvested potato field near Sandwich. It was here that he discovered one of the most important pieces of early Bronze Age metalwork ever to be found in Britain – the now famous Ringlemere gold cup. The cup, of about 1800 BC, was found buried in a low mound that we now believe to be of Bronze Age date, although the site is a lot more complicated than this.

As the 2006 dig progresses we hope to bring you more interesting site pictures and up-date you about our latest discoveries and ideas. Visit the 2006 Director’s Diary regularly and follow progress on what continues to be one of the most important prehistoric sites currently being excavated in south-east England. Have a look at our Diaries for 2004 and 2005 for accounts of the previous work.

The story so far (we think)

Our previous excavations have produced a wealth of information, which we are now starting to piece together. In prehistoric times, the site at Ringlemere must have been one of considerable importance. The story really begins around 2600 BC when a large circular ditched enclosure was constructed on the site, for reasons which still remain unclear to us. This enclosure was probably used for ceremonial purposes. We understand little of the detail but there had been a small rectangular timber building at the centre of the monument at one time, perhaps a shrine. This timber structure was surrounded by pits, holes for wooden posts and several hearths, all of which implies that there had once been considerable activity within the enclosed area.

Years later, perhaps around 2000 BC, a mound of turf and soil was heaped up in the middle of the old enclosure, burying all the earlier features. The mound seems to have created a platform to support a new timber structure, close to the site of the earlier shrine. A large pit dug into the top of the mound nearby may have originally contained the gold cup. By the time the gold cup came to be buried, however, the monument had perhaps already been in use (possibly intermittently) for well over 500 years. Yet, not long after, the site seems to have been abandoned, leaving the mound with its encircling ditch as a monument to the Ancestors, largely ignored by later inhabitants of the region. The Romans came and went without leaving much of a mark on the site. But to generations of local rabbits, foxes and badgers this ancient mound provided an ideal place to dig their burrows - we have excavated numerous examples of them.

Then, in about AD 450 new Anglo-Saxon settlers arrived in the region. To them, the ancient mound showed that this was a place of great importance, which would be very suitable for the burial of their dead. They established a cemetery here which contained over 50 individuals, some cremated. The cemetery went out of use around AD 550 and the area eventually became the farmland that it continues to be today.

Can I join in with the excavation?

Yes, if you are reasonably fit, over 18 and prepared to work all day, for no money, whatever the weather. No previous archaeological experience is necessary and we can offer a variety of activities, ranging from heavy digging to finds washing. Unfortunately, no accommodation or food/drink is provided and you will need your own transport to get to the site. No funds are available for travel expenses, etc. The site is in a field a long way out in the countryside, it is always windy and site facilities are very basic. If you are still interested phone the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (01227 462062) for further details.

Can I visit the site?

No, not easily. The site is situated on private land, on a busy working farm. There is a lot of digging to be done and too many visitors could disrupt our busy programme, together with the daily routine of the farm. Why not follow progress here on our web site. Take a look at the Director’s Diary for regular updates.

The Director's Diary

Friday, 12th May: Off we go again

It doesn’t seem long since we were last at Ringlemere finishing off Trench 6. In fact, it was just seven weeks ago. But here we are again, back on site. The machine has just finished clearing two large areas (Trenches 7 and 8), which should allow us to complete the excavation of the prehistoric monument. It’s always an exciting time at the beginning of a dig with so many possibilities and ideas to explore. This year we are particularly keen to look at the entrance on the north side of the ceremonial ditched enclosure. We are going to spend the next few days tidying up the site and surveying in the new trenches, ready for the arrival of the big team that will make a start on excavating these areas.

Friday, 26th May: The dig gets off to swimming start

Our plan was to start early in the season so that the hard-baked ground we suffered last summer would be less of a problem this time. Certainly this has been the case and May 2006 seems to have been one of the wettest on record. We have had rain virtually every day and parts of the site have been flooded to a considerable depth. However, we have managed to keep a small team working on one better-drained area which has allowed us to continue digging the barrow mound. Some good prehistoric flintwork has been recovered and several Neolithic features recorded. Spare diggers have been able to start washing finds from the site, whilst the tool-shed has had a complete make-over, with a new roof and fitted shelving installed to the highest standards of modern design and craftsmanship (mostly done in the rain). Now can we have some dry weather please?

Friday, 9th June: Swamp to desert in a week

Well, its stopped raining alright and we are now in a heat-wave which has succeeded in converting our waterlogged site into something resembling a hard-baked desert. But we are still moving soil; more good flints and prehistoric pottery. The excavation of the mound has continued and we have spent the last few days cutting our first trench across the outer ditch around the monument. This trench is now almost finished and hopefully we can complete it before it rains again – being on the lowest part of the site it is bound to flood if we get a summer down-pour.

Sunday, 18th June: Steady progress despite the weather

A few heavy down-pours have set us back a bit but we continue to make some steady progress with the excavation. Further sections of the great enclosure ditch have been emptied and work has continued on digging and sieving the make-up of the barrow mound within the ditch. At the finds shed, a select band have made good progress on washing the backlog of finds from last year’s dig. Some interesting flint tools have been identified during the course of this work – so much was bagged-up in a wet and muddy state last winter that we never really knew exactly what we had found most of the time.

Sunday, 25th June: further steady progress

Another good week, with some hot, sunny weather. Considerable quantities of earth have been shifted from various parts of the site and things are really starting to take shape. More of the central barrow mound has been dug and the resulting spoil sieved. There has been a steady flow of good pottery and flint finds from most areas – particularly scrapers and the odd arrowhead. And the number volunteers arriving at the site continues to increase, which is good news because there is still a lot to do before the ground starts to get too baked to work.

Friday, 30th June: More work on the enclosure ditch

A week of work on the enclosure ditch, with some good results. At last we can closely define the site of the entrance causeway across the ditch. This is a lot narrower than we originally thought, which means there is rather more ditch to dig out than we had allowed for. Nevertheless, a great sweeping arc of emptied ditch is now becoming visible from the top of the spoil-heap – a place where I spend a lot of my time studying the general pattern of developments across the site (not recovering from the effects of pushing another loaded barrow of spoil up to the top, as some claim). The ditch is really going to look a very impressive feature when it is all out.

Friday, 7th July: The Russians arrive

Richard Cross, archaeologist with Canterbury City Council, arranged for some new diggers to join us for a couple of days – three Russian archaeologists from Vladimir. They were in England to study our methods of working and to visit some of the County’s more interesting sites. They worked-in well with our team, despite the extreme summer heat. We all agreed that archaeological excavation was hard work – no matter where in the world it was being done. On Wednesday, the Lord Mayor of Canterbury came out to meet our visitors on site and see how they were getting on. Thankfully, the dry weather meant that the Mayor’s official car managed to negotiate the rough farm track which leads to our excavation without getting splattered with mud. All in all, a very interesting week for everyone.

Sunday, 16th July: Tassa finds a pot

Despite the extremely hot weather, things have been going along nicely on site, almost in a routine fashion. As usually happens in such situations something unexpected then occurs. So it was last Sunday. Tassa McGregor, one of our longest serving and hardest working volunteers, spotted a fragment of pottery where she was digging. Cleaning around the piece it soon became apparent that this was the remains of a complete vessel. As we examined it we could see that it was decorated and it was readily identifiable as an early Bronze Age Beaker, dating to perhaps about 2500 BC. The find came at a particularly appropriate time since Stuart Needham was due to join us from the British Museum the following day. Now it just so happens that Stuart has recently completed a detailed study of Beaker pottery and probably knows as much as anyone about these ancient vessels. Tassa was awarded full marks for her discovery, not least because it is the first complete prehistoric pot we have ever found and previously we have had very little Beaker pottery from the site at all.

Wednesday, 26th July: Stuart finds another Beaker!

Another week of (too) hot weather; Barry recorded 100.8 F. in the site office a few days ago. Its not much cooler outside but the infamous ‘Ringlemere wind’, so deadly in winter, is finally proving to be of some (slight) benefit to those labouring in the trenches. We have pretty well finished digging out all the enclosure ditch now and we have resumed work inside the ditched area. We spent several days excavating ancient animal burrows which criss-cross the site. These have been tunnelled through the prehistoric levels and, although the material is not in its original position, many interesting prehistoric finds have come from these burrows. Today Stuart Needham was digging out one particularly deep burrow when he came across another complete pot – a Beaker in fact, vaguely similar to Tassa’s pot but with rather different decoration. It just goes to show that you can never know what is going to turn up next…. Meanwhile, can we have some slightly cooler weather please?

Tuesday, 1st August: Now Rob’s found a Beaker

More solid progress with a good group of volunteers – I think the end of the dig is in sight. We have been investigating a number of interesting prehistoric pits within the ditched enclosure over the last few days. Many of these have been heavily disturbed by burrowing animals but most have contained useful groups of flintwork and decorated pottery. With our two recent complete Beaker finds everyone has been hoping that the pit they get to dig will contain another one – and in the case of our long-serving volunteer Rob, this was indeed the case. Working in a neatly circular pit, very close to where Stuart found his pot (see above), Rob discovered another complete Beaker, again nicely decorated. So we now have three Beakers from the site – all complete and all from pits on the eastern side of the enclosure; what does it all mean?

Friday, 11th August: Dig Finished!

Well, its all over – we have spent the last ten days systematically working through our final job list and now everything has been excavated and recorded. One of the last jobs was to take detailed photographs of the completed excavation. We were fortunate that the weather stayed dry for this and the site looked really impressive when it was all clean and tidy. We have dug several more prehistoric pits in the last few days but there have been no more complete Beakers, so we will have to settle for just the three (which is three more than I have ever seen on any other site I’ve worked on).

So what’s next? Well, fill in the holes firstly, so that the farmers can re-plant the field in the autumn. After successfully weathering the storms of last winter and the extreme summer heat of this July, our stout wooden site huts will have to be dismantled and found new sites to go to. Then there is all the paperwork to sort through and index. There are still quite a lot of finds to wash but this can be done off-site over the winter. Finally, we must turn our attention to writing detailed reports on all our discoveries. We have made a good start on this and the first report, on the gold cup, is just about to go off to the printer. There will need to be a second report which gives details of all the other excavated evidence from the site. It will probably take about two years of study before we can produce this one. Over the years I have come to understand that with many sites the end the digging is only the start of the project overall and the time taken analysing the excavation results can be much longer than the actual dig. Plenty of work to keep us going then, so it will soon be time to go back to the office…