In March last year I saw an intriguing post on twitter, from ‘The Living Levels’ project, about an opportunity to spend 4 days on an archaeological dig on the Gwent Levels. Now for years I had (probably) bored my family and friends, saying on countless occasions. ‘If I had my time again, I’d be an archaeologist’, but had never actually done anything about it.
At first, I assumed that as I worked full-time, I wouldn’t be able to go, but much to my amazement, when I checked the dates, I was actually free to do it. Apart from sounding interesting, this dig was right there on my doorstep and free, so I signed up straight away.
The dig was really well organised and helpful, in that on the first day we learned some of the basics about what we were going to be doing and the history and archaeology of the area. Our leader was Professor Martin Bell from Reading University. He was really passionate about the area - he has been coming to the Gwent Levels for over 20 years and he made it interesting and easy to understand. There were about 12 of us on the group - lots of retired people, including one person who had retired the previous week!
Days two and three were spent out on the mud flats near Peterstone Village- tides allowing. I had never realised before how many different types of mud there were, including the very slippery, fall on your bottom kind!
One of the most exciting things to me, was that we found a Bronze Age (about 3,000 years old) hand tool, made out of a deer antler. Professor Bell pointed to an innocuous piece of seaweed and said, ‘that’s either growing on stone or bone’, well it turned out to be the antler hand tool, when we extracted it from the mud.
Day Four we spent indoors, cleaning and logging all the things (finds) we had found. Once the antler hand tool was clean, we could actually see where a right handed person had held it, wearing it smooth in the process. It was an amazing thought to know that the last person to hold this had lived several thousand years ago.
Since then, my interest in archaeology has gone from strength to strength. I’ve done two evening courses at Cardiff University (check them out- they do all kinds of courses) and I also did a week’s dig in west Wales, as part of the Strata Florida Trust project, which was another great experience, where I learned a lot and met some lovely people.
So, my thoughts are, if you see something that looks interesting- go for it- you never know where it may take you!
Ceri Meloy
For general queries about volunteering with Living Levels, please contact the Living Levels Volunteer Coordinator, Beccy Williams: rwilliams@gwentwildlife.org