KAFS News
The latest from the KAFS Newsdesk 27/01/12
Hi, and welcome to 2012. Most courses are now on-line apart from the two weeks from Monday June 4th to Friday June 16th working on the Roman Emporium at Villa B, and also the amazing Roman Palace called Villa A in Oplontis, close to Pompeii in Naples. The cost per week to KAFS members is £175. This is the opportuntity to work on one of the most famous Roman archaeological sites in Europe- and a World Heritage site. The excavation is in association with the University of Texas.
Flights to Naples are probably cheapest with Easyjet. To get to Pompeii from the airport take a bus from Naples airport to the railway station and then the local train to Pompeii. The hotel we are staying at is the Motel Villa dei Misteri or the Hotel degli Amici. info@villademisteri.it and info@hoteldeliamici.it There is a camp site next door, the Camping Zeus site. Hotels cost about $50 a night for a twin room. We try and eat together in the evenings and explore the region at weekends. Transport to Oplontis from Pompeii and lunch are provided. We have five places each week so early booking and payment is essential.
More KAFS reports are now online including virtual reality flybys of Bax Farm and Hog Brook by Bartek Cichy, although 'work in progress' they are truly stunning!
At Easter we will be excavating the Roman building at Abbey Farm in Faversham. Last year we revealed a huge stone built building with a large bath-house at the western end and this year we will concentrate on finding out its date and function-and there may be other Roman buildings in the vicinity!
Dates for this Easter dig are Weds 4th April through to Sunday 22nd April 2012
Our early summer dig will be at Hollingbourne on the fantastic prehistoric 'henge' and associated features on the North Downs. These include Bronze Age burial mounds and an Iron Age cemetery, all of these need to be surveyed, sampled, and better understood. Dates for this dig is Sat 4th August through to Sunday 19th August 2012.
This year we are planning two Archaeological Training Weeks with a cap of 25 people on each. The first week will be Monday April 9th to 13th on the site of a Roman villa and the next week runs from Monday 13th August to Friday 17th August at Hollingbourne on the Kentish North Downs, Booking early is essential.
Two terrific Field School trips are planned, one to Roman Provence and the other to Pompeii and Herculaneum.
See the Courses page for details!
Paul Wilkinson
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30th June 2011 - Highly Recommended for the Good of your Health!!
"...the committee have decided in their infinite wisdom (and quite rightly too) that it’s about time you lot found out how to conduct yourselves in the field"
If that doesn't convince you to read the rest of this blog post, then maybe you should be more cautious in your future endeavours! Follow the link below to read from the Fylde & Wyre Antiquarian;
http://wyrearchaeology.blogspot.com/2008/02/highly-recommendedfor-good-of-your.html
Don't say we didn't warn you...
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LEARN LATIN with Maureen Yates
Medway Adult Learning Services have main sites at Green Street, Gillingham and Eastgate, Rochester. If would like to start a beginners Latin course in the new academic year please register your interest by emailing me at maureen.yates@medway.gov.uk
UPDATE!
This course is now on offer: Introduction to the Latin Language. Course Code: C12200711A. Course strats 22nd Feb Weds evenings 7pm-9pm for ten sessions at Chatham Grammer School for Boys. Cost £82/£65
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28th April 2011 - KAFS Director in BBC News
KAFS Director, Dr. Paul Wilkinson enters the realm of the BBC with news on a recent excavation of a Roman settlement just off the A2 near Faversham in Kent. For more details please click the link below;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-13211331
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Why do we dig?
Although some of our sites may be under threat from the plough, the prime motivation for our excavations is research rather than rescue.
Within the ranks of professionals working in the heritage sector there is an on-going debate about whether unthreatened archaeological remains should ever be excavated. Even within the current planning regime, under which developers have to fund archaeological investigations ahead of construction works, there is perceived to be a presumption in favour of preservation of remains in-situ where possible. Planning policy guidance states:
"Techniques and understanding evolve and future investigations may ask different questions, or employ alternative approaches, to reveal deeper insights. For this reason, the best sources of information and understanding of our past are always the heritage assets themselves."
Against this background it is important to consider the validity of pure research archaeology.
First, we feel strongly that the advancement of the knowledge of our own generation is as important as those to come and that the anticipation of different questions or alternative approaches in the future is not a good enough reason to stall progress now. On more than one of our sites we have demonstrated that archaeologists of today are more than capable of applying careful method to challenge perceived wisdom and to show that past interpretations (even of the recent past) can be wrong or inaccurate. In these galleries you will see two such examples from Bridge and Stone Chapel, Faversham.
A number of University departments enthusiastically direct their students to the KAFS, bemoaning the lack of opportunity for students of archaeology to get practical experience elsewhere. Without carrying out research today those students will not be able to develop the techniques of the future. Clearly, not all research depends on excavation but some forms of data cannot be obtained otherwise and excavation often allows evolving theories to be tested.
It would also be wrong to assume that those data would necessarily be available to future students if not recovered by us now. The evidence from the burials in the chalk at Bridge was slowly decaying and will disappear completely in due course. And although some farmers do take more care once they are aware of what lies just beneath the plough zone there are cases, notably at Blacklands, where ongoing ploughing is destroying the archaeological records season by season.
There is, however, both a right and a wrong way to approach invasive archaeology and employing the right methodology is key to any project. The Institute for Field Archaeologists itself acknowledges the place of archaeology for pure research purposes highlighting the importance of ‘the creation and maintenance of an adequate record through appropriate forms of research, recording and dissemination of results’. It is this approach which distinguishes a worthwhile research exercise from a purely destructive intervention.
As you will see from the displays in this gallery, we take great care to ensure that all the work we do is more than adequately recorded and that the results are ultimately published in final reports, all of which are made freely available on-line. It is worth noting here that it is only where previous work has not been properly recorded or published that it has caused a real problem for us.
The KAFS carries out important work, which is adding to and altering our understanding of the archaeology of this part of Kent and we are making sure that this work is properly recorded and made available to anyone with an interest in the sites we examine. We hope, in turn, that future archaeologists will appreciate and build on this body of work.
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