Just north of Bulford, inside the MOD’s Salisbury Plain estate, lies a site called Dunch Hill. This spot is close to the military drivers’ training area, and in 1995 excavations there by Wessex Archaeology had revealed the presence of roundhouses beneath a track that was being laid. In 2020, as part of an assessment of the effects of ground pressure from military and farm vehicles on archaeological deposits, we were fortunate enough to excavate the footprint of another roundhouse adjacent to where the previous investigation had taken place. Working between COVID-19 lockdowns – outdoors and socially distanced – our team was led by Wessex Archaeology’s Phil Andrews, as the 1995 excavation had been, this time joined by Operation Nightingale.
Operation Nightingale began in 2011 with the mission of improving the lives of Wounded, Injured, and Sick (WIS) military personnel and veterans by involving them in archaeological fieldwork. Issue 338 of Current Archaeology has an overview of some of the initiative’s work, but specific projects have also had dedicated articles – within Salisbury Plain these include the Bronze Age barrow and Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Barrow Clump (CA 306), and a camp associated with ‘Easy Company’, the American D-Day paratroopers better known as the ‘Band of Brothers’ (CA 354). Further afield, veteran volunteers have been involved in the investigation of a high-status Roman building at Caerwent (CA 282); the graves of convicts or Napoleonic Era prisoners of war on ‘Rat Island’ in Portsmouth Harbour (CA 339); an 18th-century camp that once housed 8,000 German mercenaries outside Winchester; and a network of First World War practice trenches at Barry Buddon, near Dundee (CA 346). The resulting archaeological discoveries have been undeniably illuminating, but the results for the veterans, which are measured, have been especially encouraging – even for those who are simply looking for some respite from the daily pressures of life, there are positive outcomes. The global trials caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have only served to heighten the challenges for these participants, with a particular emphasis on mental health and wellbeing. And this is where a recent programme based around Late Bronze Age roundhouses has proved invaluable.
While the focus of our fieldwork was excavation, we also wanted to set Dunch Hill in its wider landscape context, undertaking many hectares of geophysical survey across the location of Early Bronze Age barrows, so-called ‘Celtic Fields’ (actually Middle Bronze Age field systems), and Late Bronze Age linear ditches – documenting a real who’s-who of the Bronze Age. As for the excavated evidence, we found quite a few sherds of Late Bronze Age pottery, a Late Bronze Age disc-headed pin, and – most excitingly – lots and lots of post-holes. There were so many, in fact, that it proved quite a challenge to decipher the footprint of any individual house structure, and it was quite a ‘Eureka!’ moment when Phil Andrews succeeded in identifying one, forming a rough circle c.6.5m in diameter. The next step was to determine how the long-decayed roundhouse that these post-holes had once supported may have looked.
Göbekli Tepe: a new World Heritage Site