Field walking
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Field walking is just as it sounds. It is a type of archaeological survey where the archaeologist walks over a field to try and pick up clues of what might lie underneath it. It is the easiest type of survey to do. The field is divided up in to strips or squares. These are plotted on to a map (called a base map) and each square or strip is given its own unique number or letter. A team of people walk carefully and slowly up and down the squares or strips and if they find something, then a peg or other marker is put in to the ground to show here the find comes from. The find must be carefully picked up and put in to a bag that is labelled with the site name, number or letter of the square or strip and what the find is, so for example, a bag might be labelled like this: Roger’s Field, 28 th July 2005 , 1 piece of red pottery |
The most common finds from field walking are pottery, lithics, pieces of horse equipment and buckles.
Why don’t you and your class have a go at field walking your school field? You can try out a virtual fieldwalk in the final part of the West Mucking explore!
