A Midweek Flashback to Last Summer…

That’d be the summer of 2007, of course, when Wyre Archaeology set about decimating Bourne Hill with a mechanical digger, accompanied by a swathe of other people whom we’d never seen before and, to be honest, haven’t seen since. (That’s what happens when we don’t follow the country code and we leave the gate to the field open. Fortunately there weren’t any bulls around that afternoon otherwise the Fleetwood peninsula would have been in big trouble.)
Anyhow, Gary Thornton (Wyre Archaeology Treasurer) recently gave us a CD crammed to bursting point with photographs from that occasion. And being the sort of people that we are (i.e. ones who can’t be bothered doing any proper research for this board) we thought it’d be simpler just to cobble a few of the aforementioned photographs together to create this article.
So, first up, a panoramic shot in which everybody appears to be standing around waiting for everybody else to do some work. This is fairly typical of excavations. The bystanders only perk up when a large horde of coins is suddenly unearthed. I think the bloke in the stupid hat is Brad Pitt. (Yes…all right…I know this is the second time in as many weeks that I’ve inflicted the reader with a photograph of myself…but I haven’t been in the paper for over a fortnight now and I’m getting withdrawal symptoms.)
As always, click on the thumbnails for the larger versions…but make sure you click the ‘back’ button again once you’ve finished, rather than wandering off to a more interesting site.

Next up, the metal detectorists get to work on an enormous prehistoric cowpat, whilst Mick Aston videos the proceedings for the ensuing court case and Fiona Birchall supervises the process with a small, but deadly, trowel.Eventually the team settle down into the dig proper, and they’re soon hunting for Father Christmas’ missing sack of toys, whilst Santa himself watches over them. (Like I say, we’ve really no idea who half of these people were. There could be whole amphorae now in private collections that emerged from the hill, vanished into cars and we never found out. That’s not a terribly likely scenario, of course, but perhaps we ought to have better security at the next dig.)Around this juncture a small herd of cows from Rossall point decide to put in an appearance, offering their own personal expertise on the archaeological landscape, whilst at the same time, being intent on licking everything in sight from rucksacks to the excavators’ bald heads.

Finally, exhausted after a long day’s excavation, in which a solitary shard of pottery and an awful lot of uneven clay floor were produced, Neil and Fiona settle down and share a joke about Martyn King’s hairstyle. (I’m going to start receiving letter bombs and stuff after this, I can tell.)Okay, that’s how I remember it all happening anyhow. Mind you, I had filled my flask with Jack Daniels beforehand. And if that little lot hasn’t put you off going on any more digs, then don’t forget, the ‘potential’ list of excavations and stuff for 2008 is now available for your perusal over the forum…