Archaeological Dig at The Burrs Receives Backlash

From the 21st August, an archaeological dig has taken place in The Burrs playing field in Brough in a search for a lost possible Roman theatre. An excavation trench across a D-shaped structure has been planned to occur until the 6th September by Hull University individuals, Petuaria ReVisited members and volunteers. The Roman fort was detected by a geographical survey using ground penetrating radar as part of the Petuaria ReVisited project in Brough (Petuaria being the Roman name for Brough as it is thought to be the tribal centre of the Parisi, the people who lived in Roman East Yorkshire.)

There are many different processes needed to go through in order to successfully finish the dig by the deadline, and as a volunteer helping out on Wednesday 26th August, Tuesday 1st September and going back for a final time on Saturday 5th September, I have been able to take part in these different processes. Firstly, in order to detect the trench, a technique called magnetometry has to occur which is used to map out patterns of magnetism in the soil; where the soil has a slightly different magnetic orientation to the surrounding earth indicates the presence of sub-surface archaeology. I helped out with magnetometry in a near-by field and we had to lay out ropes of 30 metres in a grid and lay a separate rope over the half metre point on either side where someone with a magnetometer then walked over it, getting to a metre each time it beeped in order to be completely accurate. After approximately three hours of completing the whole grid, plus a smaller one to fill the whole field, we finally downloaded the results to a laptop where it clearly showed signs of ditches and pits lining up with the current trench in The Burrs.

Secondly, the dig itself takes place. We were digging a trench of approximately 20 metres by 3.5 metres and by the time I arrived to help, secure walls were not yet uncovered but there was clearly rubble which showed the D-shaped structure outlining that we were searching for. I also helped to dig through a pre-dug trench that ran perpendicularly through our present trench. The managers of the site believe that this pre-dug trench had been dug in order to find Roman gold and riches but when they were done, they just chucked everything back in with the soil and hence, we were able to find many interesting artefacts within the pre-dug trench and our present one such as bones, pottery, roof tile, jet, charcoal, fossils and Roman coins.

Lastly, a process called sieving is undertaken to make sure that these artefacts aren’t mixed up in the soil that has been dug up as they are needed for research purposes in order to pinpoint dates, wealth, materials, etcetera. When the soil is being dug up, it is placed into buckets which are then numbered for each context and taken over to the sieve. There, the soil from the buckets in each context are placed on a large wooden structure with chicken wire and shaken until all the soil is in a wheelbarrow and hopefully, what is left on the chicken wire is useful research artefacts which are then placed in numbered bags. After that, the soil in the wheelbarrow is tipped out onto a large mound where someone goes over it with a metal detector to make sure that nothing is lost in the soil. When sieving, we mainly found Roman coins, pottery and fossils.

However, although many may find this historical dig to be very interesting and useful for research purposes of the town, a lot of people have complained on social media sites such as Facebook. Many argued saying “what have the Romans done for us?” And others argue that we don’t need to learn more about the Romans, “don’t we know enough about the Romans by now?” But The Burrs playing field covers about a third of the old Roman site of Petuaria as explained on the website for the field so archaeologists and members of the public are bound to want to research more into it and what harm does learning about our history do? A lot of the complaints have been surrounded by the main theme of “with the dig taking place, there is nowhere for children to play football anymore.” In regards to this, the whole dig site itself is approximately 60 metres by 20 metres and when you do the maths, there is still approximately 80% of the field left free to the public.

On Monday 31st August, a group of youths sadly vandalised the signage for the archaeological dig. Petuaria ReVisited posted on Facebook a picture of the trench and then a second picture of the rest of the field, clearly showing enough space for children to play football, with the caption “Just had some sad news. The wonderful youths everybody is so protective about who have got at least 80 percent of the playing field to play on last night started vandalising the signage for the archaeological dig. (The dig is approx 60m x 20m and causes no threat.) Trying to justify their actions by saying that they want to play football, and their football pitch is disappearing. The playing field will be here for perpetuity because as a schedule monuments it cannot be built on now or ever just like Stonehenge has not been built on now and will be ever built on so there is no need to worry about it. If you are still concerned please come and talk to us.”

At the end of the day, the dig has only been occurring for just over two weeks and finishes this Sunday so complaints and vandalism are definitely uncalled for since the playing field will go back to normal in no time.