Archaeology Review - Spring 2009

At the end of last summer two of our members spent another week with INRAP, the French National Archaeological Institute at the Gallo-Roman site of La Gare at Le Quiou in La Rance Valley. Working with a team from all over France we were set to exposing the Second Century floor of a building that had underfloor heating ducts and was believed to have been used for drying grain. We found fragments of high quality pottery similar to Samian ware from north Gaul and a quantity of Roman grey ware. The underfloor features included tiles that still bore the finger marks of the makers. In September a small team from the Museum of London made two "assessment trenches" in the car park site in Hue St. and briefly exposed a habitation layer at about 2 metres. The presence of a post-hole and a fragment of daub led them to recommend that a full excavation be carried out before an underground car park is constructed. The finds, mostly pottery and clay tobacco pipes, were cleaned and examined by members of the Section before being packed and sent to London.

At the Autumnal Equinox several members were at the La Hougue Bie passage grave before sunrise to observe the phenomenon in excellent conditions. Excellent weather continued for the rest of the day when members gave talks at several dolmens during a tour led by Olga Finch.

Following the opening of the "Mammoth Hunters" Exhibition at the Jersey Museum and an excellent talk by Dr Paul Pettitt at the beginning of October, a site visit was made to the cave at La Cotte de Saint Brelade. An evening visit was subsequently arranged for the Section to visit the Exhibition when Olga Finch gave a very interesting talk to the members, two of whom had worked on the site some years ago.

Members attended a talk at the Town Hall by the Chief Executive of the Prince's Regeneration Trust about the crucial importance of heritage to the regeneration of towns and the urban environment. The theme was how to avoid losing all our historic buildings.

In November, David Le Conte, a Past-President of La Société Guernesiaise came and gave a fascinating talk to the Société on his research on the orientation of the Channel Islands' Neolithic tombs and their relationship with the paths of the Sun, Moon and stars. An invitation was extended to the Jersey Astronomy Club who attended in a significant number. The main indication is that no one phenomenon determines the orientation of these monuments.

Dr Ralph Nichols has submitted plans for excavating some standing stones at La Moye and we are waiting for permission from the Planning Minister and a suitable date from the golf club to carry out the investigation during this summer.

On March 9th a full list of over 160 sites of known or potential archaeological interest identified and designated by the Minister for Planning and Environment was published in the Jersey Gazette. The Minister will continue to update and amend this list as more information is gained. The list included twelve sites owned by the Société Jersiaise. Also in March, Dr Matthew Pope and Geoff Smith visited the Island, they came to examine some of the material from La Cotte, view the cave site and the Exhibition at the Jersey Museum. They are at present studying butchery and stone tool technology on sites in Beeding and Oldbury. Their research is of the upper paleolithic period and Neanderthal man. Dr Pope gave a talk entitled "On the trail of ice-age hunters: New perspectives and directions for research at La Cotte" the talk was both informative and exciting. Geoff Smith spoke of his work on the lithic and faunal remains and their distribution. The following day the visitors were taken to the site by Members of the Archaeology and Geology Sections where they displayed great enthusiasm and climbed around to view the cave from as many positions as possible. They also went to Cotte à la Chèvre and by arrangement with Jersey Heritage were also able to view some of the finds at Augrés store and on display in the Jersey Museum "Mammoth Hunters Exhibition". They concluded that there was important research to be done on the collection with modern analytical methods and stressed that this work should be done before any further material needed to be extracted from the site. They also suggested that there could be an enormous amount of archaeology in these sites and possibly in other places in Jersey for further research into the subject.

A section visit to La Cotte de Saint Brelade

An afternoon visit by the Archaeology Section to the site on Saturday, 14th March from the L'Ouaisné Bay Car Park attracted eight members who scrambled up the rocks to the La Cotte site in almost perfect conditions.

It has been decided to start work on the La Hougue Bie Chapel by investigating the inside walls to assess the state of the known wall paintings and identify any surviving paint-work in the West Chapel. Mrs Ann Ballantyne, who worked with Dr Rouse in the 1970s, has been painstakingly removing layers of paint and discovered that the interior was once decorated and that some paint still remains. Mrs Ballantyne is a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. We hope this is the beginning of a project that will bring the Chapel back into its historic context.

On the 20th June which is the nearest Saturday to the summer solstice the Société is planning to hold an evening event of entertainment and fun in the grounds of La Hougue Bie in order to raise funds to help with the restoration project on the Chapel including the launch of a "Buy a slate" campaign. For the mere sum of five pounds each person will have a slate inscribed with their name on the back and recorded on a manuscript in medieval lettering. Music, medieval pageantry, games and refreshments are being planned for the long summer evening.

We regret the passing of Dr Tim Myres and are grateful for the gift of a quantity of archaeological publications to add to the library at La Hougue Bie and a large number of storage boxes.

All Société Members are welcome to join the Section and help explore Jersey's past and present and are invited to our meetings each Thursday.

John Clarke, Chairman