That Tuesday when we found a whole Roman camp in a farmer's field changed my view on fieldwalking forever

I've been doing community archaeology digs for about 8 years now, mostly in the Cotswolds area. Fieldwalking always felt like the boring part to me - walking up and down in lines picking up random bits of pottery. But last spring we had this one Tuesday where a farmer near Cirencester let us survey his field after plowing. About 10 AM one of the volunteers shouts out about a weird brown stain in the soil. By noon we had a clear line of post holes and a ditch section spanning maybe 40 meters. The pottery sherds dated it to around 90 AD. Turned out to be a temporary marching camp for the 20th Legion. That one day changed how I see surface finds completely. Has anyone else had a survey day that totally flipped your opinion on a method you thought was pointless?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly.emma4d ago

How many of those surface finds did you misread before that day?

taylor.susan4d ago

More than I'd care to admit, to be honest. Spent a good few months thinking every rusty nail was some kind of 1800s buckle fragment... turned out to be mostly junk. Best thing I ever did was start keeping a "junk journal" with photos of the common trash in my area so I could compare and learn faster. That way when a real surface find showed up, I actually recognized it instead of walking right past it. Also helps to bring a strong magnet to test things on site before getting your hopes up. Saves a lot of time and disappointment.