Heatwave is a rare opportunity for high-flying archaeologists
The heatwave has been a real headache for gardeners, but it’s laid bare a lot of information that experts will spend months analysing, as Will Hayward discovered
THE soaring temperatures may be terrible for gardeners but they have been amazing for archaeologists.
According to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) boiling hot weather has provided the perfect conditions for dozens of ancient sites to become visible from the air.
According to a RCAHMW statement: “As the drought has persisted across Wales, scores of long-buried archaeological sites have been revealed once again as ‘cropmarks’ or patterns of growth in ripening crops and parched grasslands.
“The Royal Commission’s aerial investigator Dr Toby Driver has been busy in the skies across mid and south Wales over the last week documenting known sites in the dry conditions, but also discovering hitherto lost monuments.”
There is now a race against time to document all the monuments before the dry weather ends and they vanish.
The statement continued: “With the drought expected to last at least another two weeks Toby will be surveying right across north and south Wales in a light aircraft to permanently record these discoveries for the National Monuments Record of Wales, before thunderstorms and rain wash away the markings until the next dry summer.”
Dr Toby Driver, Senior Aerial Investigator, added: “I’ve not seen conditions like this since I took over the archaeological flying at the Royal Commission in 1997.
“So much new archaeology is showing it is incredible.
“The urgent work in the air now will lead to months of research in the office in the winter months to map and record all the sites which have been seen, and reveal their true significance.”