Archaeology News: New Year's Day 2012

The College of Central Florida's enrollment boom has proven a boon for students interested in archaeology. Two new courses have been added, including a popular field study option. Last spring, adjunct professor Willet Boyer III submitted a proposal to the curriculum committee to expand the archaeology/anthropology program from a pair of introductory classes to a quartet of courses.

AN archaeologist who has helped promote an historic South Tyneside attraction has been honoured with an OBE. Paul Bidwell has led significant excavations at Arbeia Roman fort in Baring Street, South Shields. Mr Bidwell, who has lived in North Shields for the last 10 years, also wrote the standard guide to the site. He and his team were honoured when the fort took the title of Best Archaeological Research Project, at the 2009 Current Archaeology Awards.

Hannah Simpson, pictured, 22, from Hedge End, was given the Jack Parsons prize for local studies research as she picked up her degree from Bournemouth University, where she achieved first class honours in her BSc archaeological and forensic sciences course. Her undergraduate thesis studied the Cluniac monastery, which she discovered, in the small parish of East Holme, Dorset.  It was founded around 1107 but fell into disrepair and was slowly forgotten and dismantled, and its exact location had been lost for more than 250 years until Hannah rediscovered it in 2008 using near surface geophysics. The work won Hannah an academic scholarship for a postgraduate thesis, for which she is now researching and surveying the Roman villas of Dorset. She said: “I am very proud that my hard work has been acknowledged.”

Those with an interest in Flagler County history and the rich historical traditions in St. Augustine have a lot to choose from in the coming month. Charles "Bub" Robson will give a presentation on his experience as a law enforcement officer in Flagler County from 1967 to 1990. Robson is a 1960 graduate of Bunnell High School. The U.S. Navy veteran also had a 37-year career in law enforcement with the Bunnell Police Department -- serving as chief from 1975-1978 and again from 1981-1984 -- as well as chief of the Flagler Beach Police Department from 1985 to 1990. He also had stints with the Flagler County Sheriff's Office and the Ormond Beach Police Department.

The Department of History and Archaeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki conducted an archaeological project at the pre-Neolithic site of Vretsia-Roudias in the Pafos district of Cyprus. Under the direction of Professor Nikolaos Efstratiou, the team discovered important findings about the island of Cyprus during the end of the Pleistocene and beginnings of the Holocene period.

n 2009, during the excavations to install new storm sewers along Ohio 4 in downtown Bucyrus, a segment of a historic corduroy road was discovered. Corduroy roads were normally constructed by placing rows of logs across the width of the road. These were called the tread logs and were often laid across stringer logs which were positioned parallel to the direction of the road. Although quite bumpy to travel, a corduroy road was considered to be a great improvement when compared to the problems that a wagon mired in mud would present.

Using factor analysis or principal components analysis or measurement-error models for biological measurements in archaeology?

In late July and early August 2011, a team of almost one hundred enthusiastic volunteers from Boston in Lincolnshire got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to excavate within the town’s historic market place.