Wednesday 3rd July. This month we have another regular, Bill Shannon from Lancashire Archaeological Society. In previous visits he’s given us talks on early depictions of Hadrian’s Wall and Maps before Ordinance Survey. This time he will be presenting some interesting Disputed Maps from Tudor Lancashire. Always gives a great talk.
This was our first visit to this site since last September. Surprisingly the trench we left open has survived quite well and it didn’t take us long to clear it of mud and rotting leaves (we didn’t even have to pump the water out). More detail in our Rectory Project Archive –Area 1).
Wednesday 5th June. Ron Cowell is Curator of Prehistoric Archaeology at Liverpool Museum and came along and tell us about his remarkable discoveries in recent excavations on a site near Sefton on Merseyside. The site, which is called Lunt Meadows, is on farmland near the River Alt which is being converted into a nature reserve. Ron’s excavations have revealed Mesolithic settlement dating from 5800 BC. What is remarkable however is that Ron believes he may have found evidence for dwellings. If true, this would be very rare evidence that these nomadic hunter-gatherers were making permanent or semi-permanent settlements. The excavations are still continuing and Ron’s latest discovery is a platform of wooden branches (some of the branches have even been split) which he thinks may have been used as a landing stage on the water’s edge.