AEA have been appointed by the Cornwall Archaeology Unit to lead environmental archaeology team and response for the A30 Tiverton to Carland Cross road scheme for Costain on behalf of the Highways Agency … the Cornwall Archaeology Unit has produced a number of Bronze Age round houses on different sites and Trevisker pottery on numerous sites. The geoarchaeology and environmental archaeology is a challenge but will make a major and significant understanding to our understanding of prehistoric Cornwall.

Andy Jones, Principal Archaeologist, Cornwall Archaeology Unit are just finish off a monograph on the excavations of a Bronze Age barrow with some important finds behind Penzance, and a major palaeo-environmental sequence from Marazion Marsh. Together the evidence allows them to re-assess the archaeology of the Penzance hinterland. More significantly it allows them to tackle the prehistoric communities’ action, re-action and resilience to rising sea-levels – the concepts of which are applicable more widely to other prehistoric, and historic landscapes. The book will be published in late 2022. AEA now have a new and expanded auger kits, including long and short gouge augers, combination soils augers of a variety of diameters (2cm to 20cm), screw augers and probes, ratchet handle augers, and bespoke Russian peat corer made to our design.

We designed and built our own bespoke tray mass flotation system, including selling models all around the country.

In 2013 AEA designed and built its own 23m² lab with a dedicated bespoke processing sink, drying ovens and composite set of over 50 sieves. Dedicated geoarchaeology bench, range of stereo-binocular microscopes, fridge and cold storage and large separate sample storage facilities. The lab was opened by Prof Martin Bell.

Projects

Cerne Abbas Giant: the new OSL dates from the Giant (AD 700 to 1100) have surprised all archaeologists; prehistorians and historians alike. One of the mysteries, is, why is there no record or even indication of his existence until c. 1793? Where did he go? Work is still continuing on the snails in the AEA labs and this pale-environmental data may have some of the clues. We hope to complete the work for April 2022.

Land snail and pollen analysis at Reach Road, Burwell, Cambridgeshire (for Northamptonshire Archaeology/MoLA) examine changing Roman and medieval pasture and arable regimes, through adverse changing groundwater conditions

Roadside cable trenching provides an opportunity to examine the ditch and buried soil beneath the Dorset Cursus enabling sampling for land snails, and soil analysis.