Video transcript
Browsing some of the Catcote finds, I noticed the shell fossil colloquially known as a
Devil’s Toenail, and once believed to be a charm against rheumatism, which was
excavated during the 1989 dig. It raised half-submerged memories of growing up on a
Buckinghamshire farm. At weekends and during school holidays I roamed the local
fields and lanes; and in the course of these solitary expeditions, I discovered several
examples of this fossil. Some were about the same size, or smaller, but one prize
exhibit was a full handsbreadth across.
My predeliction for this snapping up of unconsidered trifles was boosted by the waste-
disposal practices of my predecessors on the farm. Our back garden contained an area
of waste ground which, when encroached upon by my family’s horticultural efforts,
revealed its antecedents as a midden. Even my own inadequate attempts at double-
digging turned up a range of remains: assorted bits of broken china or - as I now know
to designate them – potsherds; fragments of clay pipe stems; and even a few stoneware
mustard pots and a ginger beer bottle. I unearthed a ferrous artifact of equine equipage:
to wit, a horse-shoe. I dug up a number of engaging geological specimens: one was
attractive in its own right, but the others were magically perforated and thus hol(e)y in
both senses of the word. On another occasion, I found a pig’s tooth - an approximately
contemporary echo of that wild boar’s jawbone complete with tusks, which was found at
Catcote in 1963. I was no stranger to the excavation of treasure either: the Catcote coin
finds were foreshadowed by a Victorian farthing and a 1936 silver threepennny bit.
Ritual deposits were represented - for me, at any rate - by a pale green glass marble
and a brace of buttons: one with an amuletic spread eagle, and the other with a
talismanic unicorn.
I even became - without knowing it - a living history re-enactor, building seasonal camps
during the summer holidays. One year, I constructed a wigwam; and this was followed
by a couple of property ladder experiments with tree-houses (or were they excarnation
structures?) – all fashioned from woven willow-stems and thatched with any vegetation
to hand.
Forwards from the Iron Age and backwards from my Catcote excavations of 2005 to
2008, the ghost of the round house summoned me. On a farm in the middle of England,
I sowed the seeds of my later involvement with a settlement on her north-eastern flank.
Despite Robin and Jan's best efforts, features - whether linear, curvilinear or sub-
rectangular - remained invisible to me. Finds, however, finds were a different matter.
Finds, I could relate to. Finds, I felt at home with, washing endless bags of muddy
bones and checking scraps of potsherd. Whoever treasured that fossil was somebody a
bit like me. The soil was different but my devotion was the same.
