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May 2020 

We hope you are all continuing to stay safe  and we sincerely hope that no-one has suffered illness or worse, over the past few weeks since the last newsletter.

Unfortunately, we have no update for you regarding when we might be active again but we can tell you that we are preparing a Covid-19 Risk Assessment and a series of safety guidelines (subject to change) for when we are able to invite you to get more physically involved again. We are also working with colleagues along the Wall to ensure that our messaging is complimentary and co-ordinated for all our volunteers.

Next week is National Volunteers' Week (1-7 June) so here at WallCAP, we would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all the time, effort, commitment, skill and enthusiasm you bring to the project. Although we are going through a challenging phase of the project, we hope you can feel proud of your contributions to date and (almost as importantly) will continue to stay motivated once we enter the post-lockdown recovery phase of the project in the coming months.

In the meantime, stay safe.

The WallCAP Team

What's New
Volunteer GIS Home-Based Research Project
A huge thanks to those of you who got involved in the home-based GIS Research Project. We hope you enjoyed undertaking your research and learning all about the forts, milecastles and/or turrets you were allocated! We can't promise a quick turnaround in getting the information uploaded onto the new GIS, primarily because the WallCAP Project Support Officer post is currently vacant! But the historical information you gathered won't be changing too much in the next few months (!) so rest assured it will be used as soon as is practicable.
Social Media - 'Bringing the Outdoors In'
Please continue to join us on one (or more!) of our social media platforms and do share your images for each of the weekly photography themes. We post the new theme on a Monday. Remember, only post photos from your archives, no sneaky new ones please. Stay home and stay safe!

Twitter: @WallCAP
Instagram: wall_cap
Facebook: 'Hadrian's Wall Community'

Here's the exciting bit.....to celebrate National Volunteer's Week 2020 (next week), we'd like you to have some fun and get creative with us! The theme on social media will be 'WallCraft'. We would like to see you represent something from Hadrian's Wall (be it a view, a site, a Roman soldier or an interesting Roman  find) in a craft or creative skill. Ideas could include; baking something, painting, drawing, building a mini Wall out of something, it could be digital, knitted, made out of cardboard or it could combine all of these in one big collage. Get creative and go wild! 

We'll launch the theme on Monday across the 3 platforms above, but we wanted to give you a little prior notice so you could get thinking!

Happy Posting!
Heritage at Risk (HAR) Activity
The easing of lockdown restrictions here in the UK has meant that the Wall has seen an increase in the number of visitors over the past week. Whilst on the one hand, its good for people to get outdoors, it is making social distancing harder to do in certain hotspot locations. If you see or hear of any related damage, anti social behaviour or conflict along the Wall, then please get in touch as we speak to partner organisations very regularly so we can be quick to relay the message. The guidance is ever changing, but for now, the key message to visitors is that although most car parks are open, there are no sites or facilities open. The advice remains to stay local to home and to appreciate the fact that the Wall sits in a working and living landscape, home to many currently apprehensive communities.
Stone Sourcing and Dispersal (SSD)
Stone Sourcing and Dispersal
Ian, our Community Geologist has been busy blogging again. This time on the subject of glaciation (linked to last month's mystery rock), Ian explores the power of freezing water on shaping the landscape.
Click here to read 'Scratching the Surface' blog
Mystery Rock Competition!
If you remember from last month's newsletter, Ian set a little geological quiz by asking what kind of rock this is, how had it been formed and where it can be found along the Hadrian's Wall corridor.
Answer:  There is a minor road which runs south from the B6318 just next to the small car park for Heavenfield. About 400m up this road a path runs to the SE towards Written Crag. Just to the south of where this path leaves the minor road you can find Mystery Rock number 2 at grid reference NY935690. The rock is a sandstone, but interestingly has parallel grooves gouged in its surface. These are caused by ice which flowed along the North River Tyne between about 110 and 12.5 thousand years ago. It eroded this sandstone as it passed over this ridge before joining the flow of ice flowing west to east along the Tyne Valley.

Mystery Rock Number 3!

 
Clue: Go East as far as you can, less 900m
If its all Greek then its Across Generations

Answer next month!
Meet the Team
In this section we usually take the opportunity to get to know each other a bit better! If you would like to nominate another volunteer or feature in this section yourself, then please email: kerry.shaw@newcastle.ac.uk
Alex Turner - Digital Heritage Officer for WallCAP
 
 "As a 17 year old schoolboy, in 1977, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I wasn’t going to be sitting around the house all Summer and was packed off with my ex-navy surplus duffel bag and a tent to take part in the excavation of a late Neolithic site at Luce Bay in Scotland.
So began my, currently, 42 years of adventure in the world of archaeology. The journey has taken me to many parts of the world investigating a range of sites with periods stretching from the Neolithic to World War II. What began as mainly excavation, has more recently, as the joints grow creakier, morphed into conducting a range of geophysical surveys, landscape surveys and laser scanning of historic buildings and sub-terranean spaces.
After many years living and working in Winchester, Hampshire, I arrived in the northeast in 2009 to work for the University as the Project Manager for the One Monastery in Two Places Project, concentrating on the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. However, it wasn’t long before I became inveigled into numerous other projects within the area, ranging from the excavations at Maryport, to the geophysics at Corbridge and the laser scanning of Hexham Abbey. Since 2018, I’ve been seconded to WallCAP as the Digital Heritage Officer alongside, more recently, my work as a Research Associate on the Rome Transformed Project with Ian Haynes. All of these projects involve exactly the same range of techniques and equipment, be it geophysics, laser scanning or topographic survey, that volunteers for WallCAP have been able to try, and I hope have enjoyed, before Covid19 put an end to the fun.

I was looking forward to allowing everyone to try out some of the new ‘toys’ that are currently collecting dust in my office. Once we are allowed back into the field, I’m sure everyone, who wants to, will have a chance to try the GPS guided gradiometer cart and the new Mini Explorer electro-magnetic induction meter. It looks like a large builders spirit-level attached to an elbow crutch but looks are deceiving and it should give us the chance to collect some new and different types of data.Until then, stay safe everyone. Cheers, Alex"
And Finally.....
'Living on the Edge of Empire' Book Offer
We are delighted to be able to offer you a discount code to purchase this new book.

'Dr Rob Collins [WallCAP's Project Manager] and the curators of the remarkable collections from Hadrian's Wall present a striking new contribution to understanding the archaeology of a Roman frontier'.

The following code entitles WallCAP Volunteers to  25% off of the RRP: WCAP20  Alternatively, you can phone up and give the code over the phone.
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That's all for this month, so please stay safe and stay connected.

The WallCAP Team
To buy a copy of Living on the Edge of Empire, click here
Click here to visit the WallCAP Website
April 2020 Newsletter
The Hadrian's Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) is very kindly funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund between 2019 and 2021
Hadrian's Wall Community
WallCAP
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Hadrian's Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) · Newcastle University · Armstrong Building · Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU · United Kingdom

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