An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on 13th January 2016.
The President was in the chair. The meeting started with a minutes silence in memory of Dr Alan Johnson, a former cardiologist.
The President then introduced the speaker Dr Frank Green, Head of Archaeology, The New Forest National Park, who spoke to the title ‘A new look at an Ancient Forest: How archaeologists are using laser and other modern technology to study the New Forest’.
He himself started in archeology aged four when he was fascinated by bits of clay pipes, etc. he remembers. Later when his family moved to Chichester one of his school teachers used to bring archeological pieces into class for discussion and this led to him becoming involved in the Fishbourne roman palace dig.
In the New Forest they are locating 400 new archeological sites a year at present. It has the largest area of heath and bog in the country. The mires are 12 -15,000 years old and their patterns can indicate the local history. Trees are a problem for site identification as there is a need to see through them.
Dr Green’s team use remote sensing techniques – LIDAR [light detection and ranging] and infrared photography. The department recently paid £200,000 for a data transept of the New Forest. It is done by measuring reflected light beamed down from an aircraft. There is a very high resolution and it is accurate to 10cm. It was done in winter after leaf-fall though the conifers still presented some problems.
They have found earthworks, tumuli, field systems, ancient tracks and villages, signs of economic activity in the past and redesigned landscapes. The LIDAR findings have to be verified and to this end fieldworkers have ipads with the data preloaded and linked to an iphone for GPS positioning.
Members of the public can access some of the findings too via the NFNPA website. Dr Green mentioned infrared photography and laser scanning techniques. His present project is to record the local icehouses, of which there are a number in the New Forest, which are seriously deteriorating from neglect. The first one to be recorded in detail is in Beaulieu [and details and scan results can be accessed on the website]. This all takes time as most archeological work has to be done in short periods in the summer.
The President thanked Dr Green for his extremely interesting talk.
There being no other business the meeting was closed at 10pm.