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CITiZAN (Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network)

Significant archaeological sites along our sinuous coast and on the foreshores of our tidal estuaries are continually eroded by winds, waves and tidal scour. CITiZAN (Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network) is the first systematic national response to this threat.

The project focuses on nationally important, exposed archaeological sites: the remains of prehistoric forests, Roman buildings, ancient salt-working sites, lost medieval ports, fishing settlements, coastal defences from both World Wars and countless abandoned boats, barges and ships. The CITiZAN project delivers community-based training to create an infrastructure and network of volunteers with the skills and systems to be able to record, monitor and celebrate the highly significant, but fragile and threatened archaeological sites.

Heritage Minister, Tracey Crouch, said: "As someone who grew up on the coast I believe this to be a hugely important project to record the fascinating history of our coastline. The 70,000 sites that are at risk tell the story of our shared national heritage, so it's vital they are surveyed before the sea takes them. No where in Britain is more than 70 miles from the coast, so I would urge anyone to take the opportunity to get involved."

The project has developed a standardised survey, monitoring and web-based recording system and delivers a national training programme to participants through three regional centres, in London with project lead MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), in York with partner organisation the Council for British Archaeology and in Portsmouth with the Nautical Archaeology Society. A national network is being established to monitor, record, and interpret coastal and intertidal sites, and actively engage CITiZAN volunteers through the website and outreach programme.

CITiZAN is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic England, the National Trust and Lloyds Register Fund with additional support from The Crown Estate.

For more information on the project, or to become a volunteer, please visit citizan.org.uk or contact us at citizan@mola.org.uk.

Follow the project on Twitter, Facebook and on Flickr.

Transforming data re-use in archaeology (TETRARCHs)

Running from October 2022 to September 2025, Transforming Data Reuse in Archaeology (TETRARCHs) is a 3-year, CHANSE-funded international collaboration between MOLA, the University of York, Research Centre for the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Lund University, University of Antwerp, Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Ghent, and Vilnius University.

The project’s Lead and Investigators include:

• Sara Perry, Project Leader (MOLA)
• Holly Wright, Co-I (University of York)
• Rimvydas Laužikas, PI (Vilnius University)
• Edisa Lozić, PI (Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti)
• Nicoló Dell'Unto PI (Lund University)
• Helene Verreyke, PI (University of Antwerp)
• Christophe Verbruggen (Ghent University)

Today many organisations collect and manage archaeological data to document and preserve our cultural landscapes, sites, and objects. Unfortunately, our current methods can make it difficult to re-use the data to tell stories and share findings in ways that are democratic, engaging and just. In fact, although a lot of work has been done to make archaeology Findable, Accessible and Interoperable (according to the FAIR Principles), little is understood about whether our data is Reusable – and who is using it.

The TETRARCHs project will experiment with approaches to collecting archaeological data and using that data for storytelling in ways that are meaningful for diverse audiences. Our experiments will help both those who preserve our heritage and the huge range of citizens across Europe who value it.

To do so, we will create new workflows for collecting and managing archaeology and heritage data. Here we’ll examine how the archaeological process in the field, the lab and the archive can be changed to support storytelling with the data. We’ll develop these workflows by partnering with an interdisciplinary team of archaeological specialists, data scientists and museum practitioners alongside three key audiences – domain experts, creative practitioners, and memory institutions.

Our project includes archaeology data collection at three different scales – from whole landscapes, to single sites, to individual objects. We’ll explore these using four increasingly common technologies for data capture: airborne LiDAR, 3D scanning, digital field drawing and photography.

Once the workflows are complete, we’ll test them by supporting people who work in creative fields from across Europe to develop new stories and other imaginative works using archaeology data.

In the end, through TETRARCHs, we will produce:

• new workflows for field, laboratory, and archival practice in archaeology
• the world’s first controlled vocabulary for cultural heritage storytelling
• the first assessments of how effectively data is reused, following ISO Standard 25022: Measurement of Quality in Use
• the first best practice recommendations for trusted digital repositories to optimise their archaeological data for re-use in storytelling

You can learn more about our work on the dedicated TETRARCH website.

TETRARCHs is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK (AH/X006980/1), alongside multiple European funding bodies under CHANSE ERA-NET Co-fund programme, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement no 101004509.

Archaeology and Public Benefit UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

‘Measuring, maximising and transforming public benefit from UK Government infrastructure investment in archaeology’ is a four year UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship led by MOLA archaeologist Dr Sadie Watson. The project focuses on ensuring that public spending on archaeology for infrastructure projects leads to meaningful and relevant research and genuine community participation.

Currently there is no established way to assess the social impact derived from the many millions of pounds invested in archaeology programmes for publicly-funded infrastructure projects. The outcomes of the Fellowship will include best-practice guidance and a tool-kit that will be used to inform future policy and practice.

Research will take place within the framework of professional archaeology, with project partners including HS2 Ltd,  Historic England, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and the Europae Archaeologiae Consilium.

Sign up to receive email updates from the project team here.

MOLA Academy of Archaeological Specialist Training (MAAST)

The MOLA Academy of Archaeological Specialist Training (MAAST) is an archaeology training initiative run by our specialists to share their expertise, so that more people can contribute to the creation of new archaeological knowledge.

There are untold treasures held in archaeological archives that have not yet been studied in depth. MAAST invites people to help piece together stories of the past.

MAAST 2018: Understanding Archaeological Artefacts

Thanks to support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and The Radcliffe Trust, the pilot programme ‘Understanding Archaeological Artefacts’ ran for 22 weeks from 27 September 2018, led by Senior Finds Specialist Jacqui Pearce.

Fifteen trainees from outside the professional archaeological community were invited to participate free of charge in weekly two-hour classroom sessions and practical workshops led by a range of experts from our team. Topics included sorting, identifying and recording different types of artefact, as well as archaeological photography and drawing. Participants worked with 18th- and 19th-century archaeological material excavated from a site in America Square in London. Documentary research carried out alongside the sessions by some of the participants enabled the identification, with a reasonable degree of certainty, of the original owner of the discarded material: George Wolff, a Norwegian-born Danish Consul, who moved out of No. 16 America Square in 1808.

St Alphage Tower 3D archaeological survey

MOLA’s Geomatics team laser-scanned St Alphage Tower in the City of London ahead of a development by Brookfield. The monument comprises the remains of a medieval priory and later church. Using a Leica ScanStation C10 the team laser-scanned the entire monument. The creation of models from laser-scan data allowed for high levels of detail to be presented enabling us to understand the site in ways not previously possible.

The level of detail the 3D scanner captured has enabled us to understand the tower as never before.

The scanner works by using a spinning laser beam, able to measure up to 50 thousand points per second. Scanning from several locations allowed us to quickly record the building’s surface. The scanner also records photographic data which was applied to the point cloud to generate photo-rendered 3D models.

The laser-scan data collected was merged to create a single 3D point-cloud* model of the structure, enabling us to create various products to help interpret the monument’s complex history. The locations were then tied into the Ordnance Survey National Grid using Total Station and GPS (Global Positioning Systems), to precisely locate the model. Using specialist programmes we created an accurate 3D mesh-surface model of the monument, as well as detailed 2D CAD plans and elevations.

These models can be used by historic building specialists in the future to analyse building materials, building phases and construction techniques. The mesh-models can also be used for conservation or disaster management planning; as a tool for monitoring the condition of a structure or for re-building. The data could even inform a virtual 3D reconstruction.  

*A group of points, each with an XYZ co-ordinate, which represents the external surface of an object, and that light intensity values or photographic RGB values can be applied to.