Following careful consideration of the current course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently making changes to our upcoming community archaeology programme.
In brief, we have decided to postpone any digs, talks or workshops that were due to take place before 01 June 2020. All being well, we intend to re-schedule them for Autumn 2020 or dig season 2021.
For now, we intend to continue with our other digs as planned, and wil be taking the health and safety of our team, and all of our dig participants, very seriously. We have received our ‘Good to Go’ certificates, and we are currently further developing our ‘Safe Dig’ protocols, which we’ll share with everyone who is booked to join one of our digs in August or September. We are of course monitoring the ongoing situation, and will update our plans if we need to.
In the meantime, we will also be announcing some exciting new ways to do archaeology online!
To us, community is everything and we want to keep you well-supplied with archaeology over the coming months. If we stick together, we can continue to make great archaeology happen – from home! Make sure you subscribe to our email list if you fancy a bit of online archaeology to enjoy at home.
For now this is where you can find the latest information about changes to our upcoming programme:
🛑 St Mary’s Windows to the World, County Durham (from March 2020) – postponed
We are currently postponing all of our upcoming talks and workshops at St Mary’s Parish Church in Barnard Castle. If you want to be notified when the events are re-scheduled, please make sure you are subscribed to our email list. All being well, we will re-schedule events for Autumn 2020.
🛑 Earth Trust, Oxfordshire (March 2020) – postponed
We are currently postponing our upcoming dig at Earth Trust. If you booked a DigCamp or Dig Experience, the Earth Trust team have already emailed you so please check your inbox for more information. All being well, we will re-schedule the dig for Autumn 2020.
🛑 Romans of Sedgefield (Brightwater), County Durham (April 2020) – postponed
We are currently postponing our upcoming dig at Sedgefield. If you booked to join the Dig Team, we have already emailed you about your place. All being well, we will re-schedule the dig for Autumn 2020.
🛑 Soulton Hall, Shropshire (May 2020) – postponed
We are currently postponing our upcoming dig at Soulton Hall until October 2020. If you are booked in to join the Dig Team or Finds Team, we will automatically transfer your booking to our new dig dates and we will email you as soon as they are confirmed. We know that you are super keen to get out and do some archaeology, so if you cannot attend the new dig dates when they are announced, we will be happy to transfer your booking to another dig in future.
🛑 Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire (June 2020) – postponed
Following consultation with the good folk at Sudeley Castle (which is currently closed to the public indefinitely), we have decided to postpone our upcoming dig in the castle grounds. If you are booked in to join the Dig Team or Finds Team, we will automatically transfer your booking to our new dig dates and we will email you as soon as they are confirmed. We know that you are super keen to get out and do some archaeology, so if you cannot attend the new dig dates when they are announced, we will be happy to transfer your booking to another dig in future. All being well, we will re-schedule the dig for Summer 2021
🔶 DigNation Festival, Gloucestershire (June 2020) – NEW Virtual Festival!
The fact that Sudeley Castle remains indefinitely closed to the public means we have had to take the very difficult decision to postpone the physical part of DigNation in the castle grounds. We have also decided to save all of our Tudor-tastic speakers and special activities for when we are able to return to Sudeley Castle. Instead, we will be hosting a brand new, Virtual Festival with an timely new theme: Big Dig Energy! We’ll be hearing from top archaeologists all over the world who aren’t able to dig this year because of the pandemic, but who still want to share their amazing work. So, DigNation 2020 is still happening, but instead of Tudors, it’s going to be all about Big Dig Energy: big sites, big ideas, big news! If you are a ticketholder, you will receive an email about your options.
✅ Romans of East Yorkshire, Yorkshire (August 2020) – proceeding as planned
We currently aim to proceed with this dig as planned, and will be implementing a suite of ‘Safe Dig’ measures designed to keep everyone safe and healthy. If you are booked in to join the Dig Team or Finds Team, we will email you more information by 17/07/20.
🔶 DigCamp and DigClub in East Yorkshire (August 2020) – postponed
Although we are still planning to proceed with the dig, we have decided to postpone these two events until next year’s dig in 2021. This is because we are implementing a number of ‘Safe Dig’ measures across all of our excavation sites, including reducing the number of people on site at any one time. If you have a DigCamp or DigClub booking, you will receive an email about your booking options on 06/07/20 – including the option to keep your booking and roll your place over to next year’s dig. Please check your inbox (including junkmail) and email us to let us know your choice.
✅ Lindisfarne, Northumberland (September 2020) – proceeding as planned
We currently aim to proceed with this dig as planned, and will be implementing a suite of ‘Safe Dig’ measures designed to keep everyone safe and healthy. If you are booked in to join the Dig Team or Finds Team, we will email you more information by 17/07/20.
🔶 DigCamp and DigClub on Lindisfarne (September 2020) – postponed
Although we are still planning to proceed with the dig, we have decided to postpone these two events until next year’s dig in 2021. This is because we are implementing a number of ‘Safe Dig’ measures across all of our excavation sites, including reducing the number of people on site at any one time. If you have a DigCamp or DigClub booking, you will receive an email about your booking options on 06/07/20 – including the option to keep your booking and roll your place over to next year’s dig. Please check your inbox (including junkmail) and email us to let us know your choice.
🔶 Digging the Danube, Croatia (September 2020) – postponed
Although this dig is scheduled for September, it relies on the completion of other fieldwork in the coming months. After discussion with our Croatian colleagues, this dig will be postponed until 2021.
Got questions?
Our top priority is to ensure that everyone stays safe and healthy. Together with our many project partners (which include universities, councils and other organisations), and in line with travel advice and restrictions for our Venturers around the world, we will continue to monitor the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and to adjust our programme accordingly.
We know that you are all super keen to get out into the field to do archaeology, and to help us continue sharing our discoveries with the world. With your support, we will do our best to make sure we keep doing that, and that you get your time in the dirt with our team!
If you are unable to attend a dig, we are usually happy to transfer your place to another dig in future, but please bear with us while we adjust our plans.
If you will be traveling from overseas to join us on a dig later in the year, we do (as always) strongly recommend taking out a good quality travel insurance policy to protect yourself in the event of cancelled transportation.
If you have any more questions about your intended dig, please email us.
Finally…
In the meantime, we’d like to send our love and big (virtual) archaeology hugs to all of our Venturers, and to everyone who supports our archaeological efforts. We wish everyone good health, and we hope to see you online or on site later this year.
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Written by Maiya Pina-Dacier
Director of Engagement at DigVentures, Maiya digs with a trowel in one hand, and a Twitter feed in the other. She loves finding new ways to get people involved in archaeology - online and in the field.
Comments (3)
Hello,
Thank you for the update. Will you be offering a future date for the workshop at Barnard Castle, sounds interesting. I’ll also be looking forward to the online archaeology courses.
Here in the US we’re encouraged to stay at home nd venture out only for groceries, this could last a few weeks to a few months.
Regards
Hi Caroline. Yes, our plan is not to cancel any of our archaeology events, only to postpone until it is once again safe for people to assemble together. Wherever possible, we are also making plans to shift our events online – some of our workshops, like a few of those at St Mary’s, may in fact be just as good (or perhaps even better!) if we do them online. We will keep everyone updated with our new programme, as soon as we can!
hi, here is a question, if you as an archaelogist were to create a time capsule, what wot only have we ould place in it. Stange question,well not really because im attempting to get my gardening group enthusastic over placing something in the ground other than veg. and i would love a few ideas that are not of my making, not only are we gardeners all volunteers we grow veg for our community free of charge,we raise funds by plant sales in the summer months and charity donations,and i felt like we ought to leave something more tangible so we built an orchard .after reading about the demise of the village orchard, our community netles in the green belt twixt Manchester And Bury, very close to a site of national importance and recent listing as such because of the water flowering violet,and we assisted with that,and we had our community now listed as a village, and true to form the only pub closed down, so i think a time capsule buried on our wild flowering meadow might just be the thing to stop the council building on it. we take the saying literally that ,one person can be the difference ,but a hundred is better.