Welcome To Streethouse: July 2025 Excavations Commence
From left to right: Ben Woodward (MSc), Kian Drew (PhD Student, Environment), Dr. Stephen Sherlock, Murad Alizada-Hamidlinski (PhD Candidate, History), Etienne Chevalier (PhD Student, History), Gillian Wagenaar (PhD Candidate, History), Alison Bullock (WRDSB), Astrid Woerner Kropp (MA, History), Amelie Pauze (KW Bilingual School). Front: Shannon Blackmore (Project Manager, Environments of Change)
On July 7th, 2025, a large group of nine individuals, including graduate students, SSHRC PG: Environments of Change collaborators, environmentalists and historians began a six week excavation alongside Dr. Stephen Sherlock, archaeologist, at our field site in Loftus, UK. Environments of Change Project Manager Shannon Blackmore, PhD students Gillian Wagenaar (Arts), Murad Alizada-Hamidlinski (Arts), and Kian Drew (Environment), Masters students Astrid Woerner Kropp (Arts), and Ben Woodward (Earth Sciences), and EoC collaborator Alison Bullock (WRDSB) will be participating in the first 3 weeks of this dig. In Spring 2024, a group of volunteer archaeologists-in-training unearthed the very same site in a one month archaeological dig, which is believed to be dated back over 4000 years.
This year, the group intends to continue on their excavations, while gaining experience in archaeological processes like recording and cataloguing finds. Additionally, volunteers will have an opportunity to gain experience using geo-scientific methods like resistivity and core-sampling, as well as drone and GPS surveying. Additionally, the group has 5 different primary school groups from the local area coming out to participate in an experiential learning field trip on-site. Children will get to experience a test play-through of the Environments of Change video game, Northeye, participating in an exploratory archaeological dig, recording the site’s stone structure through drawings, and sorting finds.
Our group looks forward to sharing more information about this experience as our time on-site progresses. We cannot wait to discover what history will be unearthed in our 2025 field season!