Whenever I visit other countries, or even other towns in the UK, or, indeed when I visit anywhere, if I find that I am near an archaeological site I am drawn to it. It is a minor compulsion. Perhaps I need to establish a link, to look back through time. To understand, in a small way, what life used to be like. I can't do this at every archaeological site, of course. It has to be a certain type of site. Battlegrounds and barrows are interesting but not "compelling. Buildings are my thing. It is a sad reality that most people, the hoi polloi, and my choice of words will become clear later, lived and worked in buildings that could not survive. Very few people were privileged enough to live in palaces and villas or temples and churches. They lived in wooden houses, or where there were clay deposits builders could construct mudbrick houses, but unless conditions were right for preservation neither wood nor mudbrick survives the centuries. However, archaeology is a science that relies a lot on surrogates. If a hole was ever dug in the earth, the earth was scarred for ever or until that same plot was dug again to make a bigger hole.
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