DigVentures is your chance to work with some of the best archaeologists in the land on one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Join us and share the excitement of discovery as it happens, knowing that without your support, it wouldn’t have happened.
The Project
DigVentures Ltd will be excavating the iconic Bronze Age site of Flag Fen, where extensive drainage and climate change threaten to destroy the world-renowned archaeology forever.
Our work will be an essential part of saving the archaeology and giving the site a future life, and all we need to do is to raise £25,000 to make this incredible project happen. You and your friends can be a part of it – by supporting us through buying benefits, and even joining us on site. The more you contribute, the more involved you can become – from being one of the first to receive the site report, to rolling up your sleeves and actually taking part.
As soon as you support the project at any level, you will receive access to the Site Hut, an online forum providing exclusive daily project updates, interviews, lectures with archaeological superstars, films, photos - or just pop in for a nice cup of tea! We’ll be filming on site every day, and posting all sorts of fabulous information to keep you up to date. If you can’t join us in the field, we’d love a crew of armchair archaeologists out there following our every move.
The field school at Flag Fen (for those who purchase a benefit at £125 and above) will be really exciting this year. We’ve put a lot of thinking into making this the best experience possible, whether you are digging for a day, a week, two weeks, or the whole project. There will be dedicated staff providing orientation, training and instruction, as well as evening lectures, fun outings and plenty of time for questions. And some surprises, of course!
Places in the field school (from 23rd July – 12th August 2012) are limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, and are only for those aged 17 and older.
What do I do?
Pick a benefit level and purchase! Tell your friends and everyone you know, and ask them to get involved too. You can also purchase benefits as a gift for someone else: don’t we all know someone who has a bit of a geeky fascination with archaeology? Send them our way! The more people who get involved, the more work we can do. And this year isn’t the end – the site is drying out fast, and we need to keep the work going. Planning for the 2013 season is already underway…
What happens after I have bought a benefit?
First things first, you will receive an email from us acknowledging your purchase and welcoming you to the DigVentures team. Immediately after the funding window closes at the end of April, we will open the Site Hut and ship all physical merchandise such as pins, tee-shirts and other items.
Some of the benefits won’t be possible until we’re actually digging, so please bear with us! if you have purchased a benefit to join us on the dig, we will contact you right away to arrange a date, as places are limited and dates will be available on a first-come, first served basis.
Did we mention the party?
The End of Site party, of course! Every good site has a great party to celebrate the end of a successful season, and we’re no exception. Everyone who funds us will be invited to the DigVentures End of Site Party, where you will see a presentation on the season’s results, catch up on project news, mingle with the archaeologists, and get to meet everyone who joined us on site. And there’s bound to be some dancing too…
How do I get in touch with the DigVentures team?
We’re here for you! All emails sent to info@digventures.com will be read and replied to by one of the team. We have a website which explains much much more - http://digventures.com/ - We’re also on Twitter (@TheDigVenturers), Facebook and Skype (dig.ventures).
It’s about archaeology. It’s about adventure. It’s DigVentures!
Can you see our smiling happy faces? That's because, as of this morning, we've raised over £19k for Flag Fen Lives!
We still have a week to go - do you know someone who has been thinking about booking? The time is now! With all but two of our weekend digs sold out, and several of the mid-week days fully booked as well, it's more important than ever not to miss the chance to dig with us this summer.
For those of you who have already purchased dig spots: if you haven't chosen your day(s) yet, please email us as soon as possible: info@digventures.com.
A few words about the Site Hut...it will be open soon! We're working out all the details and should be sending you emails soon with log-in information so that you can sign in. Please be patient - we are working quickly to make sure this is as easy as possible for all of you. We'll have some great new stuff in there, but of course the Site Hut will be most important during this summer when we are actually digging - it's where you will be able to keep track of what's happening every day on the dig.
Thanks for all your support in spreading the word - keep up the good work!
All the best,
The DigVentures team - Brendon, Lisa and Raksha (and Fergus!)
Download our full newsletter here...
Hello Venturers!
We’ve been back and forth to Flag Fen about five times in the past couple of weeks – how lucky are we? On the last trip, we had a look at where we’ll be camping: a lovely, enclosed field immediately next to the Bronze Age roundhouse, which has a lovely fire-pit. That’s summer nights sorted!
We also met the editor of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph. It’s great to see the local community turning their attention to the bigger picture of this project, and to have the chance to explain that our work is about so much more than just a bit of excavation and fun. We’re very pleased that they will be supporting us throughout the summer – and probably joining us in the trenches.
As of today, we’re now 68% funded, with just over two weeks to go. Thank you all for your help in spreading the word about DigVentures - keep up the good work!
All the best,
The DigVentures team: Brendon, Lisa and Raksha (and Fergus!)
Check out this weeks's newsletter here...
Hello Venturers!
We've got big news this week. The original end date of our funding window is fast approaching; but as you may have noticed, things have changed. Our partners, Vivacity, have got some great plans for involving local people in the project, so they have asked us to keep the funding open until the 30th of May to enable them to reach as many people as possible.
We started the initiative with a great announcement this week: Vivacity will be sponsoring four bursaries for students from University Centre Peterborough’s Archaeology and Landscape History BA course to dig with us at Flag Fen. We’re thrilled to work with them, and look forward to welcoming students from other universities as well. Read more here...
The local roll-out continued with an interview on BBC Cambridgeshire (listen to the clip at www.digventures.com), and an interview with regional lifestyle magazine the Moment. So keep your eyes and ears open, as there’s loads more on the way!
Finally, we wanted to clarify the ‘work week’ for those of you joining us on site for a week or longer. We work every day except Monday, which is an arrivals day. Please plan to arrive on site Monday evening, or very early Tuesday morning, to start your week.
Thank you all for your help in spreading the word about DigVentures!
All the best,
The DigVentures team: Brendon, Lisa and Raksha (and Fergus!)
See our newsletter here...
We are now firmly in the second half of our funding campaign, and things are going swimmingly. We're looking forward to making an announcement this Friday about a great initiative we'll be running with Vivacity, and to reaching out even more to the Peterborough area. We are exploring other exciting partnerships - if you know any businesses or individuals that might want to team up, let us know. The more the merrier!
We've started to get our DVIP speakers scheduled (more on that next week), and a complete list should be available soon. We've also sold out two of the days - August 4th and August 11th - which is fantastic. For anyone who has purchased an on-site benefit and hasn't chosen their day, please be sure to get in touch with us soon at info@digventures.com to reserve. They're going like hotcakes!
Thanks again to everyone who is spreading the word about DigVentures - it's great to hear from you all on facebook, twitter and all the other hangouts - keep 'em coming!
All the best,
The DigVentures team: Brendon, Lisa and Raksha (and Fergus!)
Check out our newsletter here...
And latest news on the website here...
It’s been another busy week here at Flag Fen towers – we’ve hit the £10k mark! We're still fundraising like crazy, however, and continuing to pick up much-needed publicity for our dig this summer. Hot off the (archaeological) press is a news story in Current Archaeology magazine called ‘Unflagging Interest,’ Check out the latest issue…
We’re continuing to pick up some fabulous from bloggers too, with a short piece on Martin Rundkvist’s blog (the saucily named Aardvarchaeology – presumably to ensure its always found first in the Yellow Pages). Ever current, his piece ‘Fishing and Sacrifice at Must Farm’ covers recent articles in Current Archaeology (Feb: 262) and British Archaeology (March/April) and is an excellent summary of both – well worth a read.
Warming the cockles of our hearts – comes this fabulous piece from Margarita de Guzman, one of the few other people in the world who really knows what crowdfunding archaeology looks like from the inside. Margarita leads a busy archaeological consultancy in Canada, still finding time to dig an awesome prehistoric research and rescue excavation on St. Vincent in the Caribbean – a site she experimented with crowdfunding at the beginning of this year. If the glorious fenland weather doesn’t do it for you (and we know that’s a long shot!) check out the SVG Digs programme – they will be on site again in March 2013. Our bathing costumes are already packed!
All the best (and Happy Easter from us all!)
Lisa, Brendon and Raksha
Check out our latest newsletter here... or connect with our daily updates on Facebook and Twitter and the latest news section on our website...
Hello Venturers!
Hard as it is to believe, it’s just over a month since we set out on the road to host the first crowdfunded excavation in Europe, and what an exhilarating journey it’s been. Moving into the second half of our funding campaign, we have lots of news coming soon from our partners Vivacity (who’ve been a little busy this week launching their newly refurbished museum – see Raksha’s out and about over on our website).
Behind the scenes, we’ve also been busy finalising the project design for this year’s fieldwork. As a research project undertaken on an internationally significant site, ‘Flag Fen Lives’ will be run along English Heritage’s MoRPHE guidelines (that’s ‘Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment’ to the uninitiated - not to be confused with small bald plasticine men!). It's a vital part in the process that allows us to consult with our stakeholders, and ensures that our research work on site will be undertaken to the highest international standards. This is the engine driving our project: lift up the bonnet and you'll find some serious archaeology!
Thanks again to everyone who continues to spread the word about DigVentures - it's great to hear from you all on facebook, twitter and all the other hangouts - keep 'em coming!
All the best,
The DigVentures team: Brendon, Lisa and Raksha (and Fergus!)
Check out our latest newsletter here...
Hello Venturers!
Week Three in the DigVentures house finds us nearly 40% funded! We're so thrilled with all the support, and looking forward to even more people joinng us at Flaggers this summer. We've posted more Venturer profiles on the website, as well as a new Out and About with Raksha, and a round-up of the latest blogs about the Flag Fen Lives project.
Our favourite bit of news this week is that we've chosen our Pay it Forward winner. We received so many fantastic nominations - we wish we could bring everyone that was nominated to site with us this summer. But we managed to pick one, and our winner s Emma Freeman, from St Neots. We're really looking forward to meeting Emma, and putting her to work!
Thank you all for your help in spreading the word about DigVentures - keep up the good work!
All the best,
The DigVentures team: Brendon, Lisa and Raksha (and Fergus!)
Check out our newsletter here...
Wow. What a start! We've been featured on the BBC, are taking calls from TV stations as far away as China, and are building up a tight following of fiercly commited venturers! Thanks so much to all who feel as passionately about archaeology as we do to make sure this project happens! We're posting up regular updates on our website - www.digventures.com - and are even featuring short biogs of some of the venturers who will be joining us on site. The future of Flag Fen is in OUR hands!
Click HERE for the BBC article
Click HERE for Past Horizons
