Wednesday 25th June 2014
Around mid-afternoon today we had scaffolding arrive on site to be placed in Trench 1. This scaffolding would allow us to take high up photos of Trench 1, which includes the graves. This gives a better indication of the relationship between the different features.
Today would be the last day of uncovering the skeletons before they are removed from the graves tomorrow ready to be taken to the lab at Bournemouth University. Some infant bones were found in the western corner section of the square feature ditch. From the eruption and formation of the teeth, it was estimated to be a toddler, rather than baby. The Romans never considered babies to be human, and so they were usually treated differently when buried. Infants were usually ‘buried’ within pits or underneath houses, but never with the adult burials. However it is thought that this burial was in the crossover age for when children ‘become’ human, because it wasn’t buried in a random place, but it wasn’t quite buried with the adults. Soil samples were taken for environmental sampling where more bones and teeth were found.
The smaller grave of the five within the Mausoleum has caused some slight confusion because the head appears to be detached from the skeleton. But after further consideration it has been suggested that the body went into the ground in an advanced state of decomposition, and whilst int he coffin the head has completely detached from the body. The vessel within one of the graves in the Mausoleum has now been cleaned and has shown a stamped chariot pattern directly on the side of the vessel. Elsewhere in Trench 1 a nice big bit of decorated pottery was found in the Bronze Age ditch. The large stone within the pit has shown a defined layer of charcoal resting directly underneath it, and it has been suggested that there may be some kind of cremation/burial underneath it.
Trench 3 received a sudden burst of activity today as everyone from Trench 1 (apart from those digging the graves) was relocated to Trench 3 to start digging out the topsoil to expose the features and to see what may lie under the trench.
Trench 2 is full of people doing section drawings, with a lot of people drawing their sections of the ditch gulley at the south end of the trench. This gulley has revealed pieces of pottery that have holes in the bottom that would’ve been used to drain any liquids from food, or used to sieve foods.