Monday 30th June 2014
The focus of Trench 1 now is primarily digging out all the sections of the square feature ditch. Miles Russell was hoping to get some dating evidence that we can use to date the filling of the ditch, but unfortunately nothing has yet to be revealed. No coins have been found yet either, which can be quite odd because coins are almost always found with Roman features. The pit within Trench 1 that contained ‘Pebble’ the stone has now been fully excavated and it being cleaned ready for photos to be taken. The site plan for Trench 1 is starting to be drawn by Tilly Cammegh, Laura Suchodolskyte and Richard Brennan, with the main focus being on planning the graves onto the map.
The ditch sections with the sheep skeleton in Trench 2 has also now been fully removed, and the bottom of the ditch has shown to be completely flat which is very unusual. A scatter of worked flint has also been located in a different section within the same ditch. This has to be carefully removed and planned, because it may shown how the flint was knapped and where the person knapping it was sat. The pit containing all the charcoal and burnt flint is now getting to a fair depth, but because the sides concave it may become too dangerous at one point to continue excavating, because it runs the risk of collapsing. Elsewhere in the trench a beautiful barbed and tanged arrowhead, possibly dating to the Neolithic was found, and it measured c. 20cm across and c. 30cm in length.
The digging back of the top soil in Trench 3 is still continuing, however it’s not going as fast today because most of the students that were working on it have now been put back into Trench 1 to dig out the ditch and square feature sections.