This morning was marked by the first site briefing conducted by the project directors Paul Cheetham and Miles Russell. The students and volunteers on site gathered around each trench for an overview of the progress of the excavation so far. Miles advised that the features will become increasingly baked and hardened as the week progresses, owing to the warm weather forecast for the week. As such, excessive trampling over features has been discouraged to avoid compaction of contexts and finds.
After this note of caution, the discussion focused on the excavation of Trench B. Miles and Paul described the features of Trench B and their interpretation of them thus far. Late Iron Age Black Burnished Ware has been recovered in some quantity in several of the features. Although this can be a useful in diagnosing the chronology of features and human activity, at this stage it is not entirely conclusive, hopefully the estimated dating will become more secure as the features are excavated into deeper stratigraphic layers. Another indication of an Iron Age time scale is the large size of the central round house of the trench. It is comparably larger than the known Middle and Late Bronze Age round houses. Does this mean the smaller round house features of Trench B are more likely to predate the large round house? It is one possibility, owing to the number of Middle to Late Bronze Age pot sherds that have been uncovered. However, it may be that these features are contemporaneaous with the large round house and functioning as subsiduary structures for industrial processess such as metallurgy. Additionally, Bronze Age and Neolithic worked flint have been discovered. Perhaps the instance of these finds reflect a disruption of features by environental and human factors. In this trench Roman material is relatively absent thus far, which may be a good inication that this site is a contender for a Durotrigan settlment, out of the area of major Roman settlement. The scale and breadth of Roman material on a site tends to obscure preceding archaeological activity. In this respect its absence may be beneficial.
Paul discussed the literature available on Iron Age settlements; much of the focus has previously been on large earthworks (e.g. hillforts such as Maiden Castle), clearly visible in the current landscape of Dorset. Investigations have indicated that these large earthworks were not settlement structures and perhaps functioned on a wider commmunal scale. Is the apparent settlement under current investiation at Winterborne Kingston relate in any way to the activity at Maiden Castle?
The finds and features of Trench A have been similar to Trench B in their variety. Currently 5 and a half round houses have been identified in this trench. Much like Trench B, there is a large central round house. This one has a South East entrance way; sheltering the occupants from the elements. The floor levels of all the round houses have not survived owing to the level of ploughing – if the floors were present it is likely that they took the form of puddled clay. As excavation continues, hopefully, the social use of space and internal divisions will be elucidated. The upper contexts of some of the features have revealed rubbish tipped into back filled pits. Do the pits relate to the occupation of the round house or do they reflect a different phase of activity?