BYD OT Week 4 PHOTOLOG - click each picture for a bigger version
SEDGEFORD HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT
Weblog Week 4 (24th July to 30th July 2004)
BONEYARD OLD TRENCH
On the Old Trench baulk, Gareth’s team is well on the way to removing the final Anglo-Saxon layers. The western part has already been cleared and we are down to an Iron Age ditch which forms the western extent of the enclosure in which the hoard discovered last year was inserted. A slot through this feature contained Iron Age sandy ware pottery, which may be of middle Iron Age date, or possibly late Iron Age, but of a more functional type. In the eastern area of the baulk we have excavated a shroud burial and a juvenile skeleton aged 7-8 years at death. The latter was found to cut the former. We have two more burials and a charnel pit to remove from this area. The early phases of burial in the Reeddam are bounded by a series of east-west ditches, which may have formed an early cemetery boundary. A copper shroud pin with a facetted head and part of an Anglo-Saxon glass bead were discovered within one of the ditch fills here. The same ditch has also produced some nice residual flints and a fragment of bone comb. Back up the slope, Stu and his team have been excavating a coffin burial with four associated coffin fittings. Two further coffin brackets were found nearby. Within another grave fill, an egg-shaped piece of fired clay was located; we believe it would have been used in spinning. Further up the slope again we have several sherds of late Iron Age pottery and a flint blade, all from the smaller Iron Age ditch. Large amounts of fill have been removed from the larger Iron Age ditch. From the fill of the recut of this feature we have found late Iron Age Belgic ware pottery, and from earlier fills, a number of sherds of more coarse wares.
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BYD OT Week 4 PHOTOLOG - click each picture for a bigger version |
BONEYARD NEW TRENCH
Over to the New Trench, where we have lots of ditches and an oval pit. We have been working to discover the relationships between the ditches, and digging out the remaining backfill from the 1950s trenches. This has really helped to put our ditches into context and we have observed some features which Jewell seems to have missed back in 1958, for example a large (possibly Iron Age?) east-west ditch in the northern part of Jewell Trench “B”. Another skelly, Aeowyth, has been excavated this week, in the south-eastern part of the trench. This is our most complete burial so far as it had not been damaged by ploughing, and we could even make out a possible grave cut. The Human Remains Team tell us that this individual was in fairly advanced age and had quite severe osteoarthritis in his knees and back. A possible oval pit and an adjacent sub-circular feature have been observed cutting into the top of one of our east-west ditches in the west of the trench. The upper fill of this feature contains a number of large animal bones, which may have been deliberately placed. We have also confirmed that the southern east-west linear turns at 90 degrees, cutting another ditch, and heading off to the south. More news of ditches next week, hopefully!
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BYD NT Week 4 PHOTOLOG - click each picture for a bigger version |
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BONES OF THE WEEK - click each picture for a bigger version
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GIS PLOT - click for a bigger version
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