BYD OT Week 5 PHOTOLOG - click each picture for a bigger version
SEDGEFORD HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT
Weblog Week 5 (1st August to 6th August 2004)
SEDGEFORD VILLAGE SURVEY
The
Village Survey is finished! The last test pit of the 2004 season has been
backfilled bringing the total excavated over the 2003-4 seasons to 44. This
final week has concentrated on the Fring Road and Glover’s Farm. The more
modern finds included a McDonald’s drink straw (which must have travelled from
a least as far as King’s Lynn, where the nearest branch is located), a plastic
bubble blower, a brick that says “NI” (or possibly “IN”), a button which
says “suspenders” and plant tags reading “celery”, “Dark Pomme” and
“Rider’s Giant”. There have been lots of other, older, finds too, and we
hope to prepare a synthesis and analysis of the data in the near future. Well
done everyone!
BONEYARD OLD TRENCH
Over
to the Old Trench. Excavation of the baulk between the Old Trench and the
Reeddam excavations has also been completed this week (well, probably, according
to Gareth, who would like to thank his stalwart team of diggers, John, Jill and
Graeme). The enclosure which contained the hoard pit has been finished; the
hoard was found to have been buried just inside the left hand side of an
entrance. Gareth et al are now looking for evidence of prehistoric activity on
the site, because we have found such a quantity of interesting residual flint
nearby over the past few years. To do this, a BIG slot is planned.
Upslope
in the Old Trench, much of the Anglo-Saxon material has been removed from the
central area and we are continuing to excavate out two big east-west Iron Age
ditches. Interestingly the ditches have produced a human finger bone, and also a
lot of nice pottery, including something red and bumpy which has been nicknamed
Sedgeford nipple ware. We believe that this pottery is late Iron Age as
imitation Gallo-Belgic ware has been found within the same fill. It may have
been imported from Europe. The skeletons in the lower area have (all but one)
been removed – 15 have come from this area this season. The last was found to
be truncated across the chest by a north-south ditch. There are probably a few
more burials to excavate, but we are getting closer to the yellow natural.
|
BYD OT Week 5 PHOTOLOG - click each picture for a bigger version |
BONEYARD NEW TRENCH
Exciting
news from New trench. This week we have finished removing the backfill from one
of the large rectangular trenches from 1958. This trench, which we have
designated “H”, contained part of the “footing trench” which Peter
Jewell located. Having seen this without the backfill, we believe that his
identification was correct, as the profile of the ditch is really quite
striking. The length that Jewell discovered ran east-west and turned at 90
degrees to run north. This week we think that we have found another corner of
the possible building, which indicates that the structure was 17m long! More
news on interpretation next week.
|
BYD NT Week 5 PHOTOLOG - click each picture for a bigger version
|
||||||||||
HUMAN REMAINS
This week saw the first "Further Studies in the Archaeology of
Human Remains" course which was taken by 12 very enthusiastic volunteers.
As well as some intense tutorials our students enjoyed practical experience in
recording juvenile skeletons, fragmented human remains and disarticulated
material. We were also able to give them experience of identifying and handling
animal bone and the very youngest of our assemblage, the Neonatal skeletal
remains. Another good day was entirely devoted to Anglo-Saxon burial practices
and throughout the week the supervisors were kindly joined by some guest
speakers (thanks Maria & Chas). The week finished with an interesting
exercise on excavation techniques and topped off with our very own "Pub
Quiz", all questions relating to burial and human remains - congrats to our
winners, Sandra & Ray!. As a finale to the course our students planned, and
presented (Vicky, Clive and Charlotte) to the public, a very interesting talk on
the components of the course and what they had learnt over the previous 6 days.
Many thanks to our students for making it so enjoyable for us.
|
FINDS OF THE WEEK - click each picture for a bigger version
|
||||||||||||||||
|
GIS PLOT - click for a bigger version
|
