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Week 2 Volunteer photos
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SEDGEFORD HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT
Weblog Week 2 (10th July to 15th July 2005)
Naomi Payne
We’ve had three courses running this week: Basic Excavation and Recording Techniques, our second and final human remains course of the season and standing buildings recording. We’ve also hosted two schools visits, from Sedgeford primary and Education Otherwise.
The Romano-British project has now kicked off. Having machine-stripped the site last week, Matt, Stuart and their group of volunteers have excavated four slots through a north-south ditch and three through a smaller north-east to south-west linear. They’ve found loads of pottery, including samian, grey ware and black burnished. This is despite the fact that the trench is located a short distance away from the main settlement focus suggested by the geophysics and field-walking.
Week two on Old Trench has proved very productive, despite the very fragmentary condition of many burials. We have lifted two pairs of legs, two upper portions and two complete skeletons, including a juvenile. These graves have been dug into the natural sand and when they were cut they seem to have disturbed an Upper Palaeolithic or early Mesolithic surface flint scatter: we’ve found about 20 flint tools and debitage flakes from this area during week 2. We’ve also got Iron Age post holes and a linear which are probably related to the hoard pit discovered in 2003. We have realised we have a little bit more of the Medieval ditch which runs along the bottom of the slope, which was also located in the Reeddam 2 trench during the 2001-2002 seasons, which will have probably truncated several burials. Mark says “It’s now looking like we might finish [this season]. I bet there’s not more than 20 [burials left to excavate].” Terry disagrees.
On New Trench we’ve been pressing on with the excavation. Liz continued to excavate her juvenile (c. 12 years) coffin burial, which contained several pieces of iron, including some recognisable as fittings. Particularly exciting was the discovery of an in situ coffin bracket which would have held two of the vertical boards together. We’ve almost completed removing the fill from our southern east-west ditch and have commenced slots to investigate the footing trench and intercutting ditch at the bottom of the slope. A slot through the east-west linear in the central western part of the trench has shown this feature to be a large V-shaped ditch, with few finds apart from a piece of burnt flint and a small abraded sherd of Iron Age pottery. The sections have revealed a shallower recut, which appears to form part of the Roman ditch some distance to the east in the Old Trench. Small finds from New Trench this week have included two pieces of Anglo-Saxon bone comb, found by Alix and a bone weaving needle found by Oliver. Excavation of the Baulk skeletons partially uncovered in 1999 has continued, and more of the colluvium further to the north has been removed, to reveal three more burials. Two flint blades were discovered in the lower colluvial layers which cover the burials.
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Week 2 Volunteer photos
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Coffin Bracket
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Bone and Flint Artefacts
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