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Week 3 Visitor photos
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SEDGEFORD HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT
Weblog Week 3 (17th July to 22nd July 2005)
Naomi Payne
Week 3 commenced with our Grand Open Day, once again ably organised by Pauline. Hundreds of visitors came to the site to find out what we have discovered during our nine year history, to view the excavations and watch Saxon and Viking re-enactors.
Matt and Stuart are pleased with the progress of the Roman evaluation and are now certain that they want to continue the project in the adjacent field next season. The pottery from the north-south ditch, mainly Roman grey ware, was dated to the third century by Alice Lyons, a finds specialist from the Norfolk Archaeological Unit, who presented this week’s Tuesday lecture. The pottery from the east-south-east to west-north-west ditch which is cut by the 3rd century ditch dates from the late 1st or early 2nd century. There have been several interesting finds this week, including a possibly 4th century Romano-British copper alloy coin, a fragment of brick and a dressed flint with affixed mortar. Tom also spotted a very large sandstone block in the hedge to the north, also mortared. These architectural fragments clearly suggest that a masonry building once stood nearby.
Excavation is progressing in much the same vein on the main excavations. Five burials were excavated, recorded and lifted in Old Trench this week, and several more are underway. In the southern part of the open area we now have empty graves cut into the natural and the area still left to excavate is getting ever smaller. On the baulk we have now excavated four of the five skeletons which were partially uncovered in 1999 and several other burials have been located in this area. We were pleased to find that some of these were intercut, which is unusual this far up the slope. On the Old Trench side of the baulk we have noted the east-west Roman linear in the section below the burials. Jonny says “We’re half way through the season and half way along the baulk. Which is good.” Work is continuing on New Trench to sort out our ditch sequence, which is proving quite complicated on the lower slope. We’ve been hard at work removing more colluvium up slope and we’re on target to finish quite a large portion by the end of the season, which means less to de-backfill next season.
We were delighted to welcome Professor Don Brothwell to the site on Thursday and Friday. Don excavated an area of the Boneyard field in 1960, two years after the original excavations by Peter Jewell. It was very helpful to talk to Don about his excavations and we now understand that he extended Jewell’s trench at Site 32, underneath the centre of our current campsite, rather than digging where the current Boneyard excavations are underway. Don took some soil samples for a new research project on the micro morphology of grave and coffin fills and we look forward to hearing about his results.
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Week 3 Visitor photos
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Week 3 Site photos
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Flint Artefact
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