SEDGEFORD HISTORICAL  AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT

Weblog Week 5 (6th August to 11th August 2006)

Naomi Payne

This week we’ve hosted a new course, Researching Archaeological Finds, which has kick-started the small finds post-excavation work. The students discussed and planned the best format for the publication of the small finds and then began to work on recording, drawing and analysing the copper alloy and worked bone material found from 2001 onwards (the 1996 to 2000 finds have already been fully catalogued and drawn by Ray Ludford). We hope to have all the small finds written up in draft before the start of the 2007 season.

On Old and New Trench we’ve been continuing as before. Old Trench is practically finished and we’ve been discussing the potential and logistics of work in 2007 to the north and north-west. On New Trench we’ve now fully excavated the footing trench, we now have three lines of post holes (although we’re still not quite sure exactly what they mean) and we have discovered an oval area of burnt chalk and clay which we believe is an oven. Ipswich ware pottery indicates a Middle-Saxon date.

We were visited by the Roman pottery specialist Alice Lyons on Monday. Alice examined the pottery assemblages from the Roman project to date and also the small group of early Roman material found in previous years on Old Trench. Alice tells us that most of the Roman Project pottery is quite coarse and probably locally made, some perhaps even by the inhabitants of the site. There is very little in the way of fine wares, indicating a low order settlement. All the pottery from the Roman Projects last year and this year has been of late 3rd to late 4th century date. The early Roman pottery from the Old Trench is of high quality and much is imported, implying a rather different status of occupation somewhere nearby in the 1st century AD. The excavation of the grain drying oven has progressed this week and we now know that the body in the oven is semi-articulated, suggesting that it was inserted into the oven and burnt in situ. There is no trace of tibiae or fibulae yet and it may be that the knees were bent with the lower legs below – we will find out next week when the skeleton is lifted. The skeletal remains are burnt to varying degrees (although not cremated in the normal sense) but we can tell that the bones are certainly from an adult and the prominent nuchal crest suggests we are dealing with a male individual. The skeleton is partially sealed by collapse from the structure, suggesting that the burning of the body was the last time the oven was used. The fact that the bones were not removed implies that the body was not treated with respect and there has been much speculation about foul play.

We sent out a press release about this interesting feature on Friday and were visited by a number of journalists, including the local television stations and newspapers. Below are links to some of the web coverage we’ve had on this story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4786629.stm

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=edponline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED11%20Aug%202006%2013%3A03%3A49%3A920

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART39216.html