Today the weather was positively beautiful and there was a partial eclipse of the sun!
It felt like an auspicious start today and we were soon on our knees, hard at work.
We welcomed a lot of visitors on site today to find out how we were getting on – all have been following the blog online and/or via our Dark Age Digs Facebook Group – neighbours, volunteers from Tinnis who couldn’t make this dig, others from further afield and the farmer landowner on his quadbike.
We started the day trowelling from close to the middle – leaving a good distance from the pot in the centre – moving out towards the edge of the trench. (see video below)
Several more *potential* small burnt bones (suggesting a possible cremation) were found to the south east of the centre feature. They are prehistoric.
We marked these with a small forest of nails.
As lunchtime approached, we had carefully trowelled the trench to the edges. An orange coloured area of soil was visible
[nearest / north east corner, above].
There was some discussion around the possibility of a plough having been driven across/through the barrow, displacing stones and soil and scattering the burnt bones, charcoal and pot piece to the east and south east.
After lunch, we split into two groups – we continued cleaning both trenches in preparation of Eddie arriving from GUARD Archaeology‘s Glasgow office with his drone for photogrammetry of both Trench 4 and Trench 5.
The photo above shows volunteers at Trench 4, cleaning it ready for the aerial photographs.
Eddie launched his drone. He will use his aerials to create a virtual 3d model.
Eddie sent us this fantastic aerial shot of volunteers cleaning Trench 5!
Eddie piloting his white drone against the background of the hill.
A preview of one of the drone photos taken directly above Trench 5.
Meanwhile, back on the ground, Amanda identified and bagged up the bone fragments (not all our nail markers were bone – but better to be over cautious!) She left corresponding labels in their place. Those outside the central ‘cluster’ mark finds of charcoal.
Rob assisted Amanda in taking and recording the levels of each of the finds of burnt bone or charcoal.
Once Eddie and the drone had completed their mission, Tamsin assigned everyone an area to dig slots (section through the soil of the features). These will provide information about what lies beneath the layer of the features and avoids having to excavate the entire site.
Lex’s begins his slot in the ‘orange corner’ where he followed the change in soil colour around. He found a piece of burnt bone near the edge of the pit. This feature has yet to be identified but may yield a lot of information.
Cherry and Rob helped Amanda in the centre – carefully trowelling the surface soil. The spoil from each of these slots was bagged up for sampling.
It may be that the archaeologists will decide to lift the pot in the centre in one large ‘block’ rather than trying to excavate it on site.
Amanda revealed some more of the pot (urn?) in the centre. The lower picture shows a *very rough* indication of the inside of the pot, the blue arrows pointing to the pot parts visible at this moment in time. Cherry’s initial pot find [at top right arrow] was still the longest piece!
We were sad that today is Bill and Jim’s last day on these digs – they will both be well missed on site! So pleased to have this drone photo of the Tuesday Team (thanks again to Eddie of Guard Archaeology).
One Response
We’ve been enjoying your excellent blog but it was great to visit the site for real yesterday and re-connect with yourself and colleagues from the Tinnis dig. Very exciting developments in Trench 5!