A misty morning greeted us at the Thirlestane Barrows site this morning.
Quite a difference to this time last week when we were all stood with our backs to the rain when the Magnitude Surveys geophysics team were on site!
But it wasn’t long before the sun started to burn through… It was a good start!
As it was Lauren from Guard Archaeology’s last day on Friday (we do miss you Lauren!), we were introduced to another Guard osteoarchaeologist Amanda. She will supervise, help and keep us right as we endeavour to excavate Trench 5 this coming week.
The digger had taken a little more topsoil from Trench 5 than it had Trench 4, so we were spared the extra day of hoeing this time around.
But there was most certainly a deja-vu moment as we lined up and started to hoe!
After a couple of sweeps of hoeing, we spot what could be promising features in the far corners.
Jim informed us that these are draw hoes (as opposed to Dutch hoes used in gardening) – and we had a good 4 or 5 ‘sweeps’ of the trench with the draw hoes, always working back towards the spoil heap (thanks to Amanda for explaining why we always go in one direction, pretty obvious in hindsight!).
If your arms weren’t hurting after last weeks mega hoe – they were now!
But it was well worth it – just before lunchtime, Cherry found what looks likely to be the rim of a pot, in a pretty central position… This led to a bit of discussion – could this be a crouch burial? There were a couple of larger stones to the side of the pot rim – interesting…
Two buckets were placed over the pot rim (left in situ) to alert everyone/ prevent potential accidental damage. You can see the two larger stones to the left of the buckets [above].
The buckets doing their job!
An area in the south east corner of the trench was beginning to reveal a section of stones.
After early lunch, some more stones began to reveal themselves. Were we being premature in wondering if they would join up to form a circle?
It became difficult to deny that this was a circular feature.
It was all very exciting – this was only day 1 of digging Trench 5!
Whilst some volunteers continued to hoe, others began to clean around the stones with trowels. Reporter Mark from the Peeblesshire News visited the site – he chose a good day for it!
Bill making a big difference cleaning the stones first revealed after a few sweeps with the hoes.
Things just kept getting better… Not long after finding a large flat stone near the centre, Ross found some charcoal [pictured in a sample bag, bottom right above] and some burnt bone (identified by Amanda) – there were a few separate pieces, we left them in place and covered them for protection.
Very soon after came the find of the day!
Lex found a large piece of burnt prehistoric pot – possibly Bronze Age (but of course to be confirmed). What a find!
Marked with a flag, Lex’s find was very close to the south boundary of the trench. What a super start to this week’s dig!
In the afternoon, Robin appeared on site and asked GUARD staff Tamsin and Amanda on what had transpired today: (see videos below…)
Robin caught up with Cherry who joined us this week, and had previously volunteered on the Tinnis Hillfort dig. Being excited to be on a burial site, she was delighted to have found the first part of what could be a burial container. (see video below…)
