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Showing posts from 2012
We're back for our 12th season. Keep up to date with all the discoveries, brought to you by our daily bloggers.

CAER 2012: The movie...

Re-live the fun of CAER 2012 by checking our our mini-movie above!

The site is put to bed...

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Julie shows us what happens at the end of a dig: The site having been cleaned, planned, photographed and viewed by the 100s of visitors to the Roman Festival in the Park, despite the awful weather, it was our task today to put in place a protective covering ready for backfilling on Thursday morning. The sun shone for us as we carried the ‘terram’ to site and figured out how to fit the sheets into field drains, deep robbing trenches and all the carefully excavated cut features. The site was in a pristine condition after the excellent trowelling job done by everyone on Friday – all the masonry and different coloured deposits looked sharp and clear and not a loose crumb of soil in site! This made covering it all over quite sad but at least we know it’s all lying there safe and sound, well protected from baking summer sun and winter ice and snow. Next time the trench is opened up the fabric covering will just need to be rolled back and everyone’s acheivements and discoveries

Aye fond farewell...

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Jonathan says farewell: Last Day: After being rained off site yesterday, we were all looking forward to a final day in the trench. Unfortunately we didn’t get to excavate anything new; instead we were just cleaning up the trench for the site photo and setting up for the Roman Festival that’s happening over the weekend. However with a water fight breaking out and wheelbarrow jousting the site was far from boring. After this we went for a drink at the pub to celebrate what has been a really fun 4 weeks enjoyed by everyone. Dan W. offers up musings on his final day: It was the last day of the dig and it had the perfect start. I began and eventually planned (in partnership with a beautiful lady) what remained of the hearth, its sandy underdeposits, with militaristic precision that left my lady-friend initially confused. But with practise makes perfect, she learnt with signs such as 'C2 four clicks east from west' and we drew what was I believe is one of the most detailed p

Wheelbarrow Joust

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Lauren's account of her final day of the season: On our last day of the dig Sydney did not get to see the light of day. Drawing a complicated feature meant he was not needed. However it gave my knees a nice break! At lunchtime the boys got inventive with a game of wheelbarrow jousting, with drawing boards for shields, buckets for helmets and metre sticks for weapons. I really don’t know where they got their ideas from. No wheelbarrows were hurt... However, after a relaxing pint in the local and all my essays nearly finished I can safely say I will miss our trench. From possible sixteenth century outbuilding to chapel and Roman road a good time was had by all.

Ye Olde Pens

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Matt B posts his final blog: Today was looking good, we had rain! After two weeks of intense sun, rain seemed like a blessing. It would no longer feel like we were scraping at concrete, but mud, real mud where we would see what we were actually looking for. Sadly it wasnt to be, we were told that because the rain would last the day we couldn't dig ( I think Simon, Dan and Julie just didn't want to get wet). So, our morning was taken up by washing all of the bricks from the hearth. Yay brick washing! Julie did try and make it sound more exciting by telling us that it was the earliest brick structure known in the area. After dinner there was still no sign of digging in the nice soft soil. My afternoon was taken up by marking our finds that we discovered during our dig. Now, I know archaeology is mostly about the past but the olde fashioned pens we had to use are probably older than most of the finds! It was good practice at getting your handwriting to microscopic level on th

Open Day and Olympic Torch

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Jasmine gives an account of the big day on Tuesday: Yesterday was a big day for everyone on the trench as it was finally time for the big open day. This also happened to fall on the day that the Olympic torch passed through Chester. The morning started with everyone on site planning some of the remaining features including the chapel/robber trench/ cellar (interpretation still changing) and although it was still sunny there was more of a lack of people in the park than normal recently. It wasn't long before that changed. After morning break the people that had finished their planning went to gather tables and other equipment for the open day. Ollie's method of doing this was to carry two tables on his back. This worked pretty well until it came to helping to get them down, when he nearly took out three of us. We spent the rest of the morning setting up and opening up the fence around the trench to make the site look more inviting. We had an information point at the front of

Time flies!

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Sam starts to pack up her trowel and say farewell: Well its our last week, and that means that this will be my final blog entry. In the last 4 weeks we have all worked very hard and have gone from being curious students who were nervous about getting stuck in lest we inadvertantly destroy a find, to being confident enough to take a mattock to the ground. Our skills have increased greatly and I don't think there's a single person from our group that hasn't been bitten by the archaeology bug. Yesterday we were delighted to open our gates to the public for an open day (coinciding with the torch going past our dig site) and were very pleased with the numbers of people we managed to get in to see the site and some of our finds. Although this meant that our day was longer leaving us a little more tired, it was definitely worth it. After yesterday's celebrations we began to realise that we have now hit midweek and our time is running out. Although you would expect that th

Tiles and a Roman Brooch!

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Julie, our finds expert, hghlights some of the great artefacts uncovered so far: A quick update on finds. We’re continuing to find large amounts of building materials: roof slates, ceramic crested ridge tiles in white and red fabrics, mortar, white wall plaster, brick, apparently structural ironwork and floor tiles. Most of the floor tiles are medieval with two colour or line impressed designs but a few fragments are from large square tiles which are possibly late 15 th or early 16 th in date. These tiles have two types of design: one is   line impressed with floral (daisy like) designs similar to those found at the 25 Bridge St excavations in 2001, the other   has unglazed relief moulding   and is similar to tiles found associated with the redesign of the west entrance of Chester Cathedral in the early Tudor period. Some of the medieval designs are types that have appeared in previous seasons a griffin and the remains of this stylised lion’s head (14 th century):

A Chapel? And photography

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Katie describes the robber trench: Today was the start of our final week on site and once again the sun was out making some of us uncomfortable and even mildly disorientated on my part. Last week and today giant strides were made on what was thought to be a cellar, but is now thought to be a robber trench. Robber trench for what you may ask? Now this is where it gets very exciting.   Dan and Uncle Simon believe that this trench was used to rob out a very substantial wall structure, which looks to have had buttresses on the outer wall. This is exciting as it could indicate that this wall belonged to a medieval chapel, the location of which has been lost for centuries. The majority of today was spent cleaning areas of the site in order to take photographic records of features. Although we still record all the features with plan and section drawings to record accurate levels and measurements, we take the photographs so that we can look at the archaeology after it ha

The Final Week

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Emma updates us on Monday's news: Today was the start of the last week of the excavation. It’s strange to think that next week that we won’t be digging, but putting the finishing touches to our portfolios instead. For Monday’s task there was not much digging involved. Group D was assigned to clear up some areas of the trench that needed to be photographed. It’s important to have the site look tidy for photographs just in case they are ever used for publications. By mid-morning we were sent to the Chester Renaissance building to get a further session in photography. Unlike the session we had in week 1 this time we were giving open criticism on the photos that we had taken in week one. This was insightful as it was good to have a better idea on how to improve our photography skills. For the rest of the afternoon we were sent back to the trench to clear more areas. To give our readers a little update about the site - I would like to mention that we now believe the building we

Breaking News: A Chapel?

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Meggen gives us news from the start of Week Four: I popped down to the trench first thing this morning to see the latest since I was digging elsewhere on Friday - and the site looks very different! What we had thought was a cellar pit now appears to be a robbed out wall. Not just any old wall, either - this was a very substantial and well-built stone wall with nice facing stones and a rubble core. It even looks like there may have been buttresses on the outside of the wall. This has made Dan and Simon very suspicious (and excited) since there is an account of an old medieval chapel (St Mary's) that used to be in this area. It was demolished and/or built into the post-medieval mansion house and its location has been lost for centuries. Have they found the missing chapel!?! They've only got one week left to find out! Picture of the robbed out wall.

Uncle Simon's Birthday!

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A big happy birthday goes out to dig director Simon who celebrates a rather important milestone today. For he's a jolly good fellow........

The end of Week Three! Boar's tusk!

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Calum sums up his final day of week three: After waking up to another blistering morning, it was something of a relief when our group was sent to Albion Street to take part in our third finds session. This time we were learning how to identify different types of pottery, building materials and other types of artefacts. We also learnt how to judge how the artefact was made and record its texture, colour and date. After this relaxing morning of sitting down we were raring to go when we got back on site where we did what Group C do best, mattocking! However it was with a mild sense of relief when we were told it was time to pack up. I’m sure we were all imagining the refreshing cold beverage (alcoholic or not!) waiting for us at home. The most notable finds for our group today had to be a boars tusk and a piece of roman amphora. All in all a great end to the third week! Eagle-eyed Calum (finder of amber bead!) excavates in a corner of the trench.

A barn building?

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Matt B. finds a barn: Today started off by finishing the section drawing that was started the previous day. The section was of a linear feature that could have possibly held a beam/ It is still unclear what sort of building it was for, but it has been suggested that it could have been for a barn. After the section drawing was complete, we needed to clear the baulk to link up with the next section of the feature, which just so happened to be the one I spent most of yesterday with my head down it as it was about four feet deep! The afternoon saw us back inside with the finds. We learnt how to classify the objects we have excavated over the past two and half weeks. We had to descirbe the object, commenting on its form, condition and fabric. This allowed us to classify and bag the objects by their groups. The last hour of the day had us cleaning more finds in the finds room -  as usual, we all avoided the bags full bones! Preparing to excavate a section through the 'barn' wa

The cellar

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Jonathan updates us on Thursday's activities: This morning group A got a chance to complete some more post excavation work on the finds of the dig. We started off marking more of the finds so that if any got separated, for example when specialists examine them, we know which site and trench they relate to, which is very important. While others in the group seemed to have refined this technique from earlier in the week, Dan and I were as bad as ever, frequently running to the sink to wash ink off the finds before they we permanently ruined as well as getting ink everywhere, although thankfully we had remembered to put paper towels down this time. After this we started to divide finds into groups based on their material; for example glass could be divided into window or bottled amongst others. This again was a challenge with some materials, such as pottery, due to its wide age range, from Roman to modern and its vast amount of types, such as glazed and slipware. In the afternoon

On The Disingenuity of Soil

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William deals with a difficult feature: Today was spent mired in mild vexation. After a pleasant morning spent focusing on speaking to the public (and discovering that whilst I was ill, Calum had uncovered an amber bead in a layer I was working on!), Calum and I began work on a feature that had only recently revealed itself in the south-west corner of the trench by holding onto its rainwater moisture rather longer than the soil around it. Unfortunately, it had the most awkward shape to it imaginable. Not only was the soil so dry and crumbly that cleaning back the soil layers resulted in the edges of the feature blending into the layer around it, but also its form was distorted by both a large clay inclusion and a cut filled in with a large amount of charcoal residue. It eventually reached a point where Calum and I were unable to tell wether we were looking at a single long feature, or two separate pits that simply happened to lie close to each other. Simon and Dan eventually assure

The trench's biography

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Tom tells us the story of the trench: Record, record, that’s the job in hand. Here’s the story so far uncovered, just so I can try and get it into my head and your's, the reader. In the trench we have the core of a Roman road (if I had a photo to show you I would, but I haven’t). It’s not your typical Roman road, like what you might expect to see in a textbook. It's missing its lovely cobbled surface. This is because on top of this layer lies the medieval plough soil, which may explain its loss, in that it has been taken up by the plough. Within this ploughsoil there has been some Roman pottery, which has been churned up with the ploughsoil. On top of all this is a lovely seventeenth century occupation layer, which so far has been interpreted as an out-building belonging to a manor house built close by. Why this interpretation one might say? Well, we've come across what has been interpreted as being the imprint of beam slots, which would have laid directly on the grou

A possible cellar structure!

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Sam finds herself in a hole : Today as the weather really heated up, I found myself down a hole feeling a little bit like a cross between Charlie Dimmock with my shorts and trowel and a meercat as I kept bobbing my head out of the top of the hole to see if there was anyone at the fence waiting to speak to us. With the heat came the crowds, and the number of people coming up to the site to ask questions dramatically increased compared to those who braved the rain. Today I was mainly digging out building materials and layers of sand while investigating a possible cellar.  Although the beach-like feel of sitting in the sun digging a hole in the sand was very enjoyable, there was not much in terms of finds from my half of the hole. I found some pieces of unidentifiable bone and what was possibly a sherd from a plate or jug, which had an interesting blue/green glaze on both sides. Sam/Charlie excavated the potential cellar structure.

Soil samples and finds work

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Emma works on finds and takes an environmental sample: For a third day in a row the sun was shining. Good for some. For pale skinned people like me it always ends in sunburn! As the temperatures soar, temptation for ice cream and unhealthy drinks rises, which is torture for me as I’m on a strict diet. Although it is nice not to work in the pouring rain for once. This morning group D managed to escape the sun’s burning rays as we had a finds session. In today’s finds session we were given the task of marking the artefacts that we washed last week with the site code and context number. Not as easy as it sounds as we had to use old-fashioned fountain pens. Ones where the ink was applied by dipping the pen into a bottle of ink. Needless to say that I was the worst at this as I kept making ink blots on the artefacts (Tom & Katie how can you guys write so small with those pens!?!) Fortunately for me (and the archaeology team), after tea break I went back to washing unsorted finds.

The trench becomes a popular tourist attraction

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So another day in the trenches begins with beautiful sunshine. And we all learnt the importance of sunhats and suncream. Already the competition for the worst sunburn has begun, but luckily I have my special suncream protection with super powers to protect me from the burning sun attacking little me and my ginger hair and fair skin. So weather report over, the park was full with people (or the public as we now refer to them). And so interested with our discoveries they were, that some members of Group A found it impossible to stay in the trench with the overflow of questions and queries. Not to mention any names, but we can all tell when you linger longer than necessary on the way to empty your bucket in the hopes that someone will come up to the fence so you can start a long-winded explanation of the linear feature you are currently digging... In all honesty though, talking to the public is good fun and it is refreshing to meet such lovely, interested people. And even I enjoy the bre

The sun has got his hat on, Hip hip hip hip hooray?

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Katie beats off sunburn... just about: Today the sun was shining in the sky relentlessly baking not only the site from the moment it rose, but also the diggers, too. Even when covered with sun cream some of us, including myself, have suffered from sunburn. The majority of this morning was taken up by a lecture on environmental samples given by Ian Smith from Liverpool John Moores University. This lecture informed us of the importance of collecting environmental material on sites and how they could be used to interpret a site. Although I knew we missed some finds while excavating, I did not realise just how much and how minute some of the objects could be. The rest of the day was spent in the trench, being scorched by the sun overhead. My task on site today was to remove half of the ash and coal from the pit it was deposited in to see the extent of the pit, which turned out to be fairly shallow and full of shell, bone and demolition material. In comparison to the finding of a key

Summer is finally here!

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Jasmine gives us the news for today: It's the third week of the dig and we have had a second day of gorgeous sunshine. That's right you heard it here -  gorgeous sunshine in England! I would also like to mention that everyday I've written the blog, we've had sun... Today we were given a talk on environmental samples and why it is important to take these on site. I usually try to sift through most of the soil when I am putting it into the buckets; however, I didn't realize how much can be missed. Some of the bones we were shown were minuscule. This talk only took place over the morning and the rest of the afternoon was spent back in the trench. Clearly the work we do is fascinating to all as we had an invader on site in the form of a very confused mallard; this is not the first time this has happened as it was a squirrel yesterday! I think probably the best find of the day was a medieval key found by Will (not dice man Jonathan as you would expect!). Sorry Jon

A sunny day and visitors in the park

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The musings of Dan W.: With the sun shining through my window I awoke to a day as beautiful as the stars that had preceded it. Although rushed (as usual) with sun beating on my face, my mood was as happy as a dog's as I trundled through town towards Grosvenor Park and a day in the sun. Having whipped out Tiberius and my newly arrived trowel and his yet to be named co-worker on arrival, I hadn’t even changed my shoes when I realised I wouldn’t be in the sun for the morning, but the finds room. I thought 'it won’t be too bad I suppose, last time was quite fun' but this time the sun was beating down with gay abandon and with the weather I was nervous about missing it, but I needn’t have fretted. As we sat in the circle again waiting for instruction I could feel the tension in the room with last times antics still hanging in the air - everyone eyeing nervously the seriously diminished finds trays wondering if another scramble was about to ensue. Fortunately, for the rest o

Under the hearth and an amber bead!

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Ollie updates us on the start of Week Three: Today I was assigned to excavate  a really delicate part of the site, the stones under the hearth. It was quite an interesting task as generally the difference between the two layers, the upper clay soil and the sandy soil underneath was difficult to notice for a learner like myself. Once I’d uncovered half the hearth area, I had to do a context sheet and draw the section, which would have been fine if there hadn’t been a small house worth of bricks in the middle of it. After this, I had the pleasure of finally ripping that huge pest of a rock out and then preparing it for photographs. I took great pleasure in drawing the plan of the hearth including all the bricks and surrounding areas. Sadly for me there were no interesting finds, but a member of my group did manage to find an amber bead which was truly amazing. Well done Calum! Ollie (left) gets advice on his plan from Dan the Supervisor.

Half way through in the corner of the cramped…

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Katie sums up on Friday the 18th: I am writing this after having a wonderful relaxing soak in the bath to ease my aching muscles and to wash the dirt off, while sat in a very comfortable armchair watching Doctor Who. Although the weather was overcast today, it was quite pleasant to us and allowed us to work on the site for the entire day, unlike yesterday where the weather had us staying in the mess room washing the bricks from the hearth and weighing the lead shot so far found on site. This morning Tom and I were charged with setting up the dumpy level to record some levels in the feature that Tom had been excavating earlier in the week. This consisted of setting the dumpy level up so that it was level, which can be much more complicated than it looks. We then took the backsight then the foresights and calculated the reduced levels to record on the plan. Once this was done we were tasked with trowelling the soil from the surface of the far corner of the trench. This task took

Archaeology Equals Destruction

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Emma gets us up to speed at the end of week 2: Not many members of the public seem to realise that when an excavation happens, it does result in destruction of the site. We, the archaeologists and archaeology students, come in and disturb the site. In the process of looking for finds and context layers, this destroys the site. Once we have done our job of retrieving the site’s hidden secrets, the archaeology that was once there is now gone. Lost forever but surviving in records, documents, storage buildings, pictures and publications. The best example of this has been the work I have been doing for most of the past week. For the past week I was given a slightly different task from the rest of my peers (although Jonathan took over on my study leave). I was assigned to help our local finds expert, Julie, to take apart the hearth that was discovered last year, brick by brick. Not as easy a task as it may sound! Due to the conditions the individual bricks had gone through, both during

Wednesday's Updates: Bones, Rain and Lottery Wins

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Lauren and Sydney excavate animal bone: After the last couple of days of beautiful sunshine, this morning started off with drizzling rain and thus excavation on site was called off and the morning was spent washing bricks in the dry mess room. Although messy work, it is quite therapeutically calming. Other groups were weighing and cleaning the musket balls found in the spoil heap by the metal detectorist we work with. Today also coincided with the Queen’s Jubilee visit to Chester Zoo and a frantic effort was made using Twitter to ask her to visit our site. We were disappointed, but then it was quite short notice! Work started again in the afternoon as Group A finally saw some hard work (our avoidance of it has not been by choice - though you won’t catch any of us complaining) and began mattocking another section of the trench. This led to a massive amount of animal bones being discovered, and I really do mean massive, in both size and numbers. Myself and Dan M. were on ‘trowel dut

Man down!

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Joe and his group tackle post-med debris: This afternoon our group had the job of removing a layer of post-medieval debris with mattocks and hand shovels. Unfortunately, our group was forced to toil away at this sun-baked layer a man down due to Oliver going AWOL on us. After deciding that this betrayal could not go unanswered, we concocted the story that we had found a gold Roman Sestertius (which don't even really exist - normally they are silver or copper alloy) on site in his absence. Needless to say he believed every word.... PS. I don’t think he reads the blog, so if everyone can keep up this pretense it would be much appreciated! Joe works on taking the trench down to Roman layers.

Mattock for hire

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Calum describes Wednesday: Today our group took part in our first finds session, where we had to wash the artefacts that were found and clean them all up. This was really enjoyable as it gave us a chance to get really close to the artefacts and see what has been found, as we have done a lot of mattocking in the last week and have not really been finding much! We also found out the different ways in which we can identify metals and also how to record the different contexts. This really opened my eyes to what goes on behind the scenes with archaeology; something most people will not think about. In the afternoon we were back to using our trusty mattocks, trimming down a section close to the site of the Roman road. As we did this we found a veritable hoard of finds, from bone to pottery and glass. However the highlight of the day with regard to finds has to be another die found by group B, making the total up to three. I think by the end of these 4 weeks group C will be mattocking pr

A special brick?

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Will Mo. recaps his last week and gives us an account of Tuesday: Friday The first week is over. After several days of labour - removing the backfill left by last year's diggers - we were left with a surface that, when trowelled, presented a series of abstract orange and white smudges that defied interpretation (at least to my eyes). This all seemed rather inconclusive and by Friday I was impatient to scrape it off and see what was beneath it. If progress seemed slow, it is only because my experience of excavation is limited to watching Time Team: I am therefore accustomed to think that three days should be ample time in which to complete an extensive programme of archaeological investigation. This Friday I was tasked with excavating a small section presumed by Dan to be the traces of a wall (indicated by aforementioned white smudging). It did indeed look like a wall - lumps of stone and mortar were removed. Beneath all this lay tantalising clues as to what lies beneath the p

Dice man strikes again

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James spends the day on finds: In the morning we had a finds session, which involved a lot of scrubbing as we cleaned up the finds from some of the contexts learning how to record the finds and what information was important to record. Afterwards we got to snoop around the chapel, which was packed with finds from prevous excavations. We were like "kids in a candy shop". Over the afternoon we worked on finishing up our context when Dice man (Johnathan) found another die, which matched the die he had found previously. And he still has the nerve to say he doesn't find much! All in all a good day for archaeology! No dice! James excavates the wall trench.

It isn't really all about the finds....

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Having listened to the thunder the night before followed by the hail, I walked to the dig pondering Dan’s request for the weather, rain at night and sun in the day. Perhaps I would be able to see my feature more clearly today but as I turned up early, surprising all things considered, I realised my feature would have to wait - it was finds time. As we trundled to Albion Street with me unsurprisingly lumbered with the wheelbarrow full of finds, the bragging and banter started trying to claim the best find. I stayed quiet knowing full well my best find wouldn’t make it into most people's top ten, but for the time being it didn’t matter. I had all the finds, but I wasn’t going to make a quick exit - the wheelbarrow was too rusty and slow for that. Dan doesn't realise walls are better than finds! Cheer up! We had the quick introduction from Julie, but as she began to finish my eyes began wandering behind me to all the bags of finds knowing we were going to get one each an

Beyond the fence

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Sam talks to the public and investigates some mortar: As we entered into day six of the dig there was some apprehension within the group about the weather and whether or not we would get rained off, but we persevered through the showers and the sun broke out giving us a pleasant afternoon of digging. Today I was mostly trowelling the surface of the eastern end of our trench looking for a line of white mortar that Dan "the troll hunting foreman" thinks may have been evidence for a medieval wall. I was also doing a spot of "public archaeology," which basically means going up to the boundary fence and explaining to any interested by-standers what we are doing, what we hope to find, and what we have found so far. It was an enjoyable task, and we all hope that the members of the public will continue to find interest in our work and continue to interact with us about it. Sam enjoys the 'summer' weather.

Our 1st Archaeology Meme!

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Matt W. is suspicious:   Today and yesterday yet more digging was carried out. Although this afternoon a welcome change of pace started with the delivery of the doughnuts by Meggen and finished with cleaning finds from the previous days. Yet again the weather proved favourable to group A who always seems to get the indoors work when it is raining and always get out of the heavy digging and skip to the good stuff, how suspicious...     The blog's 1st meme...Matt W might just have trench fever already.