Week Two Comes to a Close

With a Friday vibe onsite today, there was an enthusiasm to finish areas and round up the week.  

Onsite, good progress has been made, reaching the natural geology, the recording and subsequent excavation a selection of roman pits and post holes, in the north and south east corners of the trench are nearly finished. 

A multi-facetted investigation of the medieval structure has given us some more clues as to its construction and potential uses. An intrusive section has been cut into the outer wall of the medieval building to see how far it was built in to the drainage ditch, whilst also confirming there were two stages of façade with a substantial supporting infill, of large masonry blocks. 

Yesterdays deluge of rain had turned the rock hard clay into a workable surface, after an intensive trowelling session a few new features came to light within the structure; a third fireplace emerged (to add to the suspected oven like hearths, currently being drawn and planned), two medieval pits and an articulated hoof (suspected to be sheep/goat/deer).

Finally a hypothesis changer was discovered today of some Roman mortar within the existing medieval structure, this means there may more Roman buildings or even a singular larger one yet to be discovered. 

Elsewhere, in the north part of the trench, two coins were discovered, possibly of Roman origin and further tests should tell us more about them...

Next week, we are planning to concentrate on taking out a section of the Roman road to retrieve some more accurate dating evidence and a deeper investigation into the multiphase building covering the west of the site.

Aaron and Hannah