Day 11 Rain's about? All-in-One’s out! Jess and Sophie tell us how archaeologist’s cope with the British weather…

Jess…

For today’s archaeologists, it was a typical British Summer’s day; we all rocked up to site keeping cool with sleeveless tops and cold coffees and by twelve o’clock the world decided to rain on our parade, literally.

Team A kicked the day off by splitting into two smaller teams, and whilst Sophie and Amelia discovered the secrets that lay within a pit, the rest of us spent time plotting and planning the charcoal and sandstone deposits within the trench. Using specialised equipment such as a dumpy level, and measuring pole, the site’s height above sea level was recorded and added to the drawings in order to compile a fuller understanding of the site. It was during this that the rain poured on us and Steph finally got to try her all-in-one waterproof, much to the delight of the rest of us!

The afternoon brightened up and we all complained, once again, about the heat as Team A returned to the trench to finally get our hands dirty and begin taking down the now recorded surface, revealing the extent of the features below. Hopefully some details of these will become apparent in the next few days!

All in all (or All-in-One!) the day was yet another positive day on site for us, we didn’t let the rain dampen our spirits!

It's cool to be dry...

 

Sophie…

After a week of miserable weather we were all pleasantly surprised to be greeted on site by warmth and sunshine, excited to finally dig out the pit we had discovered at the end of last week. This was short lived. As the heavens opened we watched our lovely pit slowly turn into a pond and the site swiftly became a mud bath. Still, we continued to trowel away at what can only be described as glue to expose the natural clay and another cut within the feature, as well as a third charcoal layer next to it. Our afternoon consisted of "cleaning" up the pit ready for recording and trying to decide what it is. With a couple of theories flying around about it being a gully or a cesspit etc. it's fair to say we are all keen to get back to work tomorrow to see what else we can find out about this pit and finally find some treasure buried within, instead of sandstone, sandstone and more sandstone.

A beautifully 'clean' pit cut into the clay, clearly showing another cut feature in one side