CAER: Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project

Updates from Team A and B… Jake… On a wet first day back excavating after a long weekend, Team B returned to trowelling back the far corner of trench 8 where we left off on Friday. Due to the wet weather it was easier to see the difference in colour of the contexts and we were able to find an orange/red clay that we were looking for on the Friday. After completing that we were tasked with removing a previously recorded feature at the end of the trench. After lunch Team B had a finds session in the pavilion where we looked at separating finds and also looked at how the finds might be interpreted. Team B ended the day cleaning some finds from the excavation. David… Today  marks beginning of the end for the excavation [ noooo! ] but the A team continued on with the trench. The tasks that we accomplished today were based on cleaning up the trench and creating a section drawing of the new archaeological features. It seems the A team were not affected by the weather, consi...

Sammy reports from Trench 4 and the continuing case of the mystery ditch… Today's activities built upon what was achieved last week, the lowering of the ditch fill to expose more of the wide Roman/early-Medieval cut. Amongst the deposit filling this cut we found a variety of material, mostly animal bone and Roman pottery, particularly Samian and Black Burnished Ware. In recent days we have found bone which is believed to belong to a juvenile pig (pictured). Note the size of the bones, in particular the jaw bone, along with the black appearance due to discolouration from the surrounding sediment. Pig bones from the ditch fill Due to the trench now being entirely below the natural water-level we are finding conditions difficult. Jack has thus far best summarised the weight of the waterlogged 'sludge' as being "the heaviest thing in the world". Only time will tell if conditions will improve! Jessica gets a drier spot to work on… Today was a relatively...

Day 13 has been another day of exceptional sunshine and heat, which made excavating fairly difficult as the soil had become hard, requiring plenty of energetic mattocking, especially in the west end of trench IV..  After another long day spent digging (and sweating profusely) in Grosvenor Park, we are still nowhere near the bot tom of our early medieval ditch and have been left with aching muscles, sunburn and mosquito bites.  This rather brings to light th e meaning of a certain  quote  we encountered (and ignored in disbelief) during first year : “Archaeology can be very boring, distressing and physically uncomfortable”  - unfortunately, it’s true (especi ally for Connor ,  who fell down Dave’s test pit  and was  promptly followed by a wheel barrow full of soil!) .   A piece of (very blue) Roman glass On a slightly more serious note, today’s finds include a piece of Roman glass, substantial Roman pottery, a medieval Cistercia...

Day 10 in Trench VIII began with mattocking and shovelling to reveal the orange-y clay layer beneath, ultimately to expose the ditch, which is believed to be Late Roman – Early Medieval, as it interrupts the Roman road which runs to the Amphitheatre.   In the morning, we found a piece of Roman glass, which was approximately 5cm in length, in addition to the usual finds of animal bone and pottery. Roman glass The afternoon was spent labelling previously cleaned finds from Trench VIII.   The finds were labelled with a fountain pen and black ink, which was very fiddly!   When we had finished labelling, we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning finds from other areas of the site, which included lots of pottery and CBM (Ceramic Building Material). Labelled finds Alex & Josephine