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Training Excavation 2008 Week 4: 11th - 15th August 2008
As most people will know the weather has not been kind to us this week, but we have still managed to make some progress. When we are unable to work because the ground has become saturated we put in place some of our teaching sessions and show our trainees the pottery and finds that have been recovered in the past 8 years and explain what we learn from the material. We are also able to do other activities, in particularly geophysical surveying. The Society has both an electrical resistance kit and a magnetometer and both these instruments are used during the excavations with trainees being offered and opportunity to see how they work and have a go themselves. The instrument in use below is the electrical resistance meter. This instrument detects stone walls particularly well as the stone is drier and harder and provides higher electrical resistance.
As the week progressed we had the first results of the vertical photographs and the Trench 3000 picture was exceptionally good. The detail of this type of picture is very useful when we are trying to identify the features within a trench. The wet weather has meant that the soil colours have shown many features very clearly. The big double ditched roundhouse with its internal cobbling surface on the north east side can be seen below. You can also see the later ditches cutting across the site and the road overlying the excavated gullies.
Towards the back end of the week we had two good days where excavation could take place. Small features and post holes in the north west corner of Trench 3000 were investigated. These may relate to a large rectangular building excavated in 2006-7 as they appear to cut the roundhouse construction and are aligned with this building. The picture below shows a number of our students cutting sections of these features.
When these have been excavated they have to be recorded by drawing the sections and filling in sheets for both the cuts and the fills. This process is being taught to a student below.
Much of the important work of the site is in the recording of the features that are to be excavated. After detailed plans have been made, surveying of the levels and location of finds within them is done using a Total Station or EDM (Electronic Distancing Meter). This instrument allows us to survey accurately within a grid and produce levels. Important finds are located very accurately using this instrument as well as locating the trenches on our large scale plans (see week 1). The picture below show the instrument in use.
When a feature has been partially excavated, that is a section of it has been removed, detailed drawings of the sections are made. This is then followed with records being made of all the different layers within the feature and the shape of the cut. The picture below shows Owen (one of our site supervisors) showing students how to set up and draw a ditch section.
Work has also continued in Trench 4000 on the big outer ditches of the enclosure as this is located at the top of the hill and the water runs away from it! (See below)
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