Sudbrooke Training Excavation - Dig Diary
Week 1.
The trenches were opened up at the end of last week. Thanks go to Lindum Construction for sponsorship for this and the very patient JCB driver. It was a very hot day and obviously a sign of things to come. As soon as part of the trench was uncovered we metal detected the exposed trench and the spoil. (Special thanks to Mr Bee for helping us with this). Any identified finds were removed and their position recorded. This means there are now no metal finds for nighthawkers to take illegally from the site!
The Sunday before the dig started six international students arrived in Lincoln for the international archaeological field school. They are here for six weeks to learn all aspects of excavation. This is an accredited course which involves keeping a journal and writing assignments. On Monday morning staff and students had a college induction and then all met for coffee and introductions. Then off to site!
Excavation Director – Craig
Archaeological Site Supervisor – Jenny
Archaeological Site Assistant – Tom
Finds Supervisor – Zoë
Field School Supervisor – Sam
Field School Assistant - Alan
The rest of the first week was spent putting up the site hut and marquee. (No mean feat especially in the rain!) Lots of volunteers came to help and we also moved all the equipment on to site. This had to be carried across the field the site is in and everyone worked really hard. Towards the end of the week the weather improved (in fact it began to get very hot) and we were able to make a start on removing the backfill from the previous season. Everyone put maximum effort into this and enjoyed a well deserved drink for their efforts on pub night (Thursday). By the end of this week the site grid was set up as was the finds systems. Thanks to Keith for more metal detecting of the spoil in our second trench cut to investigate the double-ditched feature that appears to run across the southern edge of the field. We already have lots of finds including pottery, tesserae, tile, painted wall plaster, nails and other metal finds. By the end of the week the weather was very hot. The international students are a group of bright enthusiastic students and enjoying there first taste of an English excavation – and English weather!
Week 2.
This week we were joined by volunteers who are digging with us for the week and some who just joined us for a day or two. By Tuesday lunchtime all the backfill had been removed and we started to get a better look at the archaeology underneath. It was soon apparent that we had an interesting wall alignment at the eastern end of our trench, and some other interesting parts of the bath-house to investigate. The international students enjoyed some onsite workshops and also lots of informal training. Context sheets were whizzing out of the folder and the never ending task of planning had started! We are getting more and more finds from the site including some early pottery and a tile with a cat paw print. The painted plaster continues to amaze us and we started the long process of cleaning it (using cotton buds and de-ionised water). Everyone is taking turns to process the finds. On Tuesday several classes from Horncastle Primary School came on a site visit. The children (and staff) enjoyed digging in a small area of the trench, metal detecting, sieving and learning about and washing finds. They had a picnic lunch in the field and then enjoyed a history/archaeology workshop. On Thursday we also had a group of home-schooled children visit. They also enjoyed the same activities and their parents had a lot of fun too! There was also big excitement on Thursday when part of a mosaic was discovered. Unfortunately it was only two very small – single colour – sections that had fallen in amongst a jumble of demolition debris and were now at a 45 degree angle. After taking advice from the conservation lab we decided to lift the mosaic by creating a small wooden box, covering the mosaic with two layers of foil and encasing the mosaic within the box with polyurethane foam. This ‘package’ will be further ‘excavated’ and consolidated in the lab at college at a later date. After a day like that pub night at the Bottle and Glass was as lively as ever!
As more bath-house floor levels are uncovered and wall footings revealed Craig keeps us up to date with the latest interpretation of the site. One of the volunteers Anne brought us home-made ginger biscuits for tea break and on Friday we celebrated the birthday of one the international students (Cindy). The lively atmosphere in site continues in spite of the increasingly hot weather.
Week 3.
This week we were joined by Heritage Studies students from Bishop Grosseteste University College (who are on a two week accredited course) and weekly volunteers. The hot weather continues with some respite towards the end of the week; we even had a few longed for showers. The students had some on and off site training workshops including a very informative Roman pot workshop by Ian Rowlanson. Lots of on-site teaching took place including surveying and recording. As all nails and all small finds are recorded in three dimensions there’s lots to learn with this alone (including the mysteries of the GPS). Luckily the weekly volunteers had no worries about course work and spent an enjoyable time digging, recording, sieving and finds processing. The site still continues to give us lots of interesting finds. Beautiful painted plaster is being found in some contexts including some colours and designs we haven’t had in previous weeks; so lots more to add to our plaster database. Next week we plan to lift some of the remaining plaster in blocks so that we can micro-excavate it in the lab. The ceramics are still an interesting assemblage including some early 2nd century and 1st century dates. Some of the ceramics are possibly Iron Age. As we have carefully excavated the site over some four seasons we are now looking closely at early features. There’s lots of bone and tesserae for people on site to process. Next week students will enjoy an archaeological bones workshop with Jen Wood who will be working with us on the final bones specialist report. Sam continues to provide us with fantastic lunches on site and the conversation is as interesting as ever! Despite the hot weather and now very hard ground (Alan has been carrying and barrowing large quantities of water on to site to wet the ground so that it can be dug more easily) the archaeology is progressing very well. We have lots of visitors to site and as always we are happy for people to visit us during working hours.
Week 4.
This week has seen some heavy rain storms but also lots of sunny good digging weather. when the Red Arrows regularly fly over the site we know it will be a cloud free day! Another good week with lots of finds, including more of what appears to be early Roman ceramics from the area of the main bath house and the building to its south. We continue to explore the large wall footings and robber trenches to the west of this trench. An ever increasing number of nails are being uncovered, with the GPS in near constant use. The trench that we have dug to investigate the nature of the double ditch feature seen in both crop-marks and geophysics has turned out to be very interesting. The ditches appear not to be contemporary but to consist of an earlier (inner) v-shaped ditch, while the other is probably later and has rounded sides and a much flatter base. There have been very few finds from these ditches with the exception of animal bones, shell and some small pieces of Iron Age tradition style pottery. The students also enjoyed a photography workshop given by Lynne McEwan, learning about finds and site photography techniques
As we take cultural events very seriously on site we celebrated a local ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’ on Friday in full pirate fashion! There was much dressing up and pirate ‘speak’ and at lunch time we hoisted the Jolly Roger will full pirate salute! The post-lunch site tour for the team was as interesting as ever and we are looking forward to our last full digging week next week.
