Day 4

WA Archaeologist, Luke, shows Harthill volunteers, Ted and Olivia how to draw the section of a trench and explains why this is necessary.

Thursday already! The week is flying by too quickly!!

This morning I was shown a large skull that was found intact in the corner and at the bottom of Trench 1. It is the first time that I have ever seen or handled a skull like this. Sadly, it turned out to be the skull of a large rat! However it was incredibly interesting to hold and examine. It was bagged up and will go for cleaning and further analysis.

We had a reduced number of Wessex Archaeology archaeologists on our site today due to another job elsewhere that required more WA people to help out.

Yesterday we thought we would be closing down trenches 1 and 2. However, that was not the case. On closer examination of the ground surface, WA Manager, Mili decided to dig deeper in Trench 1 as she did not think that the ground surface of the trench had in fact reached the natural. She dug a little deeper and found the natural surface half as deep again as the trench that had already been dug.

She explained to the volunteers and the WA Archaeologists how the sound and texture of the ‘natural’ was different to the subsoil. Tomorrow, trenches 1 and 2 will not be closed down but will be dug to a deeper depth to find the natural.

We cleared more undergrowth in the hope of opening a couple of new trenches, but that may stay on hold until trenches 1 and 2 have been dug deeper and the natural is reached.

We were also visited today by a local farmer who was interested in what we were doing. We showed them around the different trenches and showed them the rat skull and the pottery finds and WA archaeologists, Adam and Sabrina explained the differences in the soil colour in the bank and ditch trench (Trench 4) that they were working on. They in turn, told us about the locations of the different geology on the site where they farm and about the woodland and the wildlife.

They also explained the different farming techniques, crops and plough depths. That was an education in itself and was equally as fascinating as the archaeology. If you can understand the geology and the different crops they said - what grows on dry soil and what grows on wet soil, they can plan accordingly and plant for bigger yields. Knowing that kind of information can also give you a better understanding of what archaeology might show up in aerial photography.

I have looked at this site for 32 years and it was only in 2016 that this feature finally showed itself to me in an aerial photograph.

Today we had four volunteers on site. Myself, Olivia, Ted and Andy. More people have said that they are coming tomorrow.