Day 16
- Paul Rowland.
- Jun 19, 2018
- 2 min read
What a difference a day makes. We are still no closer to explaining what the stones in trench 7 are however, we had several visitors to the site today to have a look around. Kerry from the Rotherham Advertiser came out and took some photos of the Harthill volunteers and the WA archaeologists working in the trenches.
Then we had some excitement in trench 7 when Harthill volunteer, Andy announced that he had found some bones. Having fallen for that line before, I approached the trench with an air of nonchalance, to discover that he had uncovered our second rat skull. Andy also uncovered its jaw bone and a couple of limb bones too. At least we can tell people that we uncovered ‘bones’ on the Harthill Community Dig.
Next we had a visit from a history student from Sheffield Hallam University called James who is interested in Community Digs.
We were also visited by three brothers from the village who brought in some of the items that they had found in the area around Harthill to show to Mili, who is in charge of the dig. The brother’s knowledge of the area was really interesting as were the items that they showed us, including a carved antler.
Finally, John Cusack from Qubic Aerial Services who lives in the village came back to map the wood again with his drone. The last time he visited us, the wind speed picked up which made it difficult to fly his drone safely.
Our trenches have been photographed, recorded, and drawn and one of the trenches at our new site, that was placed over an interesting-looking bank was back-filled today by WA archaeologists, Hans, Otis and Nick. They were all happily singing together like a ‘chain-gang’ as they back-filled the trench as I walked by. :-)
Our other trench at our new site which is a depression in the ground revealed lots of limestone. That is not surprising as Loscar sits on top of the Magnesian limestone ridge that runs from Derby to Durham. However, after more hard hand digging by WA archaeologists, Amy, Sam and Hannah, they discovered that there were no stones in the base.
We may not be at the bottom of this trench yet, so more limestone may turn up. However, Mili did remark that the feature looked similar to a bomb crater. I have read that German bombers on their way home after bombing Sheffield during the Sheffield Blitz, jettisoned some of their bombs over Loscar. This may be one of the craters left by one of those bombs! Let’s see if it reveals more of it’s secrets tomorrow.
