As part of my uni course, I am taking part in an excavation. Just posting some pictures and I'll add more if people are interested!
Edit: To save me from opening a new thread, just going to throw all future pictures here!
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Spoiler: One of the areas I dugShow
Found a nice big piece of a Roman pot. Although we find pieces of pottery all the time, this is a really good piece because it's the rim. The rim can help us see what kind of shape it was and how big the pot was without even having the rest of the pieces!
And then we have to record everything...
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We found pottery, iron nails and scraps of bone which is exciting to us archaeologists but not very exciting to anyone else. We also found some coins and rings but there was something we discovered which was far more exciting!
Please note that the image contains human bone
You can see two lengths of bone in the middle of the image which we think are human legs. Also, in the top of the picture you can see a circular mark; that is where we found a glass pot which was thankfully intact. We had just removed it before the picture was taken. Also in the picture, in the middle of the right hand shadow you can see an object that looks like a blueberry - that is some sort of bead. Looking forward to see what comes out of the grave!
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Eeeeeee Archeology!
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We found pottery, iron nails and scraps of bone which is exciting to us archaeologists but not very exciting to anyone else. We also found some coins and rings but there was something we discovered which was far more exciting!
For somebody else maybe it's true, but for me they're terribly exciting U.U More informations for me and my colleagues!
By the way, it is soooooo beautiful!
Also, two questions:
1) Did you already establish for how many years it was settled? Did it last into Late Antiquity? (just professional curiosity U.U)
2) Why PG +13? XD
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Quote:
2) Why PG +13? XD
The bones, some people don't want to see that sort of thing.
This is pretty neat though, is this your first dig?
Edit: Do you digg it?
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Also, two questions:
1) Did you already establish for how many years it was settled? Did it last into Late Antiquity? (just professional curiosity U.U)
2) Why PG +13? XD
1) Did you already establish for how many years it was settled? Did it last into Late Antiquity? (just professional curiosity U.U)
2) Why PG +13? XD
1. The area remained settled for a long time after the Romans left in 410 AD, and there's evidence of Anglo Saxon and Early Medieval occupation
2. What Koni said I put a warning in the spoiler but I just wanted to be extra careful
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This is pretty neat though, is this your first dig?
Edit: Do you digg it?
Edit: Do you digg it?
Yeah it is my first dig, really enjoying it although my bones (pun woefully intended) are aching through all the hard work ahaha
And yes... I do digg it
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Best of luck. I'll be up in Whitby for next week. If the site is open, beloved and family may drop by.
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The weather the past two days has been unbelievably British; a downpour on Thursday and some nice sun on Friday. Great fun to dig in (!)
Here are a couple more graves. Warning, these images contain graves and bones; just a heads up if people are sensitive to that sort of thing.
Can I also ask that people don’t reshare or distribute any image that I’ve posted on this thread? Thanks!
Graves
So this was the grave with the two legs I posted a couple of days ago. They’ve excavated a bit more and you can see they found two bangles in the grave, one with a bone going through it. The bangles have a very complex design and are quite heavy, and along with the goods found earlier, we’re guessing this grave belongs to a wealthy Roman woman. At the top left of the picture, you can see a small mound with some white flecks. This is what remains of the skull. One thing to observe is the way the body is bent slightly; she was probably put in the grave crooked.
This is another grave but it contained only fragments of bone because the acidity of the soil dissolved everything else. Just on an aside, when they dig out graves like this, they place the soil in special buckets so it can be examined in a lab.
You can see the rocks lining the grave quite nicely. This is called a cist and probably indicates some sort of status of the grave. Alternatively, it could just indicate the grave was nicely preserved!
These are two more graves and as you can see these ones don’t contain cists, once again, either because of poor preservation or because they weren’t put into the ground.
Finally, here you can see a partial cist in a grave. The headstone is a big repurposed roof tile as you can see from the two holes at the top. Also, in the centre of the image you can see a rock sticking out slightly; this is probably the remains of a stone that went over the top of the grave.
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Spoiler: FindsShow
Here's a nice piece of pottery rim that we found, still in the ground.
For the past three days, we have been excavating this area and found a sort of clay block, buried in the middle of the ground. In this clay block, there was a strange metal reading, somewhere near the top. We finally dug it out on Friday and found the largest coin found on site!
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That coin is wonderful, Sam! Congratulations! Is it Roman?
About the settlement timeline: fascinating. Although I imagine there have been gaps in the settlement, right? Between the late Roman period and Anglo-Saxon settlement...
About the settlement timeline: fascinating. Although I imagine there have been gaps in the settlement, right? Between the late Roman period and Anglo-Saxon settlement...
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Yay! History! Love it!
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That coin is wonderful, Sam! Congratulations! Is it Roman?
About the settlement timeline: fascinating. Although I imagine there have been gaps in the settlement, right? Between the late Roman period and Anglo-Saxon settlement...
About the settlement timeline: fascinating. Although I imagine there have been gaps in the settlement, right? Between the late Roman period and Anglo-Saxon settlement...
Thanks Timo, my friend was digging it up whilst I went to get a find bag and I brought a small crowd with me to put a bit of pressure on him And yep, a nice Roman coin. Given the size of it, perhaps early Roman but we'll need to clean it up in a lab to make sure.
And surprisingly, I don't think there was a gap between the settlement occupation, I think it was occupied quite quickly after the Romans left because it was a fort, town and on a road.
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Just some updates on the dig:
The weather has been so hot, we've all been dying from the heat and the ground is baked solid -.-
Also, the area we've been digging in (My theory is it's a temple and it has been gaining some traction! ) has revealed some more secrets. We thought the area was all part of one ditch...how wrong we were. By clearing out around the area we found cobblestone on the ground, which could be a path. This path goes over our ditch and, given the possible dating of the coin we found, places the ditch to be older than the cobblestone; it could be that the cobblestone was put down on top of our ditch! The more we dig, the more mysterious the area gets!
Also, more finds!
The weather has been so hot, we've all been dying from the heat and the ground is baked solid -.-
Also, the area we've been digging in (My theory is it's a temple and it has been gaining some traction! ) has revealed some more secrets. We thought the area was all part of one ditch...how wrong we were. By clearing out around the area we found cobblestone on the ground, which could be a path. This path goes over our ditch and, given the possible dating of the coin we found, places the ditch to be older than the cobblestone; it could be that the cobblestone was put down on top of our ditch! The more we dig, the more mysterious the area gets!
Also, more finds!
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Spoiler: Finds!Show
We found this big ass piece of pot in our area.
Some nice decoration on a pot someone found.
Some nice design on a stone - this was found when the digger was digging the original trench before we got there so it's unstratified (it has no context (think of a context like an area code for where the artefacts are found))
Bones
Spoiler: Bones!Show
We found another preserved skeleton and this is in much better shape than the last one.
You can just see the shadow on the ground to show where the spine used to be.
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All wonderful news
I'm only sorry that the last pieace of stone you showed us was out of context....it looks pretty interesting: although it's only my own personal opinion, that design reminds me of some early Anglo-Saxon stone-carving, although, I repeat, it's only my opinion.
Also, the news about the ditch is intriguing...keep us informed!
I'm only sorry that the last pieace of stone you showed us was out of context....it looks pretty interesting: although it's only my own personal opinion, that design reminds me of some early Anglo-Saxon stone-carving, although, I repeat, it's only my opinion.
Also, the news about the ditch is intriguing...keep us informed!
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All wonderful news
I'm only sorry that the last pieace of stone you showed us was out of context....it looks pretty interesting: although it's only my own personal opinion, that design reminds me of some early Anglo-Saxon stone-carving, although, I repeat, it's only my opinion.
Also, the news about the ditch is intriguing...keep us informed!
I'm only sorry that the last pieace of stone you showed us was out of context....it looks pretty interesting: although it's only my own personal opinion, that design reminds me of some early Anglo-Saxon stone-carving, although, I repeat, it's only my opinion.
Also, the news about the ditch is intriguing...keep us informed!
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