This week at JAM we are back to work with our community volunteers, and we’ve had plenty of new faces already. New faces have meant new oddities this week, as we continue excavating our road though the park.
Caption: behold, a lump of purest green!
We seem to be finding more of the unexplainable, like this massive ump of molten glass. We were stumped by the inclusions and size, but decided that its most likely a molten glass, perhaps it was intended to be, or even once was, a beer or wine bottle based on its beautiful green colour.
We’ve also recovered more German Stoneware pottery.
Caption: Westerwald Pottery.
But they actual history of the road still alludes us for now, as the sun bakes the clay surface before we can get a proper look at what’s going on. It’s hard work but we’ll get there eventually.
We’ve also been excavating a posable land drain. We believe that, before Drewett’s Park was a park it was agricultural land, so land or field drains are a reasonable thing to find. They were most often salt-glazed clay pipes which were laid downhill to prevent fields from become boggy and unworkable in the rainier seasons. Usually when we find these on rural sites, they’re Victorian or Edwardian, and very much still functional (is it even archaeology if there isn’t a land drain squirting water all over your beautiful archaeological feature?).
Caption: remains of a possible land drain.
This land drain is a bit different though it appears to be either brick or clay, and very degraded clay at that. It’s so ephemeral that we’ve come to think it might even be something called plough scarring, where the plough leaves long scars of different coloured soil as it is dragged along the ground. It could also be the case that whatever had been there, be in a land drain or some other mystery, was removed in history, and only the residue of the degraded ceramic surfaces remian.
But its still something different, which means we have to record it properly. This includes, photos, a plan drawing, and we’ve even taken a sample of the soil to be wet sieved.
Caption: sometimes you have to make your own shade for photos.