What a busy few weeks its been at JAM, and we have so much to show for them.
We’ve been joined on site by the Young Archaeologists Club, Escape Intervention, and Age Concern UK, as well as all of our lovely volunteers, for an exciting few weeks of cleaning, drawing, puzzling, lamenting over the soil, GPS data gathering and, to be honest very little actual digging.
But first we want to give a very big Thank You to Professor Martin Carver who gave us a fascinitating talk on Sutton Hoo and the future of The Sutton Hoo Ship Project.
He spoke to a full house on the archaeological background of the site, the burial ship of King Rædwald as an archaeological find, and the impact and goals of the experimental reconstruction project as a community project.
Thank you Martin, Mads, and Conker
On site we’ve uncovered a number of amazing finds to keep us motivated as the summer draws to am end, including this amazing decorated stone recovered by the Young Archaeologists.
Its covered in crosses and triangles, and is incredibly curious. It was recovered from a likely Victorian layer in the north-east corner of site, but could be older as we’ve also recovered 16th and 17th century finds from the same context elsewhere. Chevrons are a common motif in stone carving, all the way back to the Neolithic in Britain, so we can’t add more information through style. We’ll have to do a bit more research to determine its age.
We’ve also been taking turns to get the last bits of site recording done.
We’ve also started excavations of a nebulous little pit full of sandstone blocks.
We found this pile of stones at the start of the dig season and have been waiting for MONTHS to get the chance to investigate it. Initially we believed it to be a small mound of stones, possibly a waste pile from land clearance associated with pre-industrial ploughing and land management, resting on top on the natural silty-clay. After clearing away more of the above and surrounding fill, we now know that its a pit filled with stones.
We think that just above this pit we may have had a passing point between a field boundary or hedgerow. The Field boundary doesn’t appear on maps until 1894, which does fit stratigraphically with where we found a line of tree bowls below the likely Victorian/Edwardian road.
Ordnance Survey Durham Sheet III Surveyed 1856 Published 1862.
Durham Sheet III.SE. Revised 1894 to 1894 Published 1898.
This pit is cut into the natural silty-sandy clay, and so predates this more modern agricultural activity, but may sit at a relatively important place within the agricultural landscape of the park; a passing place, though the significance of this is still under investigation.
Exciting Stuff!
We also received some lovely gifts from some lovely people. One of the best parts of this project is getting to know everyone who comes through the park everyday to see the site grow and change.
We’re grateful for the support we receive from the community everyday.