Week one of Post Excavation has wrapped up and we’ve made a huge amount of progress. We were joined this week by our colleagues from ARS as part of a two-weeks intensive training block (for which volunteer spaces for next week can be found by following the link here, or so I’m told), who have been guiding us through the process.
Picture: The team carefully dry-brush animal bone recovered this September in preparation for analysis.
We were also joined by one extra special guest.
Picture: <3
We’ve focused on cleaning objects this week. We do this so that we can properly see everything that we have as the residual dirt and grime on an object can obscure the finer details.
Picture: Clay pipe stem with a stamped design, oval with floral elements, possibly a local design. The text in the middle is still unclear but might say ‘Thom Park’ or ‘Theo Park’, likely the manufacturer.
We think by the end of the project we will all have a teapot each and several full dining services.
Picture: Shards of at least two large dinner or serving plates.
The cleaning process also gives us a chance to cast fresh eyes over everything we’ve recovered, often finding new significance in otherwise ordinary objects. We’ve recovered several bits of Medieval pottery we never knew we had.
Picture: A tray of medieval and Tudor pottery found in the same context.
We always try to keep our eyes peeled while we’re working in the field but sometimes it’s difficult to identify objects when it’s muddy, or the rain is lashing down, or when you’re not a trained expert in 12th-14th century coarseware with over 10 years’ experience in object identification and typology. By having multiple stages of handling, sorting, and auditing, there are more opportunities to see objects and investigate what they are, meaning that we as archaeologists can be confident in our understanding of the collection.
We’ve also begun counting and weighing the collection so that we can keep an accurate record of exactly how much of everything we have
Picture: Cleaned and sorted objects.
Lastly, you might remember some of the delightful dolls heads we featured last week in our Jarroween update. Well these, along with the other toys and children’s objects found on site, are already under study and we are delighted to be able to share our collection to help young scholars in their academic journey.