This is the late night sleep deprived edit, apologies for any typos.
With only a couple of days to go now on our official window of excavation, we have managing to finish up certain questions, but others just keep getting in the way of things. This morning for instance, most of the team spent the better part of an hour pondering the site. Now those in the field of archaeology will be very familiar with this process. While the bulk of the team set about the physical side of site investigation, the senior members of the team stand around looking at various parts of the site, musing over interpretive theories, and then changing their minds repeatedly...this was a particularly active process between 10 and 11am this morning.
Much of this pondering has to do with the features exposed in the last day or two, notably the new walls. Underneath our 'Pig Sty' building, we found one wall feature running underneath the standing building fabric. By lunchtime today, we have now added to this with another wall-like feature, this time following the length of the building - yes, potentially making the overall structure longer once again (only 24 hours after we announced that there was no chance the building could get any longer). Unfortunately, as with all of the new wall features to be identified in the last week, this one is running away beneath our original spoil tips. Until we shift a ton or so of spoil and rock, we won't really know what is happening here, but suffice to say, what was supposed to be one of the easier parts of the building to make sense of, has become one of the most complex.
Around the rest of the site, it was a case of carrying on as we did the day before. The additional external wall features have been subject to slower, careful investigation. In both cases, overlying stone rubble is being delicately removed, thanks to tree roots. We have moved into a part of the site which has been critically undermined by the presence of tree roots. As a result, it is a challenge to identify coherent floor surfaces, but hopefully by the end of the week we will have a greater understanding.
Internal floor sections are now almost complete, and have served their purpose in making sure we have identified the extent of the floor levels internally. Mercifully no more walls came up inside the building, and it looks like our robbed out flag stone floors, were probably the one true floor surface to have been used inside the building during it's period of use.
Finally, in our mass rubble filled area between the rear of the building, and the retaining wall, we are close to completing this excavation. While there is still several tonnes of rock to remove, it is looking likely that we will pull off this remarkable exercise in stone removal by the end of the week. We have more 16th century ceramic fabrics comings out of this fill, which is really exciting in terms of dating the building. But perhaps more exciting, is the confirmation that we do indeed have a complete millstone. The first half of this was identified a couple of seasons ago, now we have the matching half. This was a really positive way to end the day, and we can say that we have at least one complete and resolved feature from this baffling building.
Tomorrow night, we have a guest blog spot from our finds supervisor, Claire.
With only a couple of days to go now on our official window of excavation, we have managing to finish up certain questions, but others just keep getting in the way of things. This morning for instance, most of the team spent the better part of an hour pondering the site. Now those in the field of archaeology will be very familiar with this process. While the bulk of the team set about the physical side of site investigation, the senior members of the team stand around looking at various parts of the site, musing over interpretive theories, and then changing their minds repeatedly...this was a particularly active process between 10 and 11am this morning.
Much of this pondering has to do with the features exposed in the last day or two, notably the new walls. Underneath our 'Pig Sty' building, we found one wall feature running underneath the standing building fabric. By lunchtime today, we have now added to this with another wall-like feature, this time following the length of the building - yes, potentially making the overall structure longer once again (only 24 hours after we announced that there was no chance the building could get any longer). Unfortunately, as with all of the new wall features to be identified in the last week, this one is running away beneath our original spoil tips. Until we shift a ton or so of spoil and rock, we won't really know what is happening here, but suffice to say, what was supposed to be one of the easier parts of the building to make sense of, has become one of the most complex.
Around the rest of the site, it was a case of carrying on as we did the day before. The additional external wall features have been subject to slower, careful investigation. In both cases, overlying stone rubble is being delicately removed, thanks to tree roots. We have moved into a part of the site which has been critically undermined by the presence of tree roots. As a result, it is a challenge to identify coherent floor surfaces, but hopefully by the end of the week we will have a greater understanding.
Internal floor sections are now almost complete, and have served their purpose in making sure we have identified the extent of the floor levels internally. Mercifully no more walls came up inside the building, and it looks like our robbed out flag stone floors, were probably the one true floor surface to have been used inside the building during it's period of use.
Finally, in our mass rubble filled area between the rear of the building, and the retaining wall, we are close to completing this excavation. While there is still several tonnes of rock to remove, it is looking likely that we will pull off this remarkable exercise in stone removal by the end of the week. We have more 16th century ceramic fabrics comings out of this fill, which is really exciting in terms of dating the building. But perhaps more exciting, is the confirmation that we do indeed have a complete millstone. The first half of this was identified a couple of seasons ago, now we have the matching half. This was a really positive way to end the day, and we can say that we have at least one complete and resolved feature from this baffling building.
Tomorrow night, we have a guest blog spot from our finds supervisor, Claire.