week10

Week 10

The poor weather that had been forecast never materialised and this meant we could continue in the trenches with no interruptions. During this week the City Archaeologist, John Oxley, visited the site. He was very interested in the archaeology we have been finding and how this related to what had been previously found nearby. He was also very happy with the way that the site has progressed and wants us to carry on in the same way until the end of the training excavation.

Trench 4 In this trench the archaeology is still very complicated, with a number of phases to the wall and footings, as well as earlier occupation deposits on either side. After carefully excavating a number of thin layers of activity on either side of the wall we finally decided to remove the wall itself. It came to bits very easily, but the mess created during this process took a long time to clean up – in fact there was still some left in one corner of the trench at the end of the week. The finds have been very interesting, with more medieval pottery, a possible key and other copper alloy objects. The wall itself contained fragments of pottery and tile which will help us get a date for its construction.
Trench 5 Finally the cobbles have been removed! There are still patches of cobbles in the earlier deposits, but the road surfaces and road make up deposits have gone. The lowest layers of the make up deposits for the road proved to be very sticky to excavate. All the cobbles, stones and finds were coated in a layer of dark sticky mud which proved difficult to get off the finds (as well as clothes).
Underneath the road there seems to be a cut feature, the purpose of which is still a mystery. Hopefully in the next few days we will get a better idea. The finds (when the mud had been removed) were all from the medieval period, with lots of bone, pottery and an interesting lead fragment that was once part of a window.
Trench 6 We have continued with the excavation of occupation deposits at the South of the trench whilst removing thicker dumps of material to the North. Running diagonally across the centre of Trench 6 a very unusual feature has been revealed. It appears to be the very badly rotted remains of a wooden chute, or something similar. During the next week we hope to get a better idea of what it is and what it may have been used for. In the big dump deposits we have started to find a number of pieces of antler off-cut as well as lots of pottery and other bits of animal bone.
Trench 7 In Trench 7 we have had more fun working out the complicated sequence of occupation deposits and how they relate to any structural evidence which remains. This has meant the trainees have had to be very careful when cleaning the archaeology so they can see and record all the subtle differences before they are excavated. Again we have had whole range of finds with lots of pottery (some of which was Roman in date) and a very nice bit of worked bone.
Time is running out and we now have only two weeks left to see what we can find out about the site. With a bit of luck we will have lots of good weather, so the trainees do not get distracted by rain, and continue discovering more about this part of York 1000 years ago.
THE FINDS
The trenches have offered up an array of outstanding finds since excavation began, but especially this last week. As well as the usual animal bone, shell, medieval green-glazed pottery and iron objects, there has been a number of less common objects found this week.
Worked bone We are getting more of the worked bone blanks that could have been used to make parts of combs or similar. We also had a very nicely worked fragment which may be part of a comb. These tend to come to light whilst we are washing the finds as there is so much bone in general it can be difficult to see if it is worked.
	Bone fragment with ring-and-dot decoration
Window Lead In Trench 5 we found a fragment of window lead (came) which is used for holding the different bits of glass together. Copper Alloy Brooch A tiny copper alloy brooch has been found. It is a very simple design which is made up of a circle and then the pin across the back.
Key A small key was recovered from Trench 4. This was again made from copper alloy and is quite well preserved. There has been lots of speculation on site as to what it was for.
Re-used Stone The wall footings contained some fragments of high quality re-used limestone. Two of the best bits originally came from an arch and a window.