Well the final week has been and gone…12 weeks seems to go by really fast when you are digging holes.
The weather has been kind and the dry weather allowed us to continue at a good pace. Trainees continued to learn the basics of archaeological excavation and recording and, with this being the final week, they also had the opportunity to draw the sections of the trenches as we prepare to finish the recording of the site.
The remains of the wall were still a focus of work this week in Trench 4. A slot was cut at the southern end of the irregular limestone block foundations and this revealed that, although they appeared to be a random jumble of stones, they had been carefully constructed with large blocks on end and smaller stones wedged between these to provide stability. To the east of the foundations it was evident that the series of occupation deposits previously encountered continued further down. The most interesting feature of the week was a large pit from the 1500’s, found to the west of the trench. It was c. 0.75m deep, and at its base was a group of four bricks. It is assumed that these bricks had been used as a ‘post pad’ for a timber in a structure. While time constraints mean that it was not possible to investigate this fully, it is possible that this pit cut into a human burial as part of a femur (leg) was found extending from the pit and some finger bones were also discovered mixed with the backfill.
A number of metal objects were found in Trench 4 this week; including pieces of iron, lead and copper. There was also a large piece of green glazed pottery found which had thumb impression decoration.
Some cut features against the north east section were identified, recorded and excavated this week. One of these features had a good level of organic preservation and some pieces of leather were found within it. Across the rest of the trench work continued removing occupation deposits that had been cut by the ditch. There were also organic remains to the south of the channel, with timbers just starting to be seen poking through from deposits below. These could have been from an earlier fence line or building.
The cut features produced the majority of the finds this week; a large amount of animal bone and early medieval pottery was found in them….. maybe indicating that we were just getting down onto the top of Viking deposits.
The linear cut to the south of the trench has been completely excavated and turned out to be quite shallow. Around this work continued on the removal of occupation deposits. This proved to be a tricky task as the deposits were of similar colour and make-up, making it difficult to distinguish one from the next. This provided the trainees with valuable experience of excavating thin, delicate layers.
The majority of finds this week have been animal bone, and early medieval pottery.
Trench 7
To the south side of the trench the removal of one of a series of dump deposits revealed a layer of cobbles which were sitting within a large pit. The cobbles were mixed up with limestone fragments and possibly relate to a previous buildings on the site. To the north of the trench work continued on the section of standing archaeology left between the wall and the tank. The medieval hearth was removed and the tiles dated to between the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. A series of occupation deposits were excavated either side of the hearth, and a pit discovered below it revealed some evidence of metalworking.
There have been several finds this week, but the most interesting was slag removed from deposits cut by a pit below the hearth.
The training dig has been a fantastic success at all levels, we have had lots of really good trainees, visitors, and archaeology… the list goes on (and on!)
We will add more updates as we get information so please keep watching the diaries and forum (http://yorkdig.proboards21.com/)
There are lots of people that need to be thanked for the part that they had in making it all work (apologies to anybody I have missed out)
Evans Property Group
John Oxley (City of York Principal Archaeologist)
DIG and all the support staff
Jorvik and all the support staff
YAT and all the support staff
Specialist lecturers
Elena
Ian
Placements (especially for writing most of the diaries)
Finally the most important people of all the trainees
Cheers,
Toby