Friday 29 June

Contributed by ANNA

Only having come to Llanmaes for a week, today is my final day – and the week ends as it began, with everyone rained off site. But we had fair weather through the middle of the week, and good progress was made in the trenches. A mixture of pre-Roman and Roman finds in Trench 1 suggests that the site was occupied over a long period, intersecting features indicating that the (potential) settlement was built and re-built over the same spot. There are many post-holes in Trench 1, making an Iron Age settlement likely, although its shape (round or rectangular) has not yet been determined.

I have spent the week working on a large post-hole which, unexpectedly, developed into a second post-hole, almost certainly of different date. As the fill continued further and further back below the top soil, it felt at times as though I would be chasing this feature endlessly across the trench – but it was a nice change to be taken by surprise by a feature, and exciting to realise that the two intersecting post-holes might tell us something about different periods of occupation on the site.

A week is not really long enough to spend on as rich a site as Llanmaes, where new possibilities seem to emerge every day. As well as the potential Iron Age settlement, there is also possible evidence of a furnace, a hearth and a Roman building: plenty for everyone to mull over whilst skulking in the cabins and barns, keeping an eye on the rain.