: Ancient Wales

Contributed by ABI

Well it’s been quite a break since the last blog so here is a round up recent events. People in Trench 1 are excavating features, for instance I excavated a (potential!) post hole yesterday. In Trench 2 there has been found a shoe (i.e. a lot of nails in the shape of a shoe). In Trench 3 the quest to discover the ditch is still going on (as far as I know). But today my mission has been on wet sieving. It is so we can analyse the environmental remains of the previous excavations such as the midden of last year.

It is a very wet and cold job but thankfully the weather has held out today. The tanks are currently being cleaned out by eager volunteers who, I expect, would wish to remain nameless. The work looks very disgusting as it leaves you with gloves of mud! A couple people have been doing bone washing as per normal. Bone washers from now on face the weather like the rest of us as the gazebo broke! They do have a radio though so they can’t moan that badly, no matter how bored they may be! There is a fly in this blue cabin with me and it is landing on all the cups, I think I’ll bring my own in tomorrow and keep it in my bag!

A team of archaeologists from the National Museum and students from Cardiff University will be investigating an archaeological site at Llanmaes in the Vale of Glamorgan over the next four weeks. Over the past four years excavations have concentrated on a large Prehistoric midden (or rubbish dump) which may have been the focus of ritual feasting activity in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. This year the team are investigating a different part of the site where geophysics has revealed a large enclosure which may be of Prehistoric date. We hope to find out if it was in use at the same time as the midden. Different members of the team (and hopefully some visitors too) will be contributing their thoughts during the excavation.

Contributed by IAN

The clearing of topsoil has again being the order of the day in trench 1 (big trench) and progress has been made with the completion of this first but necessary phase of work in sight. We should be ready to move on in trench 1 by tomorrow morning break. There has also been an increase in the amount of prehistoric pottery being unearthed but is likely to be from the water wash from an earlier site that is located up hill from the current site. In trench 2 (L-Shaped trench) a ½ metre section is being excavated to help show the relationship of the different layers of archaeology to help determine how the rest of the trench should be excavated. Work also began today on clearing the topsoil of trench 3 (small trench) and a roman coin was found in the un-stratified material. Bone washing and wet sieving has again continued with steady progress. The weather has held out until the last half hour.

Contributed by CAROLINE

Bone washing, wet sieving and the clearing of topsoil continued today. The clearing of topsoil is a time consuming but necessary task but will be finished by tomorrow lunch time most probably. Again the majority of finds (pottery and a few coins) are of a Roman date… Rain was predicted but thankfully none came!

Contributed by CAROLINE

Trowelling of the topsoil continued today. We are removing the topsoil to reveal the natural geology (clay or limestone bedrock) in order to reveal features cut into the rock such as post holes and pits. Wet sieving is also being carried out on site, this is a very wet and messy job. Wet sieving is of large bags of soil from the midden and features of last year, there is quite a back log to get through- trowellers are too fast for their own good! Wet sieving allows us to find any particularly small finds that were missed during trowelling to be found and also to separate environmental evidence such as carbonised grain which floats to the top and is sent away for analysis. The tens of thousands of bone fragments are also being washed on site, these are also to be analysed by a specialist who will help us to determine what animals were being consumed on site and in what quantity. The bone specialist can also tell us in some instances how the animals were butchered if any cut marks can be seen. We had rain again today but this time we weren’t so lucky as it didn’t rain during break and so we couldn’t hide in the site hut. The same problems were faced as yesterday but digging was affected as the rain was more constant even if a little lighter.