Archaeology Live! 2010 - Site Diary (Weeks 1-6)

[YAT]

WEEK 1

Welcome back Archaeology Live! training! This is now the 10th year that we have been running courses, so for some of you it is now a decade of having fun learning about archaeology in York. Where have the past 10 years gone?

Just as a side note it is also over 10 years since I did my first first commercial work with YAT. This was on the first evaluations at Hungate in January 2000. The hole ended up being 6m deep!


This year Ben has a team working in the western corner of the site. This is basically where he was last year, but he will be looking at the very early Viking features beneath the building, Roman archaeology that shows up in the area and medieval archaeology in the further back in the house plots. There is an awful lot to get through and as you can see from the pictures he has some really big features that need to be dug. I hope you are all feeling fit!


Elena is working next door to Ben, just to the northeast of where his team will be working. In this part of the site there are some of the massive medieval features that I mentioned above, a Roman terrace, Viking pits and a whole host of other bits to look at. If this gets completed quickly we may get chance to look beneath the big Roman terrace/spread and see how well the archaeology below has survived.


Artemi is working to the southeast of Elena. This is where he worked back in summer 2008 yorkdig.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=photos&action=display&thread=271 & yorkdig.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=photos&action=display&thread=272 so will be looking at lots of Roman archaeology as well as intrusive features cut into it.


During this week the rest of the commercial team have been working on another part of Hungate, but we have carried on with lots of digging and recording without them! It also means there is space in the records tent.


Everybody has enjoyed the sunshine! though the ground has been. When we had a little bit of rain it made it a lot easier for people to dig.


Some of us are already showing the benefits of fresh air and lots of physical exercise!


Finds wise we have had some really nice examples from each area, including part of a neolithic polished stone axe, copper alloys fittings and lots of pottery and bone. Any guesses what this is?


Thank you to the team who made the first week so much fun. Lots of good archaeology done by a great team!


p.s.
Here is the t-shirt for this year (proved to be a really difficult one to sort out!). The image is a Roman carved jet/shale bangle from the late 3rd - early 4th century. (see the last image)yorkdig.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=siteupdates&action=display&thread=389


Here is a link if you want to order online
www.zikzak.co.uk/acatalog/hungate_dig_t_shirts.html

[YAT]

WEEK 2

We have had another week with lots of hot sunshine. This is great for everybody who enjoys the heat, but not very good for seeing the archaeology!

The team with Ben have continued working on a series of really big pits. They may be from quarrying sand linked with brick/tile production, but we are not sure. There are finds in these features, but not on the same level that you would expect to find with deliberate rubbish pits? Hopefully we will find out more pretty soon.


There is one very clear cess/rubbish pit that they have been working on. This has a distinctive ash layer towards the base and next week we should get to see what is below.


Elena and her team have been working on features that cut into a Roman terrace (or spread) that extends across her area. We think that there may be some evidence of stone foundations from that date, but will not get 100% confirmation until we dig them.


This team have also been working on a rubbish pit which has lots of finds in it. In this picture you can see the base of a really big medieval jug. The other bits from this feature may all stick together to show the full object as it was before it was thrown away.


To the south of Elena the trainees led by Artemi have been getting to grips with a series of complicated pits. The dry conditions have not helped in trying to sort out the sequence, but it seems that they have finally got a handle of the sequence. Over the coming weeks we will be able to see if what we think turns out to be correct.


When the weather is this hot it is always nice to spend some time working on washing finds, using bowls of lovely cold water!


A big thank you to the team who have done a really good job over the last week.


Here is one for those of you who dislike recording lots of stake holes.... There were a load more that turned up further back as well

Probably part of a very early property boundary C.900AD?

[YAT]

WEEK 3

Finally we had some decent showers that have made the ground a bit softer, a lot more colourful and makes the digging a lot easier to do. We lost part of a couple of sessions during the week, but it was very easy to sort out post excavation inside and we just got on with things.

Ben and his team have carried on working on 2 very big pits as well as some smaller features. With the big pits it has been easy to get on with lots of digging now the ground is a little softer. Even though we have been using shovels and mattocks a lot we are still getting lots of finds showing up. One feature contained a small balance/scale with folding arms - this was really well preserved and should clean up well. We think it is c.12th Century, but will know more when the specialists have looked at it.


With big features you always seem to get people wanting to pretend to be Meercats!


Elena and her group have been working on some really good medieval ovens and pits. There are three separate ovens, each seemingly built in a different style. Hopefully we will get enough well dated pottery that lets us work out the proper sequence for them.


The pits in this areas appear to be more like rubbish pits and have a lot of finds in them (bone/pot/tile etc). This makes them different to what Ben has next door, though there is one that Both Ben and Elena will be digging as it has been cut in two by a Victorian drain cut.


The pits that Artemi and his trainees were working on last week are slowly being untangled. The wetter soil is helping by making the subtle differences between different backfill deposits easier to make out. We are making sure that we do lots of recording just in case we need to separate out things more that we currently think the need to be.


In another area where Artemi is working we have some Roman pots that we have been excavating this week. They have now been lifted so we will be able to see what is in them and what they were buried for.


Artemi has also got a large pit similar to those which people are excavating to the west with Ben. In this case the finds have also been interesting - including a possibly worked fragment of amber. Underneath this feature we have some burning that may be linked with an earlier oven, but we will find out more next week.



Once again a big thank you to the team for a really good week on and off site!

[YAT]

WEEK 4

Ben and his team have continued to move lots of soil from within some massive pits. We are thinking that these must be quarry pits that have been dug to get at the sand and clay at this point across the site (Artemi has them as well)


It is not all just digging though as they have been spending time recording the archaeology they have removed. Part of the recording involves reading levels, which everybody gets the hang of pretty quickly.


Elena and her team have also been recording (when not posing for a picture in the sunshine!). The archaeology is proving to be diffferent to what Ben and his team have as they have more smaller features such as ovens. There is still one big pit that is part of what Ben has been working on, but the features over most of the past week have been a lot more subtle. Finds wise they have had some really nice small finds (objects) including a coin which will hopefully clean up really well and give us a good date for the feature.


Artemi and his trainees have been working on a good combination of features, so a bit of both worlds. With the range of features across this area it has proven to be sometimes difficult to work out the full sequence, but the team have done a great job in sorting them out. Here we have lots of a medieval pot that will possibly stick together when it has all been cleaned up.


This pit has now got so deep that we have decided to stop until the ground level around it has been dug out a little more! There may be another 70cm yet to dig out, but we will just have to see what turns up.


In this area we are just starting to clean up over the top of what appears to be an oven, or series of ovens.


Thank you to the team for another great week of what has been a fantastic summer 2010!


Ben is looking for something?


.... So is Chris!?


I wonder if we will find it next week?

[YAT]

WEEK 5

Another good week on site with lots of good archaeology.

Ben and his team have been continuing with the huge pits in his area. We are becoming more suspicious that this one is going to be to do with the well in the middle of it (circle at the base of the picture). now we have been able to empty the well a little more we can see that it was originally lined with a barrel - in fact the barrel still survives. At the moment we will have to wait for the archaeology around to be dropped a bit before we go deeper, but hopefully there will be plenty of it left to look at.


In addition to digging and recording we have also been cleaning up over previously dug features. Tom was obviously surprised to see the pipe!


Next door, with Elena, things have continued to move on. The pit/oven/pit etc etc sequence has been worked out so we are now looking at the earlier pits which caused the difficulty in the first place (the backfills had slumped causing the oven to tip into them). The team have done an excellent job in sorting this out over the past few weeks.


Because Elena has also been emptying a large pit it has been a case of the team working together, with the ladies digging...


....... and the gents providing support!


You can see from the paperwork involved that there is a lot going on. Elena and the other trainers have to keep on top of this as it rapidly expands, whilst also making sure the trainees are looked after.


Artemi and his team are are still looking at the largest date range when it comes to features, with Roman all the way through to 16th Century. The feature pictured below may be a rubbish pit and pre-dates a massive 12th Century quarry pit.


The find show the full range of dates they are getting. This is a bit of Roman pottery and we think the stamp relates to SATVRNINUS, made by LEZOUX from Clemont-Ferrand, Lyon between 180 and 200 AD


A big thank you to the group who made this week a lot of fun!


Has Jamie found what people were looking for?.... a mini archaeologist?

[YAT]

WEEK 6

This week the weather was a little mixed - but nothing that we couldn't cope with on site. All areas have moved on well during the week as the ground has been softer and has more colours.

Ben and the team in the eastern corner have made good progress again. The large pit which runs into the area where Elena is working now appears to sit on top of a possible Roman feature (but more about that in coming weeks). The sheer scale of these features means that when it comes to planning it is very much a group, or even groups, activity.


Even though lots of recording has been done there was still plenty of soils shifted. The finds have been predominantly medieval, with some residual Roman and Viking finds. We are not sure about this copper alloy object, but the team of specialists in the labs will be able to find out more with an x-ray and possibly cleaning.


Elena and here group of trainees have been working on the western side of the huge feature seen in the photo above. They have also been looking at some more rubbish/waste pits that are proving pretty complicated to sort out. As the team had worn out some of the buckets by working so hard we got some replacements! The boys really did appreciate the colour!


Whilst some of the trainees were working on finds they found a really amazing thing.....

........possible the best preserved viking poo we have had off site! (yes we think it is human)

Artemi and his team have been a bit more spread out this week. They are chasing up the last of the medieval and Viking features before we look at some medieval ovens in detail. The ovens are usually very complicated so we want to be able to focus on them properly.


The records we are doing at the moment will help when it comes to look at the Roman archaeology below. The rain showers can sometimes cause erosion in this area so we need to make sure that everything is recorded straight away.



Thanks again to the team for lots of good work!


To continue with the diary follow on to WEEK 7 here -
yorkdig.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=photos&thread=393