A bit of 'Rhynie Curse' and a great big ditch

All trenches continue with great gusto despite a visit from the 'Rhynie Curse' which this year has shown itself in:
1 case of 'poison finger'
1 incident of Land Rover grounding
1 incident of said Land Rover bursting a tire
1 case of chicken pox
many incidents of sore muscles and for some reason sore heids amongst some of the team...

Who knew you could drink a G&T from an amphora?!?

Updates from the hillforts are pending as I await some photographs and text from the teams up there (they aren't stuck up there, just too exhausted to blog).

By the Craw Stane things are moving well.

A selection of finds - look at that sherd of amphora - as big as yer face!

We continue to find evidence of non-ferrous metalworking and the high-life led by the inhabitants.  Some of the most exciting finds this year are 3 tiny sherds of glass, which are from imported Continental drinking vessels.  We are also continuing to find sherds of a blackish pottery, probably hand-made; we found a few fragments of this last year, too.  This pottery could be very important as traditionally the Picts are aceramic (despite knowing all the technology perfectly well as evidenced by the ceramic crucible sherds).

We've spend the last few days concentrating on the story of the outer ditch - and what a ditch it is!

Ditch fills looking fab.

We still have not definitively bottomed the outer ditch (but are close we think).  We are stopping now to do some recording to ensure the safety of the team and to enable us to remove at least the upper layers of the baulk soon.  We have what looks like a cut (possibly for a drain as there was stone as a type of potential 'lining,' but as the soil drains very well here this seems a little unnecessary even in the ditch).  This is at the bottom of the ditch and potentially represents a recutting event, which we should be able to confirm once we can continue excavating down in more safety.

Other exposed areas of the ditch are still in middle fill levels, but we are seeing some features including a few shallow pits of unknown purpose.  The larger pit we suspect might be an event related to digging out sand, perhaps for metalworking-related activities.  We are in the final week now.  Weather will hopefully hold out, although the wind is picking up and so is the sand down at the Craw Stane trench (next stop for the 'curse' is probably conjunctivitis...).  I might be a bit sad to leave my office (below) - but perhaps I can set up a similar situation at Chester inside my own office.

A bru and a bucket - what more does an office need?

A fine day (and a visit from Fred)

Thankfully today was a lot less wet meaning everyone's spirits were improved.  Up on Wheedlemont, however, reports are that the work is a bit hard-going with some pretty tough ground lying underneath the turf.  Exciting glimpses of structures within the hillfort at Tap o'Noth are also emerging.

Down in the village we managed a good day's work despite the lure of Rhynie Woman's pop up cafe (cinnamon buns!).

Hard work was rewarded with some lovely ditch fills and a lunchtime visit from Fred.

As we moved into the fills, finds also emerged.  Irving hit the pottery jackpot with some lovely big sherds of what looks like Late Roman Amphora (5th - 6th c AD) as well as crucible fragments for melting non-ferrous metals such as bronze.

Sherds of probably LRA found today.

A few more fragments of clay moulds used for casting pins also emerged.  So our evidence for fine metalworking continues to grow.

Sieving action!

Our Open Day should be this coming Saturday (weather permitting) and there are activities ongoing in the village this week (see Rhynie Woman's facebook page for more info).

Not a bad view from the office - I can wave to the crew on Tap o'Noth.

Racing to the finish..

We'll be finishing up work this week on site.  The mad rush of finishing features and recording them is well under way (with the joy of backfilling looming large in the near future). 


The inner ditch sondage has been completed - almost single-handedly by Irving with some help from Jasmin.  The sections tell us a story about how they attempted to stabilise the ditch with layers of turf as it filled in. 


Work in the outer ditch sondages progressed rapidly in both trench 1 and 2.  Yesterday a massive dump of metalworking waste was uncovered in trench 2 quite far down in the ditch.  Over 100 fragments of clay moulds were uncovered and many of these were of exceptional quality. We are sitting now with torches and magnifying glass trying to get to grips with the range of objects that were made. Trench 1 also continued to produce finds of metalworking moulds and crucibles.


One of the real highlights today and of the entire dig has nothing to do with artefacts.  Today the puzzle of how they constructed the outer palisade/wall walk type structure was revealed.  At the base of a very deep thin trench we found the ghosts of planks and posts preserved more clearly than ever before.

The grey shadows of squared planks set at the edge of the palisade with large posts set behind.

We have been puzzling over the palisade construction for years.  The sheer scale of the size of construction and the skill and effort taken in making the wooden planks and posts for this structure is astounding. 


We only have one full day in the field left, but we are extremely satisfied with our work this year - so many great successes and a lot of 'firsts' for Pictish archaeology. 

Mould Magic

First off a massive thank you to everyone that came out to support us and Rhynie Woman at the ceilidh last night.  We jigged, we jagged... we stripped a willow or two. It was a great night!


And now to mould magic...


It can be difficult to explain to people why we get so excited about moulds as sometimes they aren't much to look at.  Almost all the moulds we have found have been clay two-part moulds.  These types of moulds have to be broken to get out the metal object, which is why they are in fragments.  Since they are 'one use only' objects, the clay is not fired as hard as when making pottery, usually, which also means they fragments can break down and decay more easily than pots.  Despite all these issues, we have amassed a great collection of moulds.  Most are for the shafts of pins, probably to hold clothing.  The most exciting moulds show us the pin head, which helps us identify what type of pin it was.  We have to be very careful with the moulds as too much handling or brushing can break or remove the detail.  Once in a while we get a real gem without too much handling!


This morning a lovely mould emerged. The mould looks to be for an early type of handpin, one of those quite rare types of pins for early medieval Scotland. 

Proto handpin mould.

Today was our Open Day and we had lots of interest from visitors until the rain poured down during our lunch break. Thankfully most of us were off site having our lunch and the rainclouds parted after a while and the afternoon was fantastic for digging.

Another fine day.. or should that be FIND day...

The investigations into the outer ditch are exceeding our expectations. Our main research questions focusing on this feature this year are to look for more information on the different types of activities occurring on site during the 5-6th century AD and to establish more definitively whether there is a recut (a reworking) of the outer ditch.


We have not dug down deep enough yet to answer the second objective, but we are certainly able to already shed more light on what went on at the Craw Stane complex. 


They drank!
Today both another sherd of a glass drinking vessel and fragments, including a handle, of Late Roman Amphora emerged from the ditch fill.

Sherd of early medieval glass from Rhynie.

 

They melted stuff!

We have over 50 sherds of crucibles now and of many different types. We even have evidence now of firing enamel for decoration of pins and brooches. So far this year we have two droplets of copper alloy. 

They made lots of pins!

We have many clay moulds - mostly showing the shafts of pins.  However, today two special bits of mould fragment turned up.  Both of these look like they could be a mould for a hand pin - a very distinctive and beautiful pin in use during the 5th-6th centuries mostly in Scotland and Ireland. 

Doesn't look like much, but a possible mould for a hand pin from Rhynie.

Whilst we knew some of this before from our earlier excavations, the range and quantity of metalworking material is something we have not encountered here before. 

Mini-Diggers on Site

Today we had the rest of Rhynie Primary with us on site.  They did a great job trowelling in Trench 5 and sieving for treasures. 


Despite gloomy forecasts we didn't get more than a few drops of rain today.  Perfect digging weather!


The outer ditch continues to provide us with lots of metalworking evidence including today another fragment of a stone crucible stand or mortar with some possible red enamel and copper alloy stuck to it.  We had some great mould fragments for pins, too.

Digging the outer ditch in the shadow of Tap o'Noth.

In Trench 4, work on one of the palisade postholes revealed a cache of unburnt bone (cattle) in the post-pipe.  We had  a similar cache of bone in another palisade posthole in 2012 - and that feature had a lovely brooch mould at the bottom.  We await this posthole's excavation with anticipation!






Lifting the animal bone in a palisade posthole.

And just in case you thought we were all business this year.... Here is Dan modelling Oskar's solution to trample in our nice clean trenches.

Rhynie does it again... in Iron.

So says our finds expert Ewan Campbell... here is a lovely shot of our disc-headed iron pin from last year's excavations.  All those mutterings of 'pin-like' by Dan and myself proved to be right (virtual high five Daniel!). 
Just something to whet your whistle for what hopes to be a productive season starting next week. 


Rhynie, here we come!

Pot Luck!

A brilliant day back after yesterday's break.  We had lots of visitors to site today and the students were very busy giving tours, but in-between we managed to get quite a bit done.  Ditches are getting close to the bottom and ready for recording.  Other features are just getting started - and the annexe ditch is being difficult playing peek-a-boo.  It looks like is should be there, but keeps disappearing.  This is likely because the fill is redeposited sand which is very similar to the natural soil the ditch was dug into.

A few more finds today.  We have two iron buckles (found near each other so we call it the 'buckle hoard').  Their date is not very easy to figure out based on their shape, but they were found near a lovely handle from a pot.  We believe this to be the handle of an amphora and one of our key pieces of evidence for high status and trade here.  For those with a special interest, it appears to be Late Roman Amphora (once known as B ware), which probably dates to the 6th century AD.

Handle probably from 6th century imported pottery

The Rhynie Woman was on site today as well as Monikie Rock Art doing demonstrations.  There were lots of cinnamon buns (but you had to push Fred out of the way for them) and tasty cookies and coffee - plus the awesome Pictish Pizza! I could barely eat my lunch I was so full of cake (but I still managed it...).

Beginning to dig into features

Before the update... a beauty shot from Oskar's drone. A few days old but gives you the idea!

Hopefully you can see the annexe to the main triple enclosure ( and look at those lovely palisade postholes inside the palisade slot...).

Today was very productive with most of the site now having gone through its first trowel clean.  Lots more features emerging including arcs of postholes within the annexe.   Nothing forming definite structures as of yet, but we will know more when the plan is finalised and we can get a good overview. We are beginning to look into some of our key features to answer some big questions. Over the inner ditch we are attempting to confirm its phasing and find material in the lower fills for dating.  With the outer ditch we have to tease out its relationship to the annexe.

Morale is good after yesterday's rain.  Gordon stuck a bucket on his head, we ate cake and far too many strawberry laces and had our first head-scratcher finds.  One of these is a little stack of 4 coins - they don't look particularly old (alas!) at initial viewing, which came out of the topsoil.  Likely the contents of someone's pocket a few generations back.  The other was a lovely piece of pottery - a pedestal type base with fluted edges or finger notches.  We are not familiar with this (so have sent photos to the findsmaster).  It doesn't look like our imported pottery.

- Meggen

Soggy but good

A rather wet day today after blistering sunshine (literally for one of the diggers! Wear sunscreen!) yesterday. We only managed the morning before the rain drove us off site. But things are progressing well and the community talk delivered by Cathy went well last night. (Big shout out to Cathy for that one as Dr GN was still recovering from his eye injury and DR MG had to be on mum duty).
Most of the trench has had a good trowel now and lots of features are emerging. The annexe is well defined apart from one edge, which looks much better from the air than on the ground. We believe we have the entrance to it, which seems to have some 'horns' or extensions coming off of it. There also appear to be a number of interesting things going on inside it and a complex relationship between it and the main fortification features (inner and outer ditches and the palisade) of the main complex. Some fun teasing out of phasing to be done there. Our palisade appears to have an entrance augmented by some impressive architecture as we have large post holes and another slot feature on one side of it. This is great news as one of our objectives this year is to try and get a bit more information on how the different fortifications were built and what they may have looked like. A great start to the week and the weather looks like it will take a good turn for the next few days. At least we should not have a dry dusty trench tomorrow.

Some technical difficulties at the minute means I cannot post Oskar's latest drone photo, but we are working on it!
-Meggen

Pin X-Ray! Amazing!

A few days ago up in Aberdeen, we had specialists look at our iron artefacts and run them through a high-tech X-ray.  This is in advance of conservation going ahead on the objects to make sure they are protected and preserved.  The most amazing result was from our unique iron axe-shaped pin.  The X-ray allows us to 'see through' the corrosion on the artefact and will give the conservator a clear idea of where the real edges of the pin are.  The X-ray showed how delicate the spriral decoration is coming off the axe-head and also what looks like a loop at the top of the pin.  This might mean that at one time there was a chain or strap attached to the pin (to help keep it in place on your cloak, for example) or perhaps the object was also meant to be hanging like a pendant.  Ewan is on the case investigating the X-ray and the conservator is excited about how fantastic an object this is. There may even be hints that the spiral is an animal, but we need another X-ray to think about that option! Gordon and I are ectastic! There was some dancing around over the phone.... we admit it.

A snapshot of our x-ray - a beautiful thing!

The REAP 2012 Season

The REAP 2012 field season has begun! The archaeologists arrived on the 16th of June and the trench is now open and we are working hard - despite the rain!
There will be more updates to come from both staff and students on the training dig - including pictures.