Digging into Features

Our work exploring the many features on site continues.  We're doing really well and have been helped by a small but dedicated group of volunteers (today alone we had Sheila - our queen of sieving - helped out by Tony, Ron & Juliet in the big enclosure ditch, Alastair in a scoop, Dave in the small enclosure ditch, Diane in a smaller barrow ditch and Fred in a something we can't quite identify yet!

That's in addition to our team of star Aberdeen diggers, too.  The day was largely dry but overcast, which meant we could see features and fills much better - and now there is a nice soft rain that will hopefully make the features pop out at us tomorrow.  Hopefully it won't be too wet into the day tomorrow, though, as we've got the WHOLE of Rhynie Primary visiting us for their 'day at the dig' - we will definitely be a busy site tomorrow!  At least we'll have lots of (little) hands to help us trowel, sieve and clean up some of our finds.

We've managed to complete a slot each across our two square enclosures.  Neither are particularly deep and they have not had much in them in terms of finds, but both had charcoal, which is hopefully going to provide us with some dates.  Both ditches are quite similar, which adds to the impression that the two enclosures are contemporary. 

The small square enclosure ditch.

A mysterious feature (kind of an amorphous blob...) in the middle of the smaller square enclosure has been investigated, too.  Although we still aren't sure what it is, we have found a large chunk of burnt wood in it.  It looks like a bit of a burnt branch.  We've lifted this whole and will take it back to the lab so our scientists can identify what type of tree it came from and take a sample for radiocarbon dating.

The burnt branch found today.

The Rhynie lurgy seems to have made a reappearance this year (it swept through the digging team last year!).  I've fallen prey and Gordon has a 'tickle' in his throat.  Perhaps a medicinal whisky is in order... just for health purposes, obviously!