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.

Pretty little moulds all in a row

An early morning post before we head out for the day.  Remember, if you are visiting site today we will be very busy trying to wrap everything up, but we will try to stop for a chat.

Just a selection of finds from the past few days drying out.

Hard to believe we are almost done.  What an amazing season.  We'll update about our post-ex progress and especially about some of these magical moulds once they have been cleaned and analysed.  We are hoping some are complete enough to have 3D scanned and then 3D printed so we can try casting our own Pictish metalwork!

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.

I'll drink to that...

Some eye candy for those that like a bit of drinking glass...

Rim of probably 5th-6th century glass drinking vessel from Rhynie.

Update: Crucible Kings and Pin Princessess

Rhynie 2016 is well under way and we had our first visit from Rhynie Primary today. Our two teams - 'The Archaeologists' and 'The Picts' - did a bit of detective work with aerial photography, got a first hand look at the amazing finds we have on site so far and got their hands dirty in Trench 5 doing a bit of trowelling back and sieving.  Wouldn't you know it they found TWO flint flakes in the topsoil?!? Those keen young eyes...


The big developments over the past few days have been the number and quality of finds.  Since we started excavating features, the finds have been popping up all over the place.


Highlights include numerous crucible sherds - largely found by Curtis and Lewis in the outer ditch.  Crucibles are small clay pots used to melt precious metals like bronze for making items such as pins and brooches in the Pictish period.  To complement all those sherds we have a potential crucible stand and a growing number of moulds for pins and other objects.

Possible stone crucible stand.

Not to be overshadowed by the lads in the outer ditch, Vicky became our first pin princess by finding a lovely fragment of a copper alloy pin.  The pin looks purposefully bent or broken and is reminiscent of a bent nail-headed pin from the site. 


A few sherds of amphorae have also emerged, but this year the focus really seems to be on metalworking debris (at least so far!).


The big find of the day was also the most delicate - a lovely rim of a glass drinking vessel. Roland (looking unimpressed apparently) was heading towards Gordon with glass in hand when Dr GN started the dance of joy - Daniel said it made his year! This adds to our small but important collection of fine glass drinking vessels. 


We should be having an open day on Sunday this weekend so keep your eyes posted on the blog and the Northern Picts facebook page (for those that do that sort of thing!).

2016 Season begins!

We are well into cleaning the trenches and revealing our familiar features as well as some tantalising new features.  The inner and outer ditches look great as does the palisade and the ring of palisade postholes.  We have one small sherd of Late Roman Amphora so far from cleaning. 


The students and volunteers not to mention the staff are looking forward to the next few weeks of back breaking labour, banter and careful trowelling.  Rhynie Woman is providing the best lunches for us EVER (ah, the cakes!).


Most of us are heading to the Prize Bingo tonight and there will be tours tomorrow during Rhynie Gala. Meet near the Gala tents in the village during the afternoon!

Drone shot of our trenches 2016.

Puzzle solved at least: Day Four

Day 4 proved sunny (too hot for some) and although conditions were dry and dusty, it was still a good day for picking out features during the planning sessions.  Our 'jigsaw' effect on the site also was solved - as the site dried out more, we could see that the difference in drying wasn't because of a natural change in the soil, but that the area was really really thick with archaeological features! As the soil dried more, the shapes of pits and possible ring ditches emerged more clearly.  We have a very busy trench...

Our small team of female archaeologists-in-training from Aberdeen University are doing an amazing job.  They have produced some of the best plans I've seen in a long time, especially for a first attempt!  We feel very lucky they are with us and willing to work so hard.

Thankfully we also had more volunteers show up today on site  - Amanda and Jenna stayed for the whole day and sorted out the entrance area to the big enclosure.  Fred got his hands dirty, too, helping trowel back to clean in advance of planning.  Later in the day, we had a few local Rhynie folk - Jake and his friend (whose name we didn't catch, sorry!) came by and trowelled up a storm -  hopefully to return to help us out again. They even found our star find of the day - a fantastic glass droplet.  This would most likely have been formed during glass-making or glass-working - perhaps for a bead or something similar.  We cannot be sure of a date at the moment, but have Ewan and others on the case. 

The clear glass droplet found on site today.

Today was great for visitors, too, both from Rhynie and further afield.  Mabel, who used to own the field we are working in, came by for a chat and brought us some lovely chocolates. Fred might just have some competition for 'best visitor' this year.

We can't say how much it means to us to have the village behind us and to have folks coming by for a look, asking us questions and getting excited about the dig and what it can tell us about Rhynie's past.  It really makes our work worthwhile.   

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.