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?

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!

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.

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.