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| Day Two: Wednesday 29 August, am Day Two: Wednesday 29 August, pm Day Two: Wednesday 29 August, am |
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 George Pagliero |
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A new Trench Six (see right) is opened by mid-morning. This is placed on the top of the mound close to the double burials in Trench Three. By late morning, Trench Seven is opened on the south bank of the mound to try and determine the extent of the burial area. |
 Trench Six is opened |
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| Day Two: Wednesday 29 August, pm To start the afternoon we caught up with Time Team’s very own Mick Aston: ‘What we’ve done is shut a couple of the trenches [Trench Two and Trench Four], because they didn’t have any evidence of burials. That’s actually very useful for working out the extent of the cemetery that we have here. Instead of thinking of the whole field being a massive cemetery we’re actually concentrating on the mound now, and trying to understand that a little better.’ With the sun burning down there’s no rest for the diggers as work continues at a fast but careful pace. Production runners are kept busy with supplying water and refreshments for the team as the tempo rises and the quest continues. ‘We’ve got Francis Pryor here,’ continues Mick, ‘who’s a great Bronze-Age expert, and he’s looking at all of the flint. He agrees with the other experts that this is not actually a barrow but a natural feature in the landscape that was obviously an important place for prehistoric people, as well as the Anglo-Saxons. The site is now looking a lot smaller than we first thought and we’re now trying to understand more about this concentrated area. The problem we face is that the state of preservation is quite poor because of the condition of the soil. Also, the material originally used to fill in the graves is the same as the surrounding soil. And because it’s so dry it’s very difficult to pick out individual features in the ground.’ By mid-afternoon Trench One is starting to make more sense and Carenza is getting closer to understanding what is happening. Some human remains are evident in the sides of the archaeological features, so it looks like there is still more to be found. |
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| The finds are looking good in Trench Three. Saxon pottery expert, Duncan Brown (pictured right), has been getting to work with his trowel, following the lack of Saxon pottery. And at 4pm he makes a discovery next to where the third burial was found. ‘I’ve found a nice shield boss [the metal dome from the centre of the shield] here and right next to it is a spearhead,’ he says. ‘This looks promising, as people were often buried with their shield on top of them and their weapons by their sides, so we could have another burial under these artefacts.’ Unfortunately, the soil conditions have taken their toll, and the iron artefacts are poorly preserved. Trench Five is still buzzing with excitement as the skeleton (pictured right) found there is being carefully excavated by Time Team digger Katie Hirst, who also has her hands full with some other features which have become evident in the soil. ‘We could have a post hole that has been cut into another grave,’ says Katie. ‘I really need to uncover a bit more before we can say exactly what is going on here.’ Of the new trenches, Trench Six, next to Trench Three and opened by Phil Harding, has gone down to 70cm deep and there is still no sign of human remains. ‘We’ve had some beautiful flint scrapers out of this, but that’s about it,’ says Phil. Over on Trench Seven, Time Team veteran digger Rob Chester has been investigating some geophysics anomalies. ‘What geophysics had here were three ‘spikes’, or good-looking readings, which were all backed up by strong signals from the metal detectorists,’ says Rob. ‘We opened up this trench so that the strongest signal was in the middle, and the other two signals were on either side of the trench. Though it’s difficult to see because the soil is so dry, we have picked up some interesting features. It looks like we could have a large post hole in the middle, but it could also be the end of a grave. We also have a few stake holes running around in a curve. What we really need to do now is clean it all back a bit so that we can really see how all of these different features fit together and if any of them are connected.’ By late afternoon, Time Team digger Barney Sloane is already getting to grips with Trench Eight. ‘We have been trying to locate what we thought could have been a trackway, defined by two parallel ditches,’ says Barney. ‘We’ve found one ditch, but the rest of the trench is still made up of a heavy compacted gravel. The finds have included some Roman material, Bronze-Age flints, and even modern metalwork, so the search continues.’ An important development of today is that the team has managed to understand the scale of the site a lot better. The finds are still coming out of the ground at a good rate and the story of this fascinating site is starting to come together. One more day to go! |
 Duncan Brown
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