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trench watch
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Day One: Tuesday 28 August

8.30am
Trench One and Trench Three are opened by Jenni Butterworth, Carenza Lewis and Kerry Ely.

9am
Work is concentrated on Trench Two, opened in the far end of the field. Phil Harding is in charge of this trench.

9.30am
Metal detectors are used in the trenches to find hot spots, which are then marked with blue dye.

10am
Trench Four is opened, and the earth removed from the trench is sieved for finds.

10.30am
The reconstruction of the Byzantine situla (bucket) begins from a sheet of brass.
Aerial view of the trenches
Trenches One,
Three and Four
11am
Ray Walton, who is reconstructing the situla, uses various tools (including a round hammer) and the brass begins to take shape.

11.30am
Diggers are busy at work on all the trenches.

12pm
Historian Robin Bush is on hand to discuss the site history.

12.30pm
Water is being consumed, and suntan lotion slapped on as the temperature rises and the trenches get deeper.

1pm
Time for lunch.

 Ray Walton
Where's my situla?
Ray Walton
2pm
Two human skeletons are discovered in Trench Three (see right). Iain Powesland, Rachel Jackson and Saxon expert Andrew Reynolds excavate the site. Professor Margaret Cox is brought in to discuss the finds with Tony Robinson. Flints found in the trench suggest they may be Bronze Age.

2.30pm
The finds now include long bones, teeth and flint, mostly found in the topsoil. Over at the sieving trays, local volunteers Isabelle, Imogen and Penny are busy with soil from Trenches Two and Three.

3pm
The graphics team – including Raysan Al-Kubaisi and Maya Gavin – are busy putting together 3-D images of the site, blending in aerial shots from a helicopter flight that took place yesterday. Geophysics has now covered just over half the main field.

3.30pm
Mick Aston and landscape archaeologist Stuart Ainsworth discuss how the cemetery and the river may have been used in the past.

 the two skeletons
Grave discoveries:
the two skeletons
4pm
Trench Five is opened (see right).

4.30pm
The metal detectorists have marked out potential hot spots in the new trench.
 And then there were five ...
And then there
were five ...