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Site Diary

Day Eleven at Caerfai Camp

September 14th 2021

I think this goes for everyone on site, when I say that we had the best morning ever due to a visit from very very good boy Alfie and his mum, artist Linda Norris. Alfie supervised the digging in the trenches and hunted out the best hugs, kisses and sunbathing spot (Alfie is a dog, by the way!). We loved having him here. Linda visited to take a look at our archaeological remains to see if any could provide inspiration for her work. We hope that we helped and provided some insights into our site.

Meanwhile, over in the southern part of Trench 1, we had Venturers Graham, Richard and Mike trowelling down to clean the archaeological layer back to try to see what those big stones are all about.

Lovely Venturer Stroma also pitched in, and it was great to help her re-live her childhood hopes of being an archaeologist one day!

Back over in the ‘occupational’ zone of Trench 1, dream team Becca, Jo and Cherish’s Lou continued to find charcoal, flecks of cremated bone and LOADS of iron slag.

And we mean loads! But we haven’t yet found the hearth/fire/kiln….we think we are just on the edge of where it could be! Slag comes from the minerals leached out during the smelting process – smelting is where a metal ore is melted down at a super high temperature in order to cast and make metal items, such as weapons, tools and jewellery. On this site we have found copper slag, a result of creating bronze metal, as well as iron slag. It is very lightweight and sometimes has a slightly glassy surface and a honeycomb appearance, like the sherds below.

Meanwhile, over in the test pits where we decided to ground truth a few geophysical anomalies, Venturers Stroma and Mike continued the Mary’s work and came down onto a pretty sturdy stone wall! We were not expecting any masonry on this part of the site and we are thrilled at the possibility of unknown archaeological remains on the headland.

Our day was topped off by super lovely Venturer Phil bringing us goodies in the form of delicious cupcakes which didn’t last very long at all! Thanks Phil <3

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Sep 15 2021 - 8:13 PM

All good things must come to an end and sadly this is the case here at Caerfai Camp. That’s right – it’s our last day on site. Our last chance to excavate, draw, survey, mattock, trowel, and sit pondering about whether a wall is a wall or if it’s a coincidental pile of stones.

It was quite a busy full on day for us here at #DigCaerfai. The sunshine brought around 50 visitors past our trenches and we couldn’t resist telling everyone about the wonderful finds and archaeological remains. We also had a visit from the lovely team at Coast and Country who filmed a segment for one of their next episodes. We can’t wait to see how it turns out and to give the CHERISH project some more recognition for the wonderful work they’re carrying out!

The Venturers continued down into the occupational zone of the trench, to clean features up for close up photos and in order to take photogrammetry shots to make a 3D model of the site. Cherish’s Lou worked with student Becca and aspirational archaeologist Josh, whilst Jo and Jamie got stuck in recording a post hole that had been excavated.

Back over in Trench 2, Cherish’s Dan discovered a small wall and possible further ditch. Being still nowhere closer to the bottom of the original ditch, we decided to clean up the trench and call it a day, and leave the unanswered questions for another time.

We hosted a live site tour through Zoom at midday, showing people from around the world and as far as Australia around our trenches, giving them the insider scoop on our features and what the team thought of the remains. We had some brilliant feedback – thanks to all who attended!

The rest of the day was taken up with strategising and working out the best way to finish and record our dug features, Here’s Cherish’s Lou and student Becca working out what was going on with their never ending posthole!

We also delivered more site tours, had a visit from the Ancient Monuments inspector Louise Mees and Ken from Dyfed Archaeological Trust, who offered some really interesting insights into our remains here at Caerfai Camp. Cherish’s Dan took to the skies with his drone once again, capturing some orthophotos (georeferenced aerial images) of our trenches so that we can use them to visualise the site better once it’s all filled back in.

Lovely veteran Venturer Jo brought the much-needed refreshments and treats for us – thanks Jo!

And therein marks our last day on site! With everything measured, recorded and having found out all we can for now, it’s Hoyle to the site and a good sleep for the team before a day of backfilling tomorrow…

Sep 12 2021 - 7:10 PM

Today we cracked on with making some progress in Trench 2 over on the ramparts. We still have a way to go to understand their construction and to get to the bottom of the ditch, but Cherish’s Dan and friend Nicky made brilliant headway down in blisteringly hot conditions!

Meanwhile our lovely Venturers continued in their quest for answers about the stone mound in the corner of the trench.

The stones seem to continue down and down! Venturers Jenny and Amber did a super job, finding lots more cremated bone fragments.

Further down the trench, Venturers Justin and Eve worked alongside Cherish’s Lou and DV’s own Jodie in the occupational zone. They found lots more charcoal flecks in and around the low stone wall and some possible post holes.

Venturer Ben also did a super job, finding bits of charcoal and slag in our occupational layer along with more cremated bone fragments.

Eve then received a ‘how to plan a post-hole 101’ from DV’s own Steph and we made great headway on getting that written and drawn record down for the site. As important as the digital records are, it’s always great to have a hand-drawn section to match them up to.

Sep 11 2021 - 8:19 PM

We had one of our best days of finds today at Penpleidiau!

Our day started with Venturers Mary and Mary excavating the charcoaley deposits over our stone floor surface to work out if they were cremation burials. But they weren’t – they just appear to be little dumps of small bones, ash and charcoal.

Venturer Phil cleaned back the next archaeological layer next to the Marys, only to find an incredible little flint thumbnail scraper! This had been dropped next to the stone flooring / entranceway into our possible building.

Almost immediately afterwards, Steph cleaned back a post-hole that had been excavated and recorded only to find a pottery sherd! Iron Age pottery is incredibly rare and we are delighted to have found something that can help date the site.

Meanwhile in the north of the trench, Steph and Jodie decided that the big mound of stones needed to go so that we could work out what was beneath them – so our lovely Venturers took to it with gusto and make brilliant progress! They found more slingshots, charcoal flecks and cremated bone fragments as they dug down. Hopefully we will have some more answers in a few days.

Archaeology / In Your Hands

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Caerfai Promontory Fort