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
