Well, this time last week I was in shorts enjoying a warm walk along Hadrian's Wall. Yep, that's me in shorts in northern England. I wouldn't be doing that now. As everyone has told me, the weather we have had the last three days is more common for April. As you can see from the group photo for last week I am in my "chem" boots and it is overcast and dreary. It has rained everyday since Thursday. The rain has not been constant nor heavy but it does create muddy, gunky conditions in the trench. That would be the picture of the trench Friday morning, full of water. We ended up taking turf and topsoil off of new sections in preparation for this upcoming week of digging. Oh, and it seems in England, if you are wearing white waterproof boots that equates to hazardous material removal suits and hence the "chem" boots nickname for my white wellingtons.
The group picture is Albert and Annie who dug for the week and will be back again at the end of the season, Tom, Justin, myself, Amy, Pete, and last but not least, David. Katie will remember David because he dug the same we as we did last year. He has been coming for a few years as has Albert and Annie. I hope to be lucky enough to do the same, come back for a few more years. As Justin says in his speech to school groups, there is still 100 years worth of archaeology to be done.
On Saturday we were able to get back into the units that we had been digging in earlier in the week and some great archaeology turned up. Justin found a ditch that may end up being fairly large running through his unit towards the mausoleum that was excavated the previous week. Annie and Albert also found a ditch, again quite large, and pulled out the first organic small finds of the season for Area B. They found a bit of leather, roughly the size of the palm of your hand, and the left sole of a hobnail boot. Excellent stuff. I was not able to get pictures of the shoe sole since it was found right at the end of the day Saturday but I promise to get one up next week. The other big find was an almost intact rim, neck and shoulders of a black burnished ware storage jar. The picture is Annie holding the jar find. The jar would have stood approximately 2 feet tall. Big storage jar! There was an incised pattern around the shoulder but no graffiti. next week, whoever has that unit will probably be finding more organics and maybe a stamp may still be legible on the leather.
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