Phil's Round-Up: Week 2

At the end of our second week at Barrow Clump our Site Director, Phil Andrews, sums up the archaeology so far for our blog readers:

Week 2 is coming to a close and the large ditch of the Bronze Age barrow is going down fast, thanks to a great effort by everyone. Following the first Saxon grave excavated at the end of last week a further seven have now been revealed, all but one within or close to the edge of the prehistoric ditch. Significantly, two of the graves lie outside of the ring-ditch showing, as we suspected, that there may be a significant number of burials to the south of the barrow.

 

 

Three of the new graves have been excavated, carefully cleaned and are now being photographed and drawn before they are lifted. The skeletons within them have suffered from varying degrees of disturbance by badgers, and one has the skull missing - though many of the other of the bones survive. However, the most surprising thing is that none of the burials so far have included grave goods - other than a single small iron buckle … we fully expect things to change next week!

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