Another sunny morning at Down Farm saw the team out on site continuing excavation and by the end of the day most of the postholes dug on Tuesday had been fully recorded. Some of the bigger postholes, which had previously been half-sectioned, have now been 100% excavated revealing their full form and depth. Two members of the team spent the day excavating an oval-shaped pit in the centre of our excavation area and found animal bone, burnt and worked flint, pottery fragments and charcoal.
Throughout the day Kayt Brown, a finds specialist from Wessex Archaeology, ran finds processing workshops, where our team were shown how to wash and mark finds ready for study and storage. We showed Kayt the pottery that was found within the pit and she believes it dates from the Iron Age, around 2,500 years ago! Also during the day Catriona ran survey training talks on site, teaching everyone how to use a theodolite to record the height above sea level of their features. This is the final stage of the recording process.
Also today the team begun to explore a large ditch to the west of the site, the excavation of which was begun during the 2004 and 2005 excavations. Currently this is very much a work in progress but we will report on this over the following two weeks.