An idiots guide to an idiot: Dig The Third.

Back to Shillington again this weekend for a dig in an orchard of a former farm house, on the outskirts of the village really at Hanscombe End.
The digging here was so much easier, we were off the clay and onto a more sandy, gritty soil we were able to sieve it all unlike our previous three digs, though unfortunately no tea or coffee from Mrs Lopsided the owner, but she did have a great little dog who was always pleased to see us!
Got cracking with the excavation the usual rules apply of a 1m square test pit. This is also plotted from the edges of the house or any other solid structure to enable anyone for future reference to find exactly where we had dug.
Have to say finds were abit thin on the ground, just afew bits & pieces in the way of pot sherds. Modern (Victorian in this case I think) and Medieval. Hit pay dirt at 0.60cm when I uncovered a large bone, about 30cm long it was probably an ox or cow bone. A large animal and no mistake. It's hard work digging and it was a hot day but I don't mind saying all my aches disappeared when this find started to appear. I trowelled carefully around it, also used finer tools that Kevin had, tidied up the pit and let Derek record ( photo, plan and notes) then I went back in and took the bone out. Part of the condyle facets broke away on lifting but in the main it was intact. An exciting find! Difficult to date though the suggestion would be sometime of the Medieval period as all the pottery, such as it was, was of this era.
Called it a day then and adjured to the Musgrave Arms for the traditional 'post dig analysis,' the guest beer this time was Nobby's 'Claridges Crystal.' 3.6% a very light coloured beer with that perfect refreshing citrus twang to it. A brilliant pint of loveliness to end a great day's archaeology.
Day two was relatively short as the context beneath the bone find started to show signs of the natural undisturbed chalk.
Nigel now digging, the deeper it gets the better for him! We're allowed to dig to 1.2m only, you'd need to be shoring up to go deeper though few test pits do.....unless Nigel is digging! Looking more and more like natural about half of the final context was excavated taking us to about 1m deep. The finds had now completely dried up, the last being small pieces of bone from just below the large bone.
The joy of backfilling then commenced, the most tedious part of the operation in my humble opinion, the ease and relative speed of digging in this soil bit us back as there was alot of dirt to get back into the pit. Old Thumper and Old Thumper II were employed (see 'Dig the Second' blog) to their full. Lunch then Musgrave Arms again ..........just to consolidate what we'd found you understand then homewards. Another great weekend.