A chance to dig back in Pirton with Gil Burleigh could not be refused this weekend. Gil is a professional archaeologist & I think formerly the Hertfordshire County Archaeologist, in other words, what he doesn't know about archaeology probably isn't worth knowing so it was great to go back to the village. Last time I was there Cambridge University were still doing their outreach project run by Carenza Lewis, who used the pottery expert Paul Blinkhorn to analyse the pot finds, both appeared regularly on Time Team. One dig I was on, infact I was digging and being watched and commented on by Carenza, Gil, and another Cambridge archaeologist Cat, I could have felt very intimidated but they were so nice to this idiot digging I couldn't have been more star struck!!!
This weekends dig was interesting if alittle light on the finds. Alot of building detritus in the first couple of contexts, that was no surprise,it turns out we were digging on the site of a cottage built around the 1880's. A few pot sherds, the ever popular Victorian blue & white with one lonely sherd from the early Medieval period, then we hit clay at about 0.4m, this would have been the cottage floor, so we were keen to get below that to the sealed layers beneath. Another 10cm was still clay then we hit chalk, surprising for this neck of the woods. We only have two days to get a dig started and finished so time was against us. Gil suggested we half the pit to get on quicker, down and down we dug. The 'we' being me, Ivor & Nigel. & Saturday only, Annie. Halved the pit again, so now only digging a quarter if the 1m square original test pit, got nearly a metre down and finds had been non-existent most of the way. Gil brought out the augur to see how far the chalk went down but it was incredibly difficult to get it down very far, but as far as it went was still chalk, a depth of about 1.2m. It was deemed to be the natural so game over, just the delights of backfilling, my least favourite part! I should say we were very well catered for by on of the residents of the cottages opposite our test pit, who very kindly brought us tea & home made scones no less on the Sunday, with the occasional 'help' from her little daughter, who actually invited us round for |Sunday lunch, much to her Mum's surprise! I've been doing this a few years now but wouldn't consider myself an archaeologist, even with a very big 'amateur' prefixing it, I may, with encouragement call myself a digger, though Gil suggested I was short changing myself and said of course I was an archaeologist!
Sometimes the finds can be a bit thin on the ground, on under it to be more accurate, but that never detracts from the hope that you'll find something interesting in the very next pull of the trowel over the surface, it's always a jolly weekend though I must say it's less like Team Team and more Last of the Summer Wine does archaeology but it is a laugh. Where else could you find three fools dancing round in a metre square hole singing the 'Ying Tong Song' whilst tamping down the soil in the backfilling!!? Roll on the next dig!
This weekends dig was interesting if alittle light on the finds. Alot of building detritus in the first couple of contexts, that was no surprise,it turns out we were digging on the site of a cottage built around the 1880's. A few pot sherds, the ever popular Victorian blue & white with one lonely sherd from the early Medieval period, then we hit clay at about 0.4m, this would have been the cottage floor, so we were keen to get below that to the sealed layers beneath. Another 10cm was still clay then we hit chalk, surprising for this neck of the woods. We only have two days to get a dig started and finished so time was against us. Gil suggested we half the pit to get on quicker, down and down we dug. The 'we' being me, Ivor & Nigel. & Saturday only, Annie. Halved the pit again, so now only digging a quarter if the 1m square original test pit, got nearly a metre down and finds had been non-existent most of the way. Gil brought out the augur to see how far the chalk went down but it was incredibly difficult to get it down very far, but as far as it went was still chalk, a depth of about 1.2m. It was deemed to be the natural so game over, just the delights of backfilling, my least favourite part! I should say we were very well catered for by on of the residents of the cottages opposite our test pit, who very kindly brought us tea & home made scones no less on the Sunday, with the occasional 'help' from her little daughter, who actually invited us round for |Sunday lunch, much to her Mum's surprise! I've been doing this a few years now but wouldn't consider myself an archaeologist, even with a very big 'amateur' prefixing it, I may, with encouragement call myself a digger, though Gil suggested I was short changing myself and said of course I was an archaeologist!
Sometimes the finds can be a bit thin on the ground, on under it to be more accurate, but that never detracts from the hope that you'll find something interesting in the very next pull of the trowel over the surface, it's always a jolly weekend though I must say it's less like Team Team and more Last of the Summer Wine does archaeology but it is a laugh. Where else could you find three fools dancing round in a metre square hole singing the 'Ying Tong Song' whilst tamping down the soil in the backfilling!!? Roll on the next dig!
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