![\"Lots](\"http:\/\/nortoncommarch.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/lots_of_finds.jpg\" "\\"lots_of_finds\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nLots of finds, marked by the blue flages<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Caoimh\u00edn is going through last year\u2019s context records. They are in an awful state and would have been even worse if I\u2019d not made people fill in what they could last September. What\u2019s particularly galling is that contexts not recorded in section aren\u2019t always on plan and the majority don\u2019t have any stratigraphic relationships recorded (not even wrong ones). Things will have to be kept tighter this year!<\/p>\n
In the small area where the excavation of (35) is going on, there is already a large number of finds. They include lithics, ceramics (at least some of which seem to be prehistoric, although others are Roman) and the Roman coin. If this is a ditch fill, it shows that it was continuing to silt into the first millennium AD. That would suggest that it\u2019s a rather substantial feature. On the other hand, it\u2019s directly overlying the natural chalk with no sign of a cut, which makes me think that it\u2019s more likely to have developed as a subsoil.<\/p>\n
By lunchtime, most of (35) left by the machine beyond the edge of last year\u2019s Trench I has been removed, leaving a lot of finds to be recorded. Once we\u2019re finished with planning in this trench, the non-digging person in a team of three will become responsible for dealing with the finds. This will speed up the whole process of 3D recording, which got so out of hand last year.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nA plough rut newly discovered by Nick that runs into the henge bank: this is why there is no longer a visible earthwork!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Caoimh\u00edn has come up with a good suggestion for the TBM. Rather than measure from the head of the nail or the top of the post, we will be taking the backsight from the soil surface on the site north side of the base of the peg. This way, it won\u2019t matter if the peg is knocked or the nail is disturbed.<\/p>\n
The number of finds in (35) is huge. This may well be a reflection of its status as a (probable) subsoil, in that it incorporates a variety of material possibly introduced by medieval ploughing. As we get into ditch deposits, I\u2019m confident that the number of finds will decrease. Quite how this may work with the deposits in the centre of the henge, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Overall, I\u2019m fairly happy with progress. I was irritated by the late start this morning, as we didn\u2019t actually start doing anything until 11 a.m., but it\u2019s a Saturday and people are giving up their free time to be here, so I ought not to complain. Once excavation was under way, it progressed at a reasonable pace (considering the dryness of the soil) and recording the finds was quicker than last year. This is a process that I\u2019m sure will speed up as people become more accustomed to the system.<\/p>\n
Filed under: Fieldwork<\/a>, Stapleton’s Field Dig 2011<\/a> Saturday 30 July 2011 On site: Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Caoimh\u00edn \u00d3 Coile\u00e1in, Zoe \u00d3 Coile\u00e1in, Nick Smith, Greg Ford, Ernie Ford, Philip Dean, Chris Hobbs, Mark Perks, Martin Jupp, Christl Squires Weather: dry, cloudy with rare patches of blue sky, becoming sunny with light cloud by lunchtime A late start because more people were late than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p17eR9-1s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"