As promised Ian visited a number of excavations last week including Dorstone Hill – here’s his report.
Hi everyone! Nice to be back after a whirlwind trip to Wiltshire and Herefordshire. I caught up with the team digging on top of Dorstone Hill in Herefordshire and as you see by the pictures, there have been significant developments – not least in the weather.
Work on the excavation over the final two weeks has revealed more of the stone bank identified in earlier seasons. Prof Thomas says that this has reached its furthest westward point. New features emerged as the site was cleared and many of these have now been interpreted as post holes for a further timber hall of similar characteristics to structures found between 2012-2014. Again there was evidence of burning – suggesting that this structure too had been deliberately burnt down, possibly as it went out of use, possibly much later.
In terms of artefacts, the team have found some pottery and flint flakes, but nothing as exciting as the polished stone axe found in 2013! As I was there there was the usual rush to get everything completed before tomorrow (28th July) as this is the date the trench would be backfilled. So naturally the weather had decided to take a turn for the worse, and sa the pictures show the conditions were, demanding shall we say!
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Saturday was a very different day, mostly as two members of the team Sarah and Lewis were getting married in Bredwardine, where they had met on the 2011 dig! This sort of thing happens quite often in archaeology believe it or not! Naturally, the sun shone brightly on the happy couple. As I left on Sunday however, the rain was falling again, making Prof Thomas’ decisions about how to finish off even more tricky. There were still features to excavate and sections/plans to draw, let alone clean the site prior to it being photographed. Such is an archaeologist’s lot.
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