Today was the final day of archaeology for this season’s excavation.  Although there are still some bits and bobs to do on site tomorrow, today marks the end of digging and recording for our 2016 season.

The day began with Elliot and James G finishing their work on the tessellated pavement.  After recording the final overlying layer, removing it and sampling it in its entirety, they were able to uncover the pavement as much as possible.  In the final layer on top of the pavement James G even found a completely intact Late Roman bone hair pin.  After it was uncovered, with some careful brush work and some excellent sponging methods, they were able to clean it up in preparation for its photo record.

Elsewhere in the trench, our top planning team of Lucy and Becca finished off their work for the season by finally recording the last of the walls.

Meanwhile, Matt, Frankie, Jeff, Freddie and Tom were occupied with the mammoth task of cleaning up the rest of the trench, ready for Andy to take a whole trench photo.

Hayley and Doug were able to take out the final layer of their burnt patch and sample it before Hayley and Elliot took on their supervisory roles and delegated the cleaning of the trench as much as possible.

The majority of the team were taken home while Andy, James G, Elliot and Hayley attempted to do some laser scanning of the trench.  Unfortunately due to rain they had to postpone playing with the expensive gadgets until tomorrow.

It’s the final day on site for most people tomorrow before backfilling on Friday.  Both our first and second teams are incredibly proud of what they’ve achieved over the last four weeks, seeing the trench completely cleaned up today hammered home how much their hard work has paid off.