Seeing as it has come to the end of our excavations it seems appropriate to report what have been highlights for our student digging team.

Lucy
Graduate
“I enjoyed the responsibility of being a supervisor over the last 3weeks the close connection between the uni digging team and SSARG members. I also really living with the numerous cats on the camp site”.

James SA
1st Year
“Working as part of a great team, deepening my archaeological knowledge and eating outdoors for 3 weeks”.

Chris
1st year
“I enjoyed shovelling, local ale particularly at The Masons Arms. Another highlight was the sumo wrestling with Janes SA at the pub.”

Hayley
1st Year
“It was nice to have the opportunity to do other activities on site such as taking levels. I really enjoyed being part of a small team as well”.

Jessie
1st Year
“It was nice to break up the digging by going on trips to places like Lullworth Cove. I also enjoyed seeing the archaeological process from beginning to end. It was lovely to see some kittens at the cattery on our campsite”.

Flora
1st Year
“I loved meeting some of the local characters. It was a good experience learning to dig and plan features”.

Elliot
1st Year
“I enjoyed the challenged of excavating a complex archaeological site and of course winning the open mic night at The Mason’s arms in Lower Odcombe”.

Kimberley
1st Year
“I thought the entire dig was a really good experience and it was great to be part of a really friendly team”.

Ollie
2nd year
“I really enjoyed working on this site with a fantastic bunch of people and keeping people up to date with what we are doing on site via the blog”.

Yesterday was our last day on site. We began by troweling back all of tench B ready for an end of dig photo.

After photos were taken of the trench and the team, with the help of Ski, we began backfilling the large slots in both trenches

When we had finished and packed up all the kit we returned to our usual haunt at the Masons Arms for a post dig celebration.

Today has been relaxed, we breakfasted in Yeovil and have spent the day packing up the campsite.

Even though we have reached the mid point of our final week in Somerset, work has not slowed down.

In trench A Hayley and Chris continued to excavate and then plan the feature which has been producing lots of medieval pottery and animal bone. Later in the afternoon part of the team began backfilling the large slot in the middle of the trench.

Today in trench B, Kimberley and Ollie spent the morning drawing a section of the NE slot. After a break they troweled the base of the ditch, assuming some interesting troweling techniques and also had a near miss with a combine harvester.

As well in trench B Andy, Flora,  and James SA investigated a ditch which predated the crunchy red fill. James G suggests that the layer found this morning contains “remnants of our ancient past” but that is how he also described our corned beef hash. It actually proved to be a ditch and contained some sherds of prehistoric and Roman pottery, a very degraded animal bone and some pieces of granite. All very mysterious but clear evidence of pre-medieval activity.

On Saturday Evening James gave a talk to members of the Lufton community about the excavations and research over the last five years, hosted by Brympton Parish Council.

The talk was also an opportunity to show of some of the finds from this years excavations, including the seal matrix found by Ski in the first week.

After a very successful raffle, James answered a number of questions from the audience about this years excavations and the archaeology of the area.

We’d like to say thank you to the parish council for their kind welcome, hospitality and generosity over the last few weeks.

Today was another hot and busy day on site.

Lucy and Hayley planned and recorded the stone feature in trench A.

In trench B, Chris and Kimberley also drew the plan and section for the hollow way in the NW of the trench.

Mary and Ollie began digging a slot on the NE of trench B to establish whether the hollow way continues across the trench.

Also in trench B Andy, James (G and St A), Flora and Sue investigated interesting interfaces between contexts in the south of the trench. James St A found some flint in a small pit he was digging raising the prospect of prehistoric activity nearby.

Bill did some splendid sieving and found more medieval pottery.

Bill, Pete and Hayley investigated the stone feature in Trench A and discovered it was most likely a land drain and probably modern.

There was lots of activity in Trench B today.

Kimberly, Chris, James G and Ollie continued to excavate an interesting feature in the north west corner of Trench B. They moved a large amount of earth to reach a blueish grey context which could be the fill of a hollow way. This area produced a large amount of medieval pottery including green glazed sherds.

Also in Trench B, Andy, James SA and Elliot continued to excavate a slot running through a large feature. Having removed a context, which produced medieval pottery and iron slag they then recorded the underlying deposit and took some levels.

A journalist from the Western Gazette also turned up to take photos of the site and the team.

We returned home to a lovely carbonara prepared by Flora and Jess.

Tonight we will be sampling some Somerset cider in the Mason’s Arms, Odcombe

This morning Andy and Ollie spent some time establishing a temporary bench mark (TBM) by traversing across the landscape from a datum which tells us height above see level. A TBM is used to work out the height above sea level of features and artefacts when using a level and is a really important part of the recording process.

The work in trench A began with Lucy, Flora and Hayley drawing a section. Later Pete and Bill scraped back exposing an interesting feature in the south eastern corner. In Trench B Chris and Kimberly used the magnetic susceptibility meter.

After lunch the team continued to straighten the trench edge, expose the interesting stone feature and excavate a slot across one of our features, this produced a number of medieval sherds. Another find was a seal matrix found by Ski, our local metal detector, near one of our trenches. More on this exciting find to follow!