After some delay James and Andy are pleased to announce that the 2013 post-excavation assessment has been completed.

The excavations produced evidence for Late Iron Age settlement activity and Roman period ditched boundaries.

This report has been submitted to the Somerset HER.

We’re all back in Newcastle safe and sound but the work never stops.

James and Andy are thinking about NEXT season – which is their cunning plan comes to fruition is going to require quite a lot of thought and planning!

Meanwhile Don O’Meara has assessed the slag from the 2014 excavations of the deserted medieval village of ?Barrow. This is what Don has to say:

“The evidence suggest that secondary-smithing was taking place at this site; i.e. the making, or repair, of iron objects from consolidated bar iron as opposed to the smelting of ore, or the primary working of unconsolidated iron bloom material. Specifically, tap slag was not identified, which would be typical of smelting operations. This was determined both by the surface morphology of the material, and the generally small and uniform vesicle sizes. The smithing hearth bases are formed by the reaction of iron scale, silica and the clay lining which form the base of the smithing hearth, and are common finds from medieval sites. The volume of material recovered at this stage does not suggest very extensive metal-working, though as this material is not likely to be transported for long distances it suggests that the iron-working was taking place within the immediate area of the excavation.”

Interesting stuff.

Saturday saw quite a lot of activity on site. After the recent heavy rain there was a lot of activity by James, James H, Chris, Tilly and Elliot in the northern end of the trench tidying up the ditches in preparation for photos and recording.

Nick Corcos of Avon Archaeology visited us and used a drone to take some overhead shots. This was great fun and James H had the opportunity to help out. There was a little bit of interest in the drone from the local buzzards who are still waiting and watching in anticipation of a free lunch.

Meanwhile in the southern end of the trench Andy, Hayley, Ellie, Zara, Mara and Josh began excavating (007) – a very nice ditch fill that we identified on day two. The finds came thick and fast (for this year!) and soon we had a small handful of BB1 sherds and a couple flakes of flint.

Josh made the star find though: a rather plain copper-alloy finger-ring of Roman date. It was great to find this object, which proved a useful morale boost. We are currently trying to ascertain whether Josh will soon need to embark on a long journey to cast this ring into a volcano.

A visitor to our site today asked James G whether we were archaeologists or installing a gas pipe. The confusion is due to our new bigger and better trench. It’s 100m long and 4m wide.

The landowner came over to see what we’ve been up to and gave his blessing (many thanks!) to the new, enlarged trench, Most of the work so far has been due to Mike Grinter and his digger, which has been working flat out.

It’s early days but archaeological features are showing up (some where the geophysics say they should be, others don’t appear on the magnetometry).

One feature in particular contained a large and fresh fragment from a Roman jar and Andy began excavating a narrow ditch. This ditch we think might have been part of an enclosure around the villa and is an interesting feature. It’s got a number of fills, one of which is very charcoal rich and another contains sherds of a slightly micaceous greyware Roman period jar.

Chris, Hayley and James H continued trowelling, this time defining a large ‘blob’, which might be a number of intercutting features.

An excellent day with lots achieved and lots to do tomorrow.