Way back in 2014 (seems like it was ages ago) we investigated the deserted medieval settlement of Barrow in Odcombe.

The digging at Barrow is long finished but the analysis of the finds is still ongoing. Rather excitingly we’ve just received the pottery report from Berni Seddon at PCA. We found 600 sherds of pottery weighing about 4.5kg. Most of the pottery dates from around AD1175-1300. The big pit in Trench A that Lucy excavated contained pottery dated to AD1250-1300.

This is all interesting stuff and will help us to complete the report we’re writing on the excavations.

Lucy with some thirteenth-century pottery from her pit in Trench A

The public often believe that archaeology is all about digging. The truth is that for every day we spend in the field digging, we spend two or three days more back in the lab or the office thinking about and analysing our discoveries.

James has recently sent the tiny assemblage of samian pottery (all 3 sherds!) from last year’s excavations in Hungerford to samian pottery specialist J. M. Mills. One sherd, from ditch fill [007] is a tiny fragment of a Dragendorff 15/17 platter from La Graufesenque in southern Gaul (modern France).

This sherd is important because it dates from about AD40-AD85. The Roman invasion happened in AD43 and the West Country probably wasn’t conquered until AD47 or so. We know from Tacitus and archaeological discoveries that there was trouble in the west during the Boudiccan Revolt in AD60/61.

So our little sherd shows that the inhabitants of the Late Iron Age settlement in Hungerford were in contact with the Romans soon after the conquest of the region. We don’t know what the conquest was like, but with a military presence established at Ham Hill and a fort at Ilchester it was likely to have been bloody. The sherd demonstrates other kinds of contact and that the locals were able to access some imported luxuries in the decades after the invasion.

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.

We had another day of brilliant weather on site, providing great conditions for the team as the recording and final stages of excavation ramp up!

In terms of excavations: Hayley and Ellie put a slot in the southern-most feature in the trench; James, Andy, Tilly and Zara removed the section from (007) finding yet more pottery. Meanwhile, slightly further south Samara continued to excavate her ditch, finding today’s star find – a fragment of what might be a clay loom weight.

Further north on the recording front: Chris, Douglas, Holly-Ann and James H were tasked with drawing 30m sections of the limit of excavation (LoE). The section was the largest any of them had every recorded, but luckily we had help from Woofton!

Had visits from Matt, a Newcastle University student and members of the Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society: Brian and Moira.

It may seem like we’re wrapping things up already, but there’s still much to be done on site before the week’s end!

We found it hard to believe that we had been rained off site just last week with the brilliant conditions today – not a cloud in the sky!

It was a busy day on site, with many features being worked on and many visitors to site. Our first arrival was a local prospective V400 (BA Archaeology) student, Hugh, who came to get a taste of what an archaeological site is like.

We also had a visit from a local landowner Robert Unwin – whose land we excavated in throughout the 2012 and 2013 seasons, as well as James’ friends Nick and Suzie.

We made great progress on site with both the northern and southern ditches of the trackway being fully excavated. The southern ditch gave us our star find of the day, found by Douglas, a single BB1 body sherd – allowing us to roughly date the context. Meanwhile Chris and Holly-Ann removed a layer at the northern end of the finding pottery and burnt flint.

Samara and Zara began excavating a feature at the southern end of the trench finding some large pieces of worked flint, animal bone and BB1 sherds. Tilly, Josh, Elliott and Andy worked on the second slot in (007) finding a huge amounts of BB1, flints and vitrified ash.

All-on-all today has been a good start to the final week of excavations.

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.