{"id":104,"date":"2013-05-04T16:10:40","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T15:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/?p=104"},"modified":"2013-05-27T19:47:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T18:47:08","slug":"excavations-2012-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/2013\/05\/04\/excavations-2012-week-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Excavations 2012 Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2012 we carried out a three week excavation to investigate geophysical anomalies identified in Mr Unwin’s Field. One of these anomalies was circular (B on the graphic below) and such features are usually termed ‘ring-ditches<\/a>‘, the other was a linear anomaly that was likely to be a ditch (A on the graphic below). The excavation was designed to work out whether the ring-ditch was a part of a burial mound or a prehistoric house and whether it came before or after the ditch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Geophysics of Mr Unwin's Field \u00a9 GeoFlo and The Lufton Project<\/p><\/div>\n

The trench was laid out as a 10m x 10m square and excavated by hand. We started by removing the turf and then, in what was about the only hot and dry week of the Summer, we started excavating.<\/p>\n

\"Deturfing\"<\/a>

Cutting the turf \u00a9 The Lufton Project<\/p><\/div>\n

We removed ploughsoil and subsoil to a depth of about 0.4m. If a cubic metre of sand weighs about a tonne, we shifted about 40tonnes of spoil by hand! At 40cm deep we were on top of a layer archaeologists call ‘the natural’. This is a geological deposit (in our case a nasty clay) that pre-dates all human activity. Cut into the natural were some features. These included the ditch and arc of the ring-ditch we were looking for. These features were filled with a slightly darker and moister sediment than the surrounding natural and are visible in the following photos as dark stains.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Newcastle Students Kate and Ellie along with local volunteers Pete and Robin have found the ring ditch (visible as a dark arc in the deepest part of the trench). \u00a9 The Lufton Project<\/p><\/div>\n

The week was really dry and by the end of it the clay had baked hard. The dried out features had all but disappeared from view. We prayed for rain<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\"End<\/a>

Brown, brown and brown. The trench has dried out and the archaeology's invisible \u00a9 The Lufton Project<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2012 we carried out a three week excavation to investigate geophysical anomalies identified in Mr Unwin’s Field. One of these anomalies was circular (B on the graphic below) and such features are usually termed ‘ring-ditches‘, the other was a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excavations-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/luftonarchaeology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}