Stone me, buckle up!

 

Our first day digging the D2 trench and here is our portable HQ. All our paperwork and kit under one roof! Also good for keeping off the drizzle, if we ever get any. 

The 10m square D2 trench is very dry at the moment. As the ground is clay, this is a problem, as it is nearly impossible to get a mattock into it. It's a case of chipping away gradually. We pray to the rain gods to bring us a bit of moisture. 

However, our resident DDCAG metal detectorist has come up with two nice buckles, a fragment of something (?) and a bullet! The buckles are comfortably within the life of the DMV. 

One bonus of detecting is this stone pad, probably used to sit under a vertical post that may be structural or for a door. 

So, along with the pottery that has been unearthed all is going well, and we have just started! The next post will be images of the features. 

  

BGD 2

We also returned to the Big Garden Dig at Charmouth to undertake more Test Pitting. A second pit was dug next to the 13th century wall. 

A great deal of fun was had by all and more information was added to the history of the village. 

 

DMV for Victory!

 

This week saw DDCAG members back to our main site, the Deserted Medieval Village on the Isle of Purbeck. We returned to the area of the 5m test trench we dug last year and opened it up to 10m square. We immediately encountered several features that we will excavate in the coming weeks and months. We also collected some pottery.

This piece in particular was of interest due to the thumb decoration along the rim.

This will be added to last years haul and will give us some dating evidence for the settlement. We also found two interesting artefacts.

This piece of stone will have to be left to an expert to make an interpretation.

This is also another find that will need an expert eye.

An intriguing fragment of metal with raised decoration. It has been suggested that it is a piece of a cooking pot. This type of artefact can really make one feel that we can be in direct contact with past people. 

It's going to be a busy season. 

 

 

The 'Big Garden Dig'

Last weekend we worked with the Charmouth History Society to undertake the 'Big Garden Dig'. Several garden owners volunteered their gardens to have a 1m square test pit dug, which they either did themselves or allowed other village volunteers to do so. 

This test pit uncovered a stone drain running at the front of the property. 

Charmouth

This is a 13th century wall that runs behind the original garden plots. Although much rebuilding has been done, it still has a good percentage of original material. This trench was looking for the foundation. A 1:10 scale drawing will be made to record the exposed fabric.

Exposing the foundation.

This test pit was producing lots of finds.

This is the village hall HQ for processing the finds. 

All the finds were put into bags with the house details written on them. After analysis all finds will go back to the property owners.

It was a busy weekend and despite the heavy rain on Saturday afternoon a lot was done in the morning. Sunday was cloudy but warm and the work progressed very well. All who took part enjoyed themselves. This weekend we will be digging at several more gardens. 

 

Birds Eye View

Last weekend DDCAG undertook a geophysical survey at a site in north Dorset. As you can see, it was a large area, but the team did a great job. Roman pottery had been picked up in this field by the landowner, also metal objects using a detector.

A steady progress up and down the lanes

Logging the results

Keep going lads!

The results showed some possible features and these will be looked at in due course. 

 

 

Wool Fair

We had a very nice day at the Wool Charter Fair last weekend. Several membership sheets were taken away and we had an approach from a local photographer and drone flyer volunteering to work with us on sites!   

 

Corfe 2.0

 

Back to the garden near Corfe Castle on a lovely sunny day. We backfilled Test Pit #1 after recording and then carried on with Test Pit #2, which reached a depth of 1m, so the feature detected at that depth had to remain unexcavated. The stratigraphy being sandy, it was decided that H&S kicked in. Very frustrating. We had several more pieces of pottery come up, again looking like BBW, but this could have been redeposited from higher up the slope from the crown of the hill to the west, as the finds did not come from a secure context.     

So, we decided to open up Trench #3. This was 2m x 3m in size and we hoped that we would find some sort of feature running N-S across the lawn, according to the geophysics results. However, we only found very deep deposits and modern finds. Having dug a sondage (a small trench in one corner to inspect the stratigraphy) and finding nothing resembling a feature, or even interesting stratigraphy, we gave up and backfilled.