Ham Hill - heads you lose

Further to our Ham Hill visit (see below) the excavation by Cambridge and Cardiff universities has come to a close. One of the more unusual finds has been a row of human heads and other remains showing cutmarks indicating defleshing.

First indications are showing that the hill was already settled in the early Neolithic, with pits dating from 4000-3000BC and a network of fields from the the middle Bronze Age of c.1500BC. This must mean that the hill was seen as a good place to live and grow crops well before the hillfort was constructed.

By the Late Bronze Age or very Early Iron Age (c.800BC) massive earth ramparts were being thrown up 3-4m high which were encased by stone c.300BC. The area of the excavation was focused on a large enclosure nearly 100m long, but with little evidence of activity within it. It did surround a hollow and in the north-east corner six human heads were found laid in a line in the ditch about 1m apart. The remains of neck bones indicate that they were buried as complete heads and not defleshed skulls. With other human remains being found here it is likely that this was not a settlement but a ritual space. This further underlines the theory that hillforts were sacred spaces and not just for defense.

It is sure that more insights into this largest of hillforts will be published in the near future.

Drifting off...

The end has come to the Drift Road excavation and we have reinstated the site leaving the tops of the walls showing for all the tourists that will flock to see the next best thing to Pompeii!

Ben, Dave, Vaughan and Richard wack into the spoil heap

Alison & Angela tipping and tapping

The Flint Knapping & Soil Tapping Social Club outing!

The Drift has been an excellent first project for us and a great success for the village of Maiden Newton. We have had a village hall exhibition and now we have a small exhibition in the village cafe coming up, with photos and text. 

Our next project is the training dig in the vicarage garden and then the BIG ONE in the Spring of 2014. Keep looking in for more Dorset archaeological news.  

Website

DDCAG now has a functioning website where you can see all our activities and pictures as well as being able to leave comments and questions. See the latest news of our visit to Eggardon Hill Iron Age hillfort. Just put Dorset Diggers into a search engine and you will find us.

Caught Knapping

Here is a report from our member Dave:

"A dozen Dorset Diggers gathered together last Saturday in a secret corner of Bridport - the walled garden of the WI's hall - to find out how flint tools were manufactured in prehistory. Our tutor, Anthony, proved to be excellent value for money, being both very knowledgeable about his subject as well as an expert knapper in his own right.

Working chronologically from the very earliest tools - largish pebbles struck in order to produce a sharp edge, through bifacial hand-axes typical of the palaeolithic, to barbed and tanged arrow heads of the bronze age, he explained the principles of knapping - what sort of stone to use to strike the flint, where to strike it, at what angle and how hard.  

He passed around many examples of his own work, which were all beautiful crafted.  He explained that the techniques he used were deduced through experiment, as no description of how it was originally done has survived in any form.  

On the way he discussed many things that I, for one, had not considered before, such as what sort of glue was used to secure arrow-heads in their shafts -  a common one was birch bark tar - and how often an arrow head could be used before it broke - the answer being that probably they were usually just used once.  Think of all the wasted effort if you missed your target.

Best of all, and this was something I hadn't expected when I signed up for the afternoon, we ended with a practical session.  We all selected a piece of leather to drape over our thigh, our own hammer stone, our own piece of virgin flint and, not to forget: some safety goggles.  I was just getting the hang of it when I had to rush off, as my ticket was about to run out in the car park.  

I am now the proud owner of a mis-shapen piece of flint, but it does show some good bulbs of percussion and conchoidal fractures, so I'm happy.

So a big thank you to Anthony for his enthusiasm, expertise and willingness to lug a ton and a half of flints, stones and antlers through the streets of Bridport in order to give us a thoroughly informative and enjoyable afternoon."


And a letter from another member:

"It was absolutely brilliant today, I cannot thank you enough for organizing it.  How lucky are we to be able to do that.  Anthony was very good and explained it so well.  I would love to do it again if you are thinking of arranging another session in the future."

 

An arrowing day.

Here's a nice little artefact not seen very often by archaeologists. Yep, a £2 coin. Not much less than our hourly rate. The other is a Late Neolithic leaf-shaped arrowhead found on a site I am working on at the moment. This came up under the digging machines bucket! One needs sharp eyes in this job.

Ham Hill visit

Sunday 11th August was the visit to the Ham Hill excavation being carried out by Cardiff and Cambridge Universities and Cambridge Archaeology Unit.

The hillfort at Ham Hill is the largest in the UK, with almost 3 miles of ramparts enclosing 88 hectares. 'Hillfort' is a bit of a misnomer, in that although on hills they are not forts in the wild west tradition and not really for purely of a defensive function. They were probably for status, foci for the community or ritual and market complexes. Ham Hill is protected by English Heritage, who gave consent for the quarry extension to enable the supply of ham stone required for the conservation of the regions historic buildings.

Ham Hill & excavation area

Topographic and geophysical surveys show that 40% of the hillfort's interior has been quarried, but has revealed a multi-period occupation which includes roundhouses, roadways and substantial enclosures. This year excavators have concentrated on one of the enclosures and trenches positioned over the ramparts.

Main excavation area with main enclosure

During the Neolithic and Bronze Ages finds of pottery and flint artefacts show that people used this area for short and long term settlement. By the Middle Bronze Age, c.1500BC, large field systems were set out and long term settlement was the norm, with quern stones to process cereal from the fields.

In the Early Iron Age, c.800-350BC, the hillfort was constructed and densely populated, with the earliest evidence being a circular building under the rear of the rampart. They used a low ham stone wall for the building, to support the wooden and thatch roof, and it contained an intact hearth. The rest of the features in the main areas of excavation are much later, c.350-43AD. They consisted of two circular ditches, which would have surrounded the dwellings, and several clusters of pits, some of which are 2m deep. From these pits were found decorated pottery, quern stones, clay objects used in weaving, bone tools and animal remains, sometimes with human bones too. Remains of mustard seeds are normally associated with Roman period remains, but some were found here at this early date. Iron objects are rare, with a 'currency bar' being one of them. These were used as money, or so the theory goes, and cut into pieces according to value.

The trenches cut through the ramparts show that at least four phases of construction can be seen. Each phase was constructed differently, using either dumps of soil or large revetment walls of ham stone. Domestic waste was dumped against the ramparts. The final rampart was at least 4m high. Roman pottery and a projectile point mark the final use of the rampart.

This years work is to find out if the southern rampart is of similar construction to the north and to extend investigations into the northwest where a possible unknown entrance may be found, as the rampart here was sealed by up to 1m of quarry rubble.    

Pictures of the main excavation:

Senior Archaeologist Hayley introducing the site to DD members

Hayley showing members a grain pit

Digger showing a very nice section across the enclosure ditch

A very rare find of an I/A articulated skeleton

Find process hut

Pictures of the rampart excavation:

Cutting through the rampart

DD members being shown the dig at the rampart

The slope of the rampart beyond the dig

Thanks to Hayley for showing us around, DD members found it very interesting. This is last phase of digging on Ham Hill and it was an insight into a very rare event - a dig on a hillfort.

Drift Road event

Thanks to all the members and non-members who helped out at the event on the 25th. People turned up to see the exhibition and to visit the site and the tea and cake was a great success too. Thanks to Cyn for the watercolour painting of the mill in Maiden Newton, which was sold by raffle and made quite a bit of cash, along with the bric-a-brac.