Letting the machine take the strain

Day 1: stripping the topsoil.
After relocating the area where we wish to dig we had the machine start stripping the topsoil and subsoil. It is never easy judging the depth of the overburden and one just has to guess how deep we may have to go to locate the archaeology. The unevenness of the ground does not help. In this case the topsoil was 0.50m deep and then the subsoil added to this, to a depth of 1m. Being sloping ground it is likely that soil has built up over time since the ancient features were created leaving no trace on today's ground level.

One wonders if there is any archaeology at all, or if the trench has been put in the wrong place. Or, horror of horrors, the features have been dug out by stripping too deep!

With strong nerves and just a bit of experience the machine uncovered this large pit (1.50m dia.). Our first feature! Pits are always good news, as they have always been the ideal place to chuck rubbish, and of course rubbish is what archaeology is all about.

The pit was a bonus, because what we were hoping to find was this 3m wide ditch, which only came up by extending the trench beyond the 10m length we set out.

The trench is located just to the left of the B, so we have located the ditch section at the top plus the internal pit. As can be seen there are some internal features represented by black blobs. We may have time to extend the trench further into the ditched feature and locate more internal features.

Now we have to clean the base of the trench to look for smaller features and then start to dig them! Look in for more news on the Nether Compton site.

Nether Compton now open!

The site is now been made accessible and we will get a digging machine in a.s.a.p. to start topsoil stripping. Look in for pics and which feature we will be looking at this year.

 

Funding news

We are proud to announce that we have succeeded in our application for funding from HLF, to the tune of £7,000.
DDCAG would like to thank Alison Williams for her hard work in applying for the funding. We can now begin the exciting project at Nether Compton working with local schools and Sherborne Museum.

We hope that many more people will join us to explore the past of Dorset.

Down Farm in Spring

DD members went to see Martin Green's self built museum of all the finds and features he has excavated over many years on his farm on Cranborne Chase.

We then had a look at some of the projects he has undertaken in the landscape, such as the Neolithic finds and bodies he found down a sinkhole:

The rare pond barrow:

Southamton Uni are undertaking a dig on his land this year, looking at Iron Age features, including a carefully buried sheep:

All this in an area of outstanding beauty, with Martin's work in bringing the Dorset landscapes flora and fauna back to how it was before intensive farming:

A wonderful and informative day. Thanks Martin.

Finds from Fieldwalking

Members of Dorset Diggers living in the West of the County have started field walking on a field 600 metres southwest of the Iron Age Hillfort of Pilsdon Pen.

Permission has been given for us to field walk a number of fields in this area. The first field looked in a promising place as, though being flattish is on a promontory jetting out into Marshwood Vale with steep slopes falling away on the East, West and South sides.

Between three and nine members walked for three to four hours a day over three days, dodging a few showers on the first day.

Surveying was carried out with a combination of GPS map reference, tape measures, a range finder and ranging poles.  Having picked finds from 39, twenty metre squares, this was reduced down to 41 potential finds from 23 squares after examination by Chris Tripp. Most of these were worked flint with some possible Roman pottery.

As crops are now appearing in the fields we intend to resume field walking at this site after the fields have been re ploughed.

We are grateful to the landowners for this opportunity.

Written by,

Richard Hood

Funding

Some good news coming soon on funding and the start of the BIG DIG! Keep looking in...

Fieldwalking

This month has seen DDCAG fieldwalking in West Dorset, near Pilsden Pen Iron Age hillfort. This involves careful examination of the ground after ploughing to find individual artefacts that are then plotted and bagged up.

Most items will be pottery or flint, but one never knows what will turn up.

It's always a thrill to find something from hundreds or thousands of years ago just lying on the ground.

Never mind Alison, perhaps next time...

By doing this exercise members 'get their eye in' when it comes to recognising types of finds and also adds to the possible areas of settlement in an area or a field, due to the exact plotting of the location of artefacts. Our finds will be looked at by experts and dated. Some pics will be put up here shortly.