Pot crazy! Dig Day #3

 

Madeleine found her first ever ancient artefact - a small but perfect piece of medieval pottery. One never forgets breaking ones artefacts cherry. 

Polissoir ooh-la-la

 

Hayley Roberts of Past Participate gave us a talk on the Valley of the Stones, including the Polissoir (sharpening stone). This is a large sarsen boulder where people during the Neolithic polished stone tools to a high sheen. These gave the tools more strength but also more value, in that they were objects of status that could be used for gift giving or trade. Sarsen stone is not natural to the area, having been deposited by glacial action. There are Bronze Age round houses, medieval D-shaped animal enclosures and a brickworks with kilns from about 200 years ago. PP are continuing to survey and research the deep past of this valley and surrounding landscape.   

Dig Day #2

 

Today we started to dig the features. In the foreground Hugh and Holly began to excavate what looks like a large pit. We have quartered this feature so that we have four good sections to draw later and to work back from the middle to the natural so that we have the exact shape of the pit. Jon and Annie are working on two features in the in background. Annie's looks like a nice small pit and Jon's is still indeterminate. 

Meanwhile, Chris is cutting a slot through the two large ditches that showed up last year in grid C2 and now located in this trench, grid A3.  Hard going, and we know that they are deep. 

Scott of the Antarctic wrote "My God, this is an awful place" and it may look very similar in this photo! Luckily, we work in a beautiful landscape and although it was very windy and cold (with sleet) we kept calm and carried on. 

What will Dig Day #3 bring? 

Dig Day #1

 

The first job on any site is to clean the surface after topsoil stripping. a rather tedious task, buy vital to understanding what the features look like.  

New season begins

 

The 2026 excavation has started. The investigation of this Dorset Deserted Medieval Village will continue to uncover the life of this settlement. We opened up a second 10m square and more features became apparent, so we will pick up our trowels once more every Wednesday and Sunday. 

This year we will publish our day-to-day Dig Diary along with photos of features dug and artefacts found. 

Here is the first interesting find:

This would have been used to mend two parts of a broken ceramic vessel. This has a long history, as ceramics were not just thrown away if they could be mended. The Romans did it too. In fact, there is still a very small fragment of pot under the flanges. 

 

Stone me!

 In 2023 Past Participate CIC announced the discovery of a rare earth-fast polissoir. This sarsen stone was used during the Neolithic period for polishing stone tools and today is located in the Valley of Stones, Little Bredy. 

In this illustrated talk Dr Hayley Roberts will not only discuss the polissoir but also lead us through the complex prehistoric landscape within which it sits, considering the nearby monuments, their purposes and connections. Hayley is a Co-Director of Past Participate and will also highlight the work that Past Participate do to connect local people with archaeology and the important contribution this makes to their research. 

Come along to Stratton village hall, near Dorchester, Dorset on the 28th of April at 2pm. Non-members £5, members free. 

Neolithic News!

For those readers who are Dorset residents, or a nearby county, this is the next monthly talk and get-together. 

Dorset Archaeology: a once a month talk on the deep past of the county.

Brought to you by Dorset Diggers Community Archaeology Group. Sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

April 11^th 2pm at Stratton village hall. Talks last about 45 minutes.  

This month it is the Neolithic: farming, pottery, monuments and religion.  

Was the Neolithic a new way of life? What exactly is a cursus monument? What were bank barrows used for? Which Dorchester c.5,000-year-old monument is still used today?

These questions will be looked at by the speaker for general discussion, with tea/coffee and cake/biscuits as well! Come along to meet other archaeology enthusiasts, have a chat and exchange ideas.