Well its been a wonderful weather day. Bright sunshine, but a steady breeze to keep the temperatures down. Shame its not going to last, we are anticipating heavy showers tomorrow so we will have a dramatic change.

We had a profitable day today. We finished off the last of the three trenches (Trench 13) which was excavated by the apprentices over the last couple of days. This had demonstrated, once we had excavated a section through the bank, a deposit of broken up fragments of pavement sitting on layers of natural pavement. It was evident that the pavement had been cut back on both sides of the bank leaving a line of raised pavement topped by deposited stone to form the raised bank. We recorded the trench in detail and final backfilled at the end of the day.  

Drawing the section of Trench 13
Drawing the section of Trench 13
A concerted effort to backfill Trench 13
A concerted effort to backfill Trench 13

Trench 1o was also mostly completed, and this revealed a clearly defined bank made up of fragmented blocks of limestone on top of pavement. Samples were taken, and the site recorded and will be closed tomorrow.

Recording Trench 10 with DGPS and context recording
Recording Trench 10 with DGPS and context recording

Trench 9 was opened today, and so far is looking very promising. Again it has the form of a lynchet, but with what appears to be clearance stone piled up against its upper side. It is on the lower, north-eastern side of what appears to be a cultivated plot and the evidence so far would support that. Tomorrows excavation, we think will be very interesting.

The partly excavated Trench 9
The partly excavated Trench 9

We also got the chance to complete the drone survey for the Co-axial field system (Site 3), which went well and the data is now being processed.  

Jamie working hard flying the drone.
Jamie working hard flying the drone.

While we don't yet have the data processed from todays survey, we do have that from yesterdays survey which was flown by Debbie. The results are truly impressive and reinforce the interpretation of the rectangular fields, defined by lynchets.

The hillshade view of the central part of the site, showing the coaxial banks, small stock enclosure and the lynchets
The hillshade view of the central part of the site, showing the coaxial banks, small stock enclosure and the lynchets

We cant expect tomorrow to be as good as today given, the weather forecast, but we can hope that the showers will mostly miss us.