The Dig: Day 3

Introduction

On Wednesday, we continued to reveal the wall and orthostats.

The Work

The Introduction

We started to uncover the wall on the other side of the gap, digging down quite a bit. While we didn’t find any orthostats in the gap, a photo from 1997 shows a tree growing here. Also, we found many pieces of root and wood while digging here.

The Enclosure

We believe we have located the enclosure’s floor, as we found a layer a cobbles, small round rocks: the previous dig reported Trench B revealing ‘a layer of cobbles overlaying two layers of rock’. Also, the soil colour changes before reaching the ‘floor’.

The Finds

We also found a new rounded stone which has black markings like Find 3. However, we don’t know what they are. Find 4 is an orange colour, leading us to believe it might contain iron. However, the rock didn’t move the compass needle. This combined with the fact that the reddish colour isn’t as strong as Finds 2 and 3 suggests that there is a low amount of iron.

We believe Find 4 was used for knapping, shaping a material with a rock, because the rock is cracked and is sandstone, which has a hardness of 6-7. After doing some research and testing, we came to the conclusion that Finds 1-4 are sandstone. Also, the previous dig found a fragment of saddle quern made of millstone grit, a type of sandstone. As all the finds have small sparkly bits in, we believe they contain quartz. Also, Find 2 appears to have a vein of quartz and quartz flakes seem to have settled on Find 4.

Click here to see photos of Finds 1-4.

Conclusion

Progress

Overall, we’ve continued exposing the walls, may have located the floor and found a round stone.

Next Steps

Next time, we’ll resume work on the ‘floor’ and gap in the wall.