Last of the Plumpton Roman Villa

I happened to have a day off from work last week and debated over checking up on Ovingdean, the Culver Project and Plumpton Roman Villa. I found myself staring at the fine trenches of the villa and the site ditch once again. They have uncovered quite a bit in the past three weeks since I was last up there.

Embarrassingly I forgot my camera so I only have one measly photograph of my find but the crops that I definitely thought were leeks a few weeks ago have transformed into corn. A bit like when Jesus turned water into wine. This turned out to be beneficial to me because the large corn stalks provided much needed shade while I was excavating in Trench 3.

Cow Skull, date unknown at this point.

When I first arrived, I was placed back in Trench 1 with the American student Megan whom I had met a couple weeks ago. We worked on the edge of the ditch, attempting to determine the natural. Plough damage sure made it hard to discern. After a bit, the new supervisor whose name I have now forgotten (sorry!) asked me if I had done this sort of thing before (lots of head nodding and fake smiling) and I found myself relocated to Trench 3 to remove a cow skull that was partially excavated in the lovely hard baked clay. I spent a couple hours there with Andrew (?) a college student who had never done any archaeology before and we made a plan of action to sort of chisel our way underneath the skull in order to prise it neatly from the ground. It did work, surprisingly, because I was able to extract it myself and place it into a tray of bubble wrap. Then, as it was transferred to another tray, it began to crumble. At least our extraction method was successful.

A Twitterer on Twitter commented on my photo and suggested that perhaps it was the Plumpton Poisoner until I pointed out that this skull was indeed a cow and not a human. Although we cannot rule out the cow as the one responsible for adding strychnine to somebody's tea back in the 1935.

Till next time folks! I will likely have a new update on Ovingdean next time!

Rocky Clump Wrap Up For 2013

Photo courtesy of Lesley Hains, pictured on the left, myself in the
middle and Hestor Adams on the right.

I never find anything remotely exciting
but somebody unearthed an animal skull - sheep?

Rocky Clump wrapped up excavations for the season on December 7th, although I went back on the 10th to "tickle up" (so to speak) the ground for the final photographs and drawings. It was a cloudy-sunny day with a wonderful turnout of archaeologists so plenty was accomplished. The site has since been back-filled from the 20th. As you may have noticed, we were all a bit cold as December has sneakily crept upon us.

However, the ground was still as supple as ever for troweling. With luck, new trenches and test pits will be opened up around the end of March or early April 2014 as soon as planning and acquired permission has been met. We will be exploring an area where we think some roundhouses are. In the meantime, the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society has several activities planned this winter - winter walks, lectures, museum visits - to keep us all connected and to keep our archaeological and historical appetites whet.

Areas where I have been troweling.

 Not surprisingly, I uncovered more chunky flints, the usual bits of pot and flaky bits of bone. No special finds yet on my part but there were a couple animal skulls that were uncovered in one of our large trenches. Their identity is speculated to be that of sheep.

Till next time, adios!