Survey blog by Cameron Hamilton

Today we started our morning doing some more geophysics as we used a magnetometry cart to survey the 20th century practice trenches that are located in the grassy area next to Dunsapie loch. While most of the group did magnetometry, another pair did some walkover surveying of more practice trenches in the tall grass near the other trenches. These tasks were made more difficult due to the hot weather and plenty sun cream was essential today. You can see some of the results our magnetometry surveys next to Dunsapie loch below.

Survey blog by Lewis Crowden

Today we began to survey the fort on Crow Hill. Despite the heavy footfall near the summit the ramparts are still visible in many locations. In order to map the fort, we used a combination of techniques: first we used the drawing board to manually mark the two most visible ramparts on the southern slope using sights and rulers; then we used GPS to mark the top and base of each rampart and the later banks built over the rampart. The techniques were easy to use in the open space but proved more challenging when approaching the main path as the rampart was obscured by gorse bushes and there was no trace of the rampart on the route of the main path – most likely due to erosion from footfall over the years. Although it remains a possibility that an entrance to the fort was constructed here – this will require further investigation. The public continued to be interested in the work and are keen to learn more about the archaeology present within the park. 

Excavation blog by Ita Ossowska

Wednesday started out in quite a disappointing manner. We were all hoping that our PCR results would be back by early morning and we were planning to start working at the excavation at 11 am at the latest. Unfortunately, due to a soaring demand in Covid testing, we did not receive the results until the afternoon when it was too late to commute to the site and commence our activities.

However, as the results for the whole team were negative we are all ready to return to work tomorrow. Hopefully, the two days unexpected break coupled with our growing enthusiasm will enable us to finish most of our tasks by Friday!