Our third day of excavations at Dunsapie Hillfort have started to reveal more information on the ramparts of the Hillfort. Students have opened a third trench, which has already had some exciting finds! Another group of students worked with Gemma to learn about plane table surveying, and were able to survey in the finds from each trench.

Brandon’s Experience

Another day of fieldwork at Holyrood Park draws to close. Today involved the continuation of the excavations of the two existing trenches at the site, as well as more students working on their surveying skills. Today also excitingly included the opening of a new third trench where finds are already being recording. This third trench is also positioned to expose more of the rampart walls. The finds include numerous sheep bones and two rifle cartridges. We are beginning to recognise some of the animal bones. The cartridges may have been from WWI or WWII when Holyrood park was used as a training ground for target practice. It is an exciting time for all involved and we are looking forward to see how the trenches progress! 

Nerea’s Experience

Today was a very successful day! We started by continuing our trowelling to remove the top soil in trenches 1 and 2, whilst others did some scanning work. More bone was found in trench 1, as well as a rounded stone. The stone has been rounded by water, which is unusual for our site as there is no water source. This means the stone would have been transported here from another area. We were taught how to record the finds and the importance of detailed recording. In trench 2, some members of the team were taught how to draw a plan of the trench, using a drawing frame, as they had reached a new layer. In addition, there is a 3rd trench in which the team is still removing top soil, but where numerous bone fragments and other artefacts have already been found.

Have a read of our Day 2 blog post to find out more about the Dunsapie excavations!

Our Instagram page has reached 100 followers already! If you haven’t had a look, please check it out to see daily updates and reels. Our Day 3 reel shows some of the survey work that the students have taken part in!

We’re also daily tweeting, using the hashtag #holyroodarchaeology. We’re live tweeting over the course of the project, so be sure to follow our page (@edinarch) keep up to date!