The students experienced the worst of the Scottish weather up Dunsapie Hillfort, when heavy rain hit site in the afternoon. Despite this, they had a productive morning, and recovered some exciting artefacts!

Sam’s Experience

Today, excavations continued across all of our trenches, aiming to uncover and define the various structures.  Trench 1 saw the removal of colluvial material, which has accumulated over the archaeological remains. Now that we have cleared this deposit, it is easier to define the structure of the rampart. Trench 4 saw the continued clearing of the outer rampart wall, and in the remainder of the trench, we cleared the remaining context 404, to uncover a new layer of archaeology. In Trench 7, we cleared the deposits over the outer rampart wall, and found evidence for another structure within the walls. We are eager to continue to clear back and further uncover this new structure. Whilst there were not as many finds today, we did discover a fragment of a bone pin from trench 4 and a worked stone ball from trench 1! 

Amman’s Experience

The team in trench 2 continued to take soil samples of a possible occupation deposit that contains fragments of charcoal. These samples will be later used for carbon dating, in order to establish an estimate of the age of the trench. Trench 4 has become the deepest of our trenches, and the team continued to clear down to a new context. They also continued to clear the remaining deposits over the outer rampart, it is believed that rubble may have fallen from the rampart into the area at the centre of our trench.  Trench 4 also uncovered one of the most impressive finds from today, which is a tip of a bone pin! 

This morning, the archaeology students in trench 8 continued to remove the soil until the remains of a structure were visible – this gave us an idea of how deep the deposits above the structure are. In the afternoon, the team in trench 8 used our trowels to further define an area we believe may be the entrance to the settlement.  

Have a read of yesterday’s blog post here!

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