We only have a few days left excavating at Dunsapie Hillfort, therefore students have been busy at work so that we can complete each of the trenches and fully record them.



Ellie’s Experience:

Nearing the end of Holyrood field school 2022, we had a windy day working in the trenches. The majority of our team spent the day tidying up the trenches, removing rubble and excess soil, allowing a better view of the structures beneath. In trench 1, the students have excavated sections of the rampart, creating a slot which will hopefully reveal more of the structure and provide datable evidence. They have been taking samples from different areas of the trench. Trenches 2 and 8 learned about recording contexts and the importance of the planning process. Trench 2 has mostly completed work in their trench, therefore their focus was to fully document it. They began by using the planning frame to draw a plan of the whole trench. In the afternoon, they drew a section of the trench, so that we can have an understanding of the stratigraphy. 

While trench 4 continued excavation of the rampart and dug a slot through it to expose the inner core. They are excited about the stratigraphy of the inner rampart and will continue to clean and expose it. In a slot at the end of the trench, they have reached bedrock, and have dug to 1m20, which is the depth that we have to stop at for health and safety reasons. In trench 7, we have uncovered two banks, and we spent the morning cleaning the stones so that we could take photos for photogrammetry. By the end of the day we were able to start bringing down sections of the trench in spits, so that we can find the depth of the banks, and hopefully find some datable evidence.  In trench 8, students dug down to bedrock to see how deep the deposits are. They have also continued to define the stones of the rampart to understand which stones are tumble, and which are structural. They are hoping to understand the shape and direction of the structure. 



Hear more about the daily aims of each trench in our ‘Time Team’ style 4 day challenge on instagram! We only had four days remaining to finish excavations of Dunsapie Hillfort, and today marks day 2! Follow along on our challenge to complete the site in time!