Holyrood Archaeology 2023 – Day 10
It’s the last day of week 2, and students have made fantastic progress! As tomorrow is our first open day, the students took some time to prepare the site for visitors – ensuring the trenches were clean and ready for the public to view. They have also been fortunate to have been visited by Dawn McLaren finds specialist at AOC. One of the benefits of working with AOC is the opportunity to introduce the students to different careers within archaeology, and to receive specialist talks from those working within the sector. Read all about their day here!
Trench 3 – Ruby
In trench three we aimed to take out the rest of the bulk above the stepped bedrock. We then continued the slot right through the rest of the trench and the rampart which should allow us to observe and record stratigraphy and identify the rampart face. We also had a visit from Dawn McLaren, the finds specialist at AOC who gave a fascinating talk. Today, I found a tooth in the rampart, which should allow the wall to be dated. We then spent the end of the day preparing for trench tours and the open day tomorrow.
Trench 6 – Ryan
Today our group split into two different teams in order to double the productivity in our trench. Team one worked together using the trowels to continue to clear and define the bedrock in the western edge of trench however the main focus was for that team to straighten and define the trench edge. Team two worked together in order to produce a section drawing which showed the location of samples taken for lumesence dating through the clay bank.
Trench 8 – Stefven
Our main goals for the day were to clean up our trench and get it ready for the open day. We also hoped to finish scale drawings of the main trench and the extension.
Throughout the day, we were able to clean the top (west) end of the trench. Specifically, we are looking to see if there is any section of a wall within this area, or if it is just rubble. We also cleaned the layer where the bank used to be, getting it ready for drawing and levelling out the ground. During this, we discovered a potentially metalled surface that we theorise is either the beginning of the entrance (within the rampart) or the foundation of the clay bank.
We have had two main finds today. Within the east end of the trench, we found bone remains that are likely animal teeth (one of the only instances of bone in our trench!); in the cross-section of the rock bank we found a potential hammerstone/large hand tool with clear chip/usage marks.
Though we were not able to start the drawings in this section, we have set ourselves up well to complete those on Monday.
In the ancillary trench we were successful in finishing drawings of the north facing wall. As OSL testing has been done here, this is likely the last work in the ancillary trench.
