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Cara Henderson

I have just completed the first week of the Holyrood park field school and here’s an insight into why we are excavating here, what we have completed in the first week and what skills I have learned so far. 

We know that there is over 110 archaeological sites in Holyrood Park and we are excavating these sites so we can gain more knowledge about the history of the park and the human activity that took place. This year we are digging trenches in 3 of these archaeological sites, the sites are Dunsapie Fort, Sampson’s Ribs Fort and Crow Hill. We are also digging trenches and excavating these sites to see how erosion, footpaths and illegal activities such as metal detecting effect these archaeological sites. Another reason we are excavating is to build upon knowledge gained from previous excavations that took place in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The archaeological site I have been excavating in the first week is Crow Hill. We are excavating in this area as we know, from an aerial view by LiDAR, that there are structures on the edge of Crow Hill above cultivation terraces from. We used the LiDAR results to select the area to dig a trench, we marked the outline of the trench with string so we knew where to dig and to keep the trench edge straight. When digging the trench we first had to de-turf the area by using spades to cut squares of turf out and then move the turf to the side and stack the squares on top of each other. Once the trench was de-turfed we removed the top soil by one person mattocking the soil and another person using a hand shovel to remove the loose soil which was put into a bucket and emptied into spoil bags. After most of the top soil was removed and stones started to appear we started trowelling. We trowelled around the stones to remove soil and to level out the ground. Once the stones were visible we photographed them, however, if it was just rubble we removed the rubble stones so that we could dig deeper. On the final day of week 1 we extended part of our trench by 2 meters to allow us to investigate further. In my trench so far we have found a wall of a structure- possibly a roundhouse- and some stone tools such as a hammer tool and a grinding stone. When we found the stone tools we then took the GPS points of their lcoation.

The skills I have learnt so far are how to de-turf the trench and how to trowel. I am looking forward to week 2 and learning more skills.

Qianyue Zhou

On the first day, I attended the introduction of the Fieldwork Archaeology Project and gained a new and more complete understanding of Holyrood Park, which contains more than a hundred archaeological sites. Therefore, I work at Dunsapie Fort and help plan the trench outline using strings. I was introduced and learnt to use the spade to effectively cut turf and shovel to clean the surface soil. It was interesting that the next day I followed Katie to work at Trench 11, Crow Hill, which is organized from west to east orientation and like a double “L” shape. In the process, I used the trowel to clean off the soil around the exposed rock, that can help easy to observe the construction remains. This experience made me realize the importance of meticulousness and patience in archaeology work and burrowing. The research in this trench aimed to establish the connection between the settlement and the nearby agricultural terrace. The location was planned and determined by the images formed by the lidar. My work focused on the southeast parts of the trench.

During the excavation, my coursemate found a few remains that contained pottery, I observed that they first needed to use the label to mark the found location, such as 11.04, followed by a GPS machine to record that position. I found a white stuff in the Wednesday excavation. It was about the hand size and some layers on the side and edge were visible. There was some black residue on the surface and some light-yellow colour around its sides. In fact, it is heavier than pottery but lighter than stone. Based on the observation and discussion I considered that could be the material used to build the stone walls. However, since I found it on the upper layer which was close to the surface, it was probably considered to have been moved through human or non-human factors, thus not recorded the location.

Over the following days, we found a large number of stone clusters, thus the hypothesis had been supported that this trench with the traces of the stone wall construction. Many stones were considered to be collapsed and they seemed can be combined together easily. We were unable to use the mattock to quickly clean the soil due to the tightness distribution of rocks. After we tried to move out the additional scattered stone, there were relatively smooth side sections of stone that formed a visible outline of the wall. By discussion, we tried to expand the width of the trench by 2m to the north to exaction a more complete outline. We considered it possible to be a curved alignment which may belong to the prehistory, or it could be the medieval time, I think the latter is more likely.

Since it is still in the beginning stages of excavation, we have not collected enough samples to date the trench time period. There was only one piece of cannel coal had been found, and there is a prediction that the chronological sequence of this area is overlapped by several periods.

On the other hand, I also learned about the background and excavation process of Sampson’s Ribs Fort and Dunsapie Fort. Overall, the week of fieldwork gave me a complete and clear understanding of the exaction process of archaeology. I learnt how to plan the trench area, use various archaeological tools, and be familiar with excavation strategies.

Hayden Byers

Following an introduction to the course and a tour around the archaeology of Holyrood Park, my group began excavations on Crow Hill at Trench 11. We started off by de-turfing using spades and piling the turves strategically in a way that will make it easy for us to put them back in the ground after excavations. Once the de-turfing was finished, we started to bring down the topsoil using mattocks. One or two people would be using the mattock in an area with someone shovelling the dirt and carrying it away in buckets to the waste bags. Once we reached areas with stones in them, we used our trowels to carefully excavate the dirt around them and expose the stones, using brushes to help, in order to clearly see what we were working with in the trench. I have learned much about the uses of different tools in different situations, ranging from techniques to which circumstances call for which tool. It has been very beneficial for my understanding to actually see excavations in progress and experience the different steps taken, things to consider, goals and aims for the digging, and the practical side of exposing the archaeology on a site.

By the end of week one we have made a number of hypotheses and gathered information from structures and finds as to what we are working with. What seems to be the largest and most significant structure is what we assumed to be a prehistoric roundhouse (though we need to excavate more to reveal more of the shape as it could be more oblong, suggesting a medieval timeline). After identifying the inner wall, we cleared away some rubble to get a better look at the wall and on Friday we started to expand the trench to uncover more of the structure. There are many other large gatherings of stones which could be possible structures, such as walls for the cultivation terraces on the hillside or cellars or some other smaller structures; the problem is trying to distinguish between possible structures, bedrock, and alluvium deposits. We have been trying to get through insignificant stones to hopefully reveal more to us about what these structures are – if they are structures at all – and this task will continue into week 2. Finds from this week include two hammerstones, a Victorian clay pipe head, a possible iron core, a considerable amount of cannel coal, and pieces of slag. We have recorded each find and located their position using the GPS. As of right now, we are still unaware of the date of this site which will hopefully be made more clear through further excavation. I am looking forward to uncovering more in week 2.

Matthew Scott

With the first week of excavation completed, the structures within trench 11 are beginning to take shape. After removing the topsoil and troweling around the exposed stone, some distinctive patterns began to take shape while trench sketches and photos were taken. The trench sits partway up the slope of Crow hill, below a collection of cultivation terraces identified by Lidar. While excavating the top end of the trench several stone tools and a shard of pottery were discovered, but the most interesting development has been the discovery of what appears to be a rounded structure, built atop a cultivation terrace at the lower end of the trench. After it became apparent that this structure continued outside of the boundaries of the trench it was decided to extend the lower section of trench an additional 2 meters out, in hopes of finding residential deposits within the building’s interior as these could help us date the site.

Rebecca Robertshaw

For our first week digging trench 11 we have de-turfed the area based on the LiDAR imagery taken of this hill. These images showed rock formations which looked like they could be possible wall structures. Our trench is thought to date around the post medieval period, but we are hopeful it can provide some prehistoric dates. So far, we have found some possible prehistoric stone tools and pottery which would help this theory.

Throughout the week we noticed some stones structures appearing in both the West and East of the trench. These were both assumed to be stone walls, however as we continued digging deeper it looks like only the East stones are a wall. The stones uncovered form a clear barrier line that looks to be part of a roundhouse. Our plan moving forward is to extend this part of the trench to form a clearer picture of this stone wall and enclosure. Additionally, we have created a drawing of our trench and taken overhead photos with a drone for use in further research of the area. Alongside this we labelled the different contexts being dug up which has greatly helped my understanding of what is happening in the trench