Site Diary: Trench 2

After ten days or so of staring at stones, we are beginning to see a variety of structures and phases in the bank of the enclosure that cuts off the cliff of Gardom's Edge. Some of the most recent features may well relate to wartime activity, and to military training on the moor. These take the form of at least one and possibly two small niches cut into the bank (see the photographs below).

We are now beginning to cut sections across the bank, and these suggest that we are dealing with two entrances, one of which may have been blocked in prehistory, some time after its creation. We are also beginning to identify the line of facades or facing stones on both the exterior and interior faces of the bank, as well as evidence that bank was not constructed in an identical manner along the relatively short length that we are excavating.

Further trowelling and cleaning has indicated that the monument was constructed in at least two phases, and it also seems that the people who built the bank - perhaps over years, perhaps even over generations - took care to run the line of placed stones between prominent outcropping 'earthfast' stones. Moving the stones to create sections, even on what is effectively a tiny fraction of the monument, confirms the extraordinary and perhaps protracted effort involved in constructing the bank in the first place.

In the last day or so, we have begun to identify significant quantities of charcoal within the fabric of the bank and this will hopefully provide a basis for radiocarbon dating the monument and its development. Artefact densities on this trench have been rather lower than they are on Trench 1, but include a number of carefully made flint blades which are consistent with an earlier Neolithic date for the monument.