Site Diary: Trench 2

Work on trench two is now more or less completed. The last few levels are being taken and sections drawn, and backfilling has started on the western side of the enclosure bank. Our four sections through the bank have produced a wealth of evidence for the structural history of this monument and have forced us to change our minds about at least some of the details of the sequence.

It now seems that the area encompassed by the trench contains only one entrance and not two as we had originally thought. This has brought a smile to the faces of those who were never convinced that there was a second entrance! The 'gap' in the bank at the northern end of the trench now appears to be a product of the way the bank was built and the 'robbing' or removal of stone from the bank some time later.

Debris from this robbing appears to lie beneath the peat and it is therefore likely that this change in the character of the bank occurred during prehistory and not in the more recent past. Work on this part of the bank has also revealed evidence that the bank may have been built from two directions, and thus perhaps, by different groups of people. A relatively clear butt joint runs across the bank, as if two linear piles of stone were brought together, as opposed to building proceeding in one direction only.

The sequence on this site still needs a lot of discussion and argument. For the moment however, our evidence suggests the following:

The first phase of activity on the site probably saw the construction of a stone bank comprising relatively massive boulders arranged in one or two lines. These may have been contemporary with or perhaps even followed a line of substantial posts that run on the same line just behind the first phase of the stone bank. Unfortunately, there are as yet no stratigraphic relationships that allow us to sort out the chronological relationship between the post line and the first phase of the stone bank.

These posts were probably removed not long before the area behind the first phase stone bank was covered in a thick blanket of charcoal. In some places as thick as 20cm, this charcoal layer does not appear to have been generated in situ. There are no signs of scorching or heat alteration on the underlying soils, although this will have to be checked through laboratory analysis. If this impression is supported, we are probably dealing with the considered and purposive placement of great heaps of charcoal, presumably representing the burning of a substantial amount of timber. There is no evidence to suggest that we are dealing with a burnt out palisade or related timber structure.

The layer of charcoal was buried beneath the second phase of the stone bank. Piled on to the charcoal, perhaps while it was still alight, these stones were thrown up against the back of the first phase stone bank, dramatically increasing the breadth and the height of the monument in places. The scale of this second phase varies within the trench, but here at least we have a clear set of stratigraphic relationships and with the charcoal, a chance to gain some absolute dates for various stages in the development of the monument.