Site Diary: Trench 2

Last year we excavated a small evaluation trench across a linear feature which had previously been interpreted as either a post-medieval drainage ditch or a pit alignment. The 1998 trench identified two clay-lined peat-filled pits approximately one metre in diameter and one metre deep. This spring students on the MA in Landscape Archaeology at the University of Sheffield completed a detailed survey of the whole of the alignment and took environmental cores from two of the pits, one of these showing that there is peat under the clay-lining.

This year we have moved downslope into an area where the feature appears on the surface to comprise a continuous ditch with sunken depressions. Under the supervision of Olaf and Sarah a trench has been placed across the feature to investigate three of these depressions, causeways and low banks either side.

We wish to compare this section with that excavated in 1998 to see how it was created, maintained and to retrieve environmental data. We hope to gain a better understanding of how the boundary would have looked to interpret why it was built in this way. After two days we can see that the feature comprises a continuous ditch into the bottom of which are depressions or pits that are spaced wider apart than the pits dug last year.