Site Diary: Trench 4

Clearance and dumping

The bank has now been cleaned within the west sondage and the first layer of mineralised soil removed. Our first impression is that the bank has been created by the dumping of stone along an established line in a somewhat ad hoc manner, something seen in other banks on the moor.

In other words, we are dealing with a product of protracted and piecemeal episodes of clearance and dumping rather than a wall or boundary that was established in one go. Work on the eastern sondage has offered confirmation to the idea that we may have some form of entrance through the boundary, though we have yet to establish whether this was an original or added feature. Artefacts from this sondage include fragments of a finely flaked flint knife (try saying that with loose teeth) and a whetstone.