Medieval Dig Site: Mota Piece

Trench 5, John's Land Rover, and the power lines

This week we were digging in a different field on the castle estate, called Mota Piece. "Mota" is because there's several moats on the site, but no one seems to know where "Piece" came from.

This site belongs to the castle but is currently being leased by a local farmer as grazing land for cows. Mon-Wed the cows were in the distance, but Thurs-Fri they actually became a major problem. We put barbed wire up to keep them out of the actual trenches, but today we had to spend a lot of time shooing cows away as they swarmed us and constantly tried to step into our trenches.

I was in Trench 4, 1x5 metres, with three other classmates and Dr. Scott. In total we had three trenches: 3,4,5 (previous digging on the site accounted for 1 and 2). You can see Trench 5 above: it was the largest and most difficult, since it was on the dry moat and therefore at a steep angle.

The finds coming out of this site were absolutely incredible (to us at least!). SO much better than Beechtree Field! I found bits of metal, an animal chest bone, many pieces of black local pottery, oyster shells, and a big piece of a pot rim (which might help to date the site). The other girls in my trench found green glazed pottery, and various bones, jawbones, and teeth.

Today (Friday) we had 27 local Gr. 4 students come visit the site for 3 hours (school here goes through July). We were all a bit worried but it was actually a lot of fun. They were so excited about the simplest things and very well-behaved. After they left, I set up level string lines and then drew our northern profile (vertical) while two of my trench-mates called out the measurements. We had taken down the barbed wire before the kids came, but this meant that the cows could now get much too close to falling in the trenches.

All in all, another great experience. Tonight we all got together in the pub for a while, but we have homework to finish and packing to do before leaving for our end-of-term trip at 4:45 am tomorrow!

Trench 4 and spoil heap. Buckets and scoop shovels for
getting out loose soil after we excavate it. We took turns
emptying the buckets, which got increasingly difficult
as our trench gradually became 4.5-5 feet deep!

Barbed wire to keep the cows out; you can see Bader Hall in the distance

Leah and Erin's end of our trench

looking west towards my end of the trench.
See the different colours, representing
different contexts, in the soil profile!

beautiful weather most of the week

western profile. Bottom layer shown here, context
4, had lots of clay building material and charcoal.

documenting Dr. Scott's section in the middle of our
trench with official photos

finds tray from context 4- lots of clay
building material, one piece of green
glaze pottery (middle right of tray)

the cows are getting closer (taken from in Trench 4)

down into context 6 in our trench

Victorian drainage pipe in Trench 3. Further down
they found a late-neolithic bark chip pathway!
The county archaeologist was called in
and it was considered a pretty important find,
extending the known history of the site by up
to several thousand years.

Brooke doing levels 

Dr. Scott in our trench (classmates digging behind him too)

context 6 finds tray! I found the big bone (top left) and
the pot rim (to its right) plus some of the other flat pottery pieces
and the oyster shells.

I found this one piece of pottery in context 5

The cows really don't want us to leave! Surrounding Dr.
Scott's car

History Hike

I think "hike" isn't quite the right word, but I liked the alliteration. Anyways, during class last week (our week of Medieval Britain lectures) we went for a walk out into the fields behind the church which is next to Bader Hall (residence). 

When the castle was built in 1441, the village was very nearby the church, and therefore much too close to the castle for the lord's taste. He ordered the entire village moved, and so it relocated to its present position. However, no one has ever found the original village site. Dr. Scott took us to a few different fields that seem to fit the criteria. We saw some obviously manmade embankments and ditches, so that was really neat. Right now the fields are leased to farmers- one was full of cows, one had sheep, and another had rows of corn. In the cornfield we split up and each walked along a row, and we found some small pieces of pottery/roof tile right in the topsoil. 

Excavation Week at the Roman site (Beechtree Field)

After a week of lectures, this past week (June 25-29) we left the classroom for a week of digging. We were excavating in a field next to the Observatory/Science Centre on the castle grounds. My professor has been doing archaeology at the castle for about 5 years (never as a field school, just with interested students) and 2 years ago some Roman pottery was found in this field.

Three locations in the field were chosen to open up trenches at, based on the locations of those previous finds and the results of magnetometry readings. We were divided up into unequal groups based on the trench size; I got really lucky and was one of two students assigned to open up a 1x1 m test pit with Dr. Scott (you can see it in the photo above).

We were in the field from about 10am-5pm Mon-Fri. We mostly had gorgeous weather, which was great but really hot at times (although I recognize that it was nothing compared to what digging in, say, a desert would be like).

To summarize, we didn't really find much! Bits of worked flint and Roman pottery, some features including ditches and a possible post-hole, and I found an animal bone. I really enjoyed it though and it was a good chance to learn basic stuff about excavation practices, like how to shovel properly, use trowels properly, draw plan and profile views, set up string lines, etc.

Supervising the dig was Sue, a Canadian archaeologist; we also had Dr. Scott (our castle professor), John (a very experienced, retired, local amateur archaeologist) and Jonathan (a visiting professor from Nova Scotia). Jonathan gave us a lecture on Romanization before digging on Tuesday, and on Monday the county archaeologist for East Sussex visited to tell us about his job (which sounds awesome!!).

We finished off the week with a barbeque at Dr. Scott's house, which was a great chance to just hang out as a group after a long week! Now we are finished with Roman archaeology and moving on to Medieval. Lectures start Monday, exam on Friday, then digging at our Medieval site the following Monday!

"My" test pit. HCBTF = Herstmonceux Castle Beech Tree Field.
TU12 = Test Unit 12.

The shape of the change in soil colour indicates a feature
(eg a filled-in ditch or post hole)

Trench 10, with the Science Centre in the background

Finds tray for Context 2 (medieval plough soil level)
of T13. On the left is the bone I found!

John's land rover and the excavation tent, with the Science
Centre in the background

Day 2: we opened up Trench 13 (1x3 m) next to TU12.
I was working on these two trenches with my trench-mate
Claire and Dr. Scott. 

Further down in T13, pursuing possible features
and concentrations of charcoal. This involved lots
of lying on the edge of the trench on our stomachs, reaching
in with trowels.

even further down in T13

soil heap from T13, with Beech Tree Field in the background

one of my jobs was setting up the string line exactly level
in preparation for drawing profile views (vertical)

drawing plan and profile views of TU12 and T13

Sue after approving our drawings. Claire plotted the points
while I was in the trench calling out measurements.

Most of Friday was spent backfilling: replacing all the soil
and sod we removed from the trench (T13 backfilled, above). After finishing ours,
we got a quick break to help clean off our finds
(with toothbrushes and water) before helping the other groups
fill in their (much larger) trenches.

Pevensey Castle + Academic Update

Here's how the archaeology field school works: there are two courses, Roman Britain and Medieval Britain. The first 2 weeks are the Roman course; the second 2 weeks are the Medieval course; and the last week is the end-of-term trip. For each course, the first week is spent in class, and the second week is spent digging. "In class" = 3 hours of lecture per day and 1.5 hours of seminar (class discussions on the assigned readings, where we're marked on participation). Both of the dig sites are on the estate, and during dig weeks we'll be on site from 10-5 every day, plus guest lectures before 10am some mornings.  The history professor, Dr. Scott, does all the regular lectures, and a Canadian professional archaeologist has been brought in to oversee the excavation side of things. The field school has 13 students, and 3 of us are returning castle students.

Thursday's field study was to Pevensey Castle. I've actually been here before- it was part of the "local orientation tour" at the beginning of fall term. It was much more informative to be here with a prof though, instead of just being let loose to explore on our own (although that was fun too).

Transportation for the 10-min trip from Herstmonceux to Pevensey:
Castle 16-seater minibus

we walked around the circumference of the castle through the woods

grave marker in St. Nicholas' church next door

the "haunted" dungeon! It was extremely creepy, actually. 

Inside the castle

If you go through the archives you'll see
I have a picture of this same sign
from last September! I guess
flooding is a permanent problem here...

View from the Postern Gate

Pevensey Castle was originally "Anderida", one of the 10 Saxon Shore Forts built by the Romans. Anderida was built in the 300s CE. Then it was taken over and built upon by William the Conqueror and the Normans in 1066. By WWII in the 1940s, it had fallen somewhat into ruin, and the British army actually destroyed it further to deflect German attention from the soldiers and gun emplacements the British were hiding in the ruins.

across from the castle

We had a lecture on Pevensey as we walked around the castle. We had also had assigned readings on the Saxon Short Fort system for the day, so for our seminar we stopped at a pub across the street for lunch and our discussion. It's a great atmosphere, all the students are some combo of archaeology/history/medieval studies majors so everyone is genuinely interested in what we're studying. The small group size makes it easy to talk and adds an informality which is awesome. 

I ordered a cucumber sandwich and slice of treacle tart :)

Speaking of the informality of classes at the castle, here's another photo which illustrates my point. The last 2 days had gorgeous weather, so instead of sitting in the classroom for our seminar we went out and sat in the field!