Category: 2016

We’ve had another exciting result from our programme of radiocarbon dating.

The cremation in Trench 12 was not associated with any datable pottery, but the radiocarbon date shows that it is 4^th or 3^rd century BC (Middle Iron Age). That makes it contemporary with some of the earliest roundhouses that have been excavated across the site and which are themselves associated with distinctive decorated pottery known as South-West Decorated Ware.

Scientific dating is helping us to gradually fill out a picture of life and death in a settlement occupied from the Middle Iron Age through to the Post-Roman period.

Steve Rippon

 

Hi everyone, we thought you might be interested to see the completed final excavation plan of Trench 10 excavated in June 2016. This plan represents a composite of all of the measured drawings made by our students and volunteers during the dig. These field drawings were then digitised by scanning the originals into a computer and then tracing over them using a digital graphics software package. The Individual digitised drawings were then stitched together to make the whole.
The original drawings were drawn at a scale of 1:20. The scale of the finished drawing is indicated by the blue grid lines which are each 5m apart.
The position of the two roundhouses is indicated by the red circles. The northernmost one contained mostly Iron Age pottery in the fill of its ring ditch, but also a Romano-British jar darting from the mid-3rd century AD, or later. The southern one contained Middle and Late Iron Age pottery in its fill. There are numerous other segments of ring ditch suggesting continuous occupation over an extended period of time as well as several different phases of rectilinear ditched enclosures.

John Davey

We have just had the latest set of radiocarbon dates! The earliest one in this batch is 2nd century AD, and confirms a mid-Roman date for a pit that contained a large amount of burnt material. The second date is 5th century AD, and came from some rubbish that was dumped into a steep-sided pit or well: this is extremely exciting as it shows that the settlement continued to be occupied after Britain ceased to be part of the Roman Empire. We also decided to date one further burial (excavated in 2014) in the cemetery which turned out to be mid-7th century AD: this is a similar date to the others we have, and it now looks like the cemetery is firmly early Christian in date (not Roman as first thought).

 

Steve Rippon

An exciting, and unexpected, discovery during excavations in 2016 was a small group of cremated human remains. The remains had been carefully placed in a small, shallow pit with the largest fragments, including the leg bones, at the bottom. The bone represents a single individual whose sex could not be determined but who was probably a young adult female or young gracile adult male. The level of bone fusion and presence of adult tooth roots suggest the individual was over 17 but under 30 years of age. After cleaning the vast majority of the bone was shown to be a uniform neutral white, indicating burning at 940°C and above (Shipman et al. 1984). The fracture patterns identified suggest the remains were fleshed at the time of cremation with the largest bone fragment size being 81mm. We are awaiting the results of radiocarbon dating before comparison with other cremations in the South West can be made.

 

Mandy Kingdom

 

Reference

Shipman, P., Foster, G. and Schoeninger, M. 1984: ‘Burnt bones and teeth: an experimental study of colour, morphology and crystal structure and shrinkage’, J. Archaeol. Sci. 11, 307–25.

Hi everyone, I just thought you might be interested to see this new image of the Romano-British coarse ware jar that we excavated from the fill of one of our two main ring ditches this season. One of our Undergraduate students Cristina Crizbasan has reconstructed it for us. You may be able to see that it has wiped surface treatment on the lower half and has a narrow band of obtuse lattice decoration at the top. In form and decoration it resembles a Greyhound Yard type 3 jar. The date range for this form typically spans the 3rd and 5th centuries AD. However, vessels with narrow bands of obtuse lattice decoration are generally later. In fact the narrower the band the later the pot! (see Woodward et al. 1993, ‘Excavations at Greyhound Yard, Dorchester, 1981-4’, DNHAS Monograph 12, pp. 230-231).

Dear Blog followers,

Last chance (for the time being!) to see our amazing Roman pottery finds from this season before they go to the University to be processed and analysed. Our display case is now full and includes decorated Samian ware depicting human figures (our very own ‘Ipplepen archer’!). We’re at the Hub in Ipplepen Methodist Church until Thursday afternoon.

Hope to see you there!

Today was quite a warm day, with excavation and Open Day preparation keeping the team very busy. The team also did a lot of residue sorting- a lot of patience is required for this task as we painstakingly go through samples to find tiny charred grains of cereal. Thanks to the interested visitors who had seen our excavation on BBC Spotlight last night and wanted to see more of the intriguing finds we are uncovering.

Thursday was another good day for excavation, pictured here is the complete pot that Enfys and Danielle excavated, we can’t wait to analyse the content and get a proper look at it once experts have had the chance to look at it. We were also overjoyed to welcome back Katy to the site, who has been involved in the project since the very start. Jim, one of the site’s discoverers also visited the site. It was wonderful to welcome them both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the evening, students gathered for a guided walk from Bill Horner, Devon County Archaeologist, and John, the ranger, who gave interesting talks on Denbury and it’s context within the wider landscape. The Iron Age hillfort is inter-visible with Ipplepen, so it was great to hear more about the site.

Dear Blog followers,

Last chance (for the time being!) to see our amazing Roman pottery finds from this season before they go to the University to be processed and analysed. Our display case is now full and includes decorated Samian ware depicting human figures (our very own ‘Ipplepen archer’!). We’re at the Hub in Ipplepen Methodist Church until Thursday afternoon.

Hope to see you there!

 

Today we were happy to have Dr Lukas Holata on site, a research fellow in the University of Exeter’s archaeology department. While the team set down tools and took their lunch break, Lukas got to work taking over 700 images in order to create a 3D image of the site. We’re looking forward to seeing the results!

In other news, the ditch with the quern stone find has been fully excavated by Jon and friends. Today Thea and Stewart were busy planning and drawing it, here is a picture of Thea in the fully excavated pit.

Another interesting feature that has been excavated is this possible well that Enfys and Jerry have been excavating.

More of the team have been washing finds today, and it has been good weather for drying them. Some really interesting pottery sherds are being processed, and you can see some beautiful examples of these in the Hub until Thursday afternoon. Come and visit them soon, as it will be the last chance for the year. We have some spectacular pieces in the display cabinet!