Day Nine

Another hot day on site, the geophysical work in the adjacent field was finished today, as were several features on site. Two features from the south east quadrant of the site were finished, one being a section of a Romano-British field boundary, which was photographed and drawn, and the other was a deep feature that has yet to be interpreted.

Both Bill Horner (Devon County Archaeologist) and Sam Moorhead (National Finds Advisor for the PAS) were on site today, and in the afternoon Sam Moorhead gave students and volunteers a talk on roman coins from the area. During this talk some of the coins found by one of the co-discoverers of the site Jim Wills were passed round, while Sam pointed out key features.

The Hub saw another fairly busy day, and the good weather was made use of, when a display was moved outside.

Day Eight

An exciting day on site today, with plenty of cake all round (Amy one of the Students had her birthday today).

There were also a lot of new volunteers on site so, in spite of the cake, lots of work got done. Even more interesting features were found when yesterday’s geophysical results were loaded up, adding to our knowledge of the (already impressive) amount of archaeology in the area.

The sunny weather brought many visitors to the Hub, with record numbers of people visiting today. The heat was made easier to bear by a cool breeze, meaning that digging conditions were comfortable.

The finds have kept coming, some pieces of Black Burnished Ware were found by students Amy and Chris. At the end of the day the students and volunteers were given an explanation of what has been happening on site by supervisors Marc and Ben.

Day Seven

The second week has started well with the cooler weather and damp ground from yesterday’s rain making digging conditions much nicer than they have been on site. A new group of volunteers started on site, and were given some background information by supervisor Ben. More geophysics is underway in an adjacent field, and is being carried out by first and second year students.

The Bronze Age feature in the northern half of the site has produced the most finds today, with over a dozen coming out of that one feature.

Day Six

Day six has started well, with several pieces of pottery, a pebble, some charcoal and some metalworking slag. A heavy drizzle has set in after the morning break and work is now continuing on site.

The rain continued for much of the day, but we did have the first piece of bone (in the form of a tooth) found on site so far!

Day Five (Continued)

After Marc’s talk Day five continued well, we did one final clean up of the site before starting work exploring the freshly uncovered features. This continued throughout the day, which was hot, but with a nice breeze to cool things down a bit. Despite this the day was still very warm, and an ice cream van brought welcome relief during the morning break. In the later half of the day we had two very important visitors, when the site was visited by both the Dean of Humanities, Professor Nick Kaye and the head of the department of Archaeology, Professor Alan Outram.

A Morning Explanation of the Site so Far (Day Five)

This year’s excavation is taking place on the site that was partially explored last year. This morning the 25 m2 area was explained to students and volunteers by Marc, the Site Director.

This area is thought to have been the site of a small farmstead with surrounding field systems. The central circular feature is a large ring ditch, probably used as drainage for an Iron Age roundhouse located in the centre. Postholes within the ring ditch were thought to be structural features, but one of them contained part of a wooden post, giving these postholes a more modern date. No further structural features from the roundhouse have been found, and it is possible that they have been ploughed out.

At its southernmost point this large ring ditch branches out into two separate features of different depths, and probably also different ages. Slightly north of the large ring ditch a curving feature was uncovered, which with further investigation may turn out to be another, smaller ring ditch. At its eastern and western extremities the large ring ditch is cut by what appear to be pre of early medieval quarrying activities. Two large slots were excavated through the western one of these last year, and no further work is to be done on these features this season.

In the northern and southern portions of the 25 m2 area opened up there are a series of Middle Bronze Age pits, which were dated from pottery and flint finds, some of the flints have also been suggested to have a Neolithic date, providing the oldest date for the site so far.

An ‘L’ shaped feature in the south west corner of the site contained large amounts of Romano-British pottery suggesting a nearby settlement, however, there has been no archaeological evidence found on site to explain the large amount of coinage that a thorough metal detector survey of the site have turned up.

Day Four

Day four saw the removal of the last of the geotextile covering, exposing the site as it was left at the end of the 2012 excavation season. It was a very hot day on site making trowelling difficult, but allowing last year’s features to be brushed clean, meaning that by the end of the day things were looking nice and clear. The Hub saw its busiest day so far, with the number of visitors exceeding 50.

Days One and Two

Finally got the 2013 Ipplepen blog up. So to start with, a catch-up on the first two days of work.

Work started on the 29th, and after everyone had arrived (first year students from a local campsite, local volunteers from nearby and the site supervisors), various tasks were handed out. In the morning first year archaeology students were given a crash course in the use of surveying equipment and other members of the team were taught how to use GPS equipment whilst the machines cleared away the soil used to backfill on last year’s excavation. By the afternoon the machines had cleared enough soil away for us begin cleaning up the site. Whilst this was going on a few volunteers were starting to set up the Hub.

Day two saw the continuation of the site’s cleaning, with the machines finishing their removal of the backfill from last year’s excavation. The Hub also opened to the public, with a total of 18 visitors, and plans to be open from 9.30 – 16.00 Monday to Friday, please do feel free to drop in.

Excavations 2012 closed

The excavations which have been taking place in Ipplepen the past month have now drawn to a close. The archaeological investigations will continue at Ipplepen next year.Much progress has been made for our understanding of this archaeological site. As well as some serious digging, recording and blogging, many fond memories have been created by all those who have taken part in the project, including students from the University of Exeter, Earthwatch volunteers, local volunteers from Ipplepen and professional archaeologists Marc, Ben, Sean and Mike who were responsible for the supervision and interpretation of the site. Many thanks go to Marc, Site Director and Director of Oakford Archaeology, Ben, Site Supervisor and Archaeological Specialist, Sean and Mike, Experimental Officers from the University of Exeter, Danielle Wootton, Finds Liason Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Dr Ioana Oltean and Dr Martin Pitts, lecturers from the University of Exeter, Bill Horner, County Archaeologist for Devon County Council and Sam Moorhead, National Adviser for Iron Age and Roman Coins at the British Museum. A vote of thanks must also be passed on to the University of Exeter Annual Fund and Earthwatch whose financial support made this archaeological project possible. We would like to thank the public for their great enthusiasm for the project, the villagers at Ipplepen for their kind hospitality, and finally, our local heroes, Jim and Dennis who discovered the site in 2007.

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