The first day of the 2014 season has gotten off to a flying start! Plenty of pottery sherds were also coming up too.
Over at The Hub, Greg and James set up the displays, which will be added to throughout the week. They also began painting some signs, since the door to The Hub is quite tucked away.
To round off the first day, a lot of good work with plenty more to look forward to!
Day 21 saw the majority of the excavation finished on site, with only a few areas needing further exploration. There were some exciting finds for the last day, including several large pieces of Bronze Age pottery and an unfinished Neolithic arrowhead. Day 21 sadly was also the last day that the visitors center at the Hub was open.
Day 22 Was all about the final site photograph. The last few areas under excavation were finished, while the whole site was swept clean. This was to make sure that all the features showed up nicely in the picture, which was taken from 80 feet high from the platform of a cherry-picker.
Day 23 The final day on site has mainly involved cleaning tools and making sure all the records are up-to-date, before the site is back filled.
While this was happening several van-loads of equipment were taken back to Exeter for storage until the beginning of next years excavation season. The finds from the 2013 excavation were the first to arrive and conservation work has now begun.
The penultimate day of excavation on site today, and what was expected to be a frantic time here in Ipplepen was eased hugely by the large numbers of new volunteers we have here on site. Work continued in the Bronze/ Iron Age pits with several volunteers under the supervision of Nick, who has been working on the feature steadily for the past month.The final bulk in the eastern ditch that runs into the ring ditch is still being removed, and a large amount of Bronze Age pottery has been coming out of that all day. By the end of the day both Marc and Ben were confident that we would have achieved our aims by tomorrow evening.
It was also a good day in the visitor center in the Hub, with a steady flow of visitors throughout the day, amounting to almost seventy in all.
The Ipplepen Archaeological Project on BBC Spotlight (13.50 minutes in)-http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b038mtj1/Spotlight_19_08_2013/
A great day to be on site today with one hundred and twenty two finds being found over the course of the day, including the two largest pieces of pottery found thus far. The first was a Romano-British storage vessel, and the second, was a fragment of amphora (itself in several pieces). Work continued as usual on site, with several new volunteers swelling the ranks.
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.
