The first day of an archaeological investigation is
a day of planning and preparation.
Finds
in the topsoil.
During the first day of the excavation strong winds and rain showers
slowed down our progress. The mechanical digger stripped the topsoil of
5 areas ranging in size between 100 and 12 square metres. One area stills
needs to be finished and one further area needs to be stripped tomorrow.
A number of ceramic shards, pieces of bottle glass and window glass were
found and left where we found them, until tomorrow. We will record their
location using a robotic total station, for which survey control will
be established tomorrow first thing.
The topsoil is very shallow and on average the subsoil starts at a depth
of 15 centimetres. No burning horizon was found which means that the homestead
was not burnt when it was destroyed.
The
outline of one of the pits after topsoil stripping.
The location of the house is clearly indicated by many pieces of window
glass together with other finds. Other areas show postholes and pits though
all areas need to be cleaned down by hand to see more details.
The initial plan of the various parts of the farmstead derived from the
geomagnetic survey and one historic map overlay seems to be fairly accurate.
The next few days will show more detail and confirm or negate the details
of our initial plans.
