Last week!

Hello! Its been a very exciting week or so here at SERF! Firstly, we have finished digging at Leadketty after finding post holes, pits and most of a timber circle, as well as a piece of pottery. Exciting things have also been happening over at Wellhill, where as usual lots of finds have been emerging from the Neolithic and Bronze-Age pits, including lots of pottery and a polished stone tool. An early Bronze-Age cist with burnt bone inside has also been excavated. At the Dun Knock we have been excavating ditch features in our main trench, and have found evidence of a rampart with post holes and timber revetments in one of our smaller trenches in the neighbouring woods. Some very exciting finds have been uncovered in the last week at the Dun Knock including a crucible, stone tools and a intact pot which is already looking to be very unusual.

Lots of fun was had at our successful open day on Saturday despite the bad weather. Children as adults alike enjoyed making clay pots and getting their faces painted Pictish-style, as well as going on site tours taken by our students and sampling some food that was cooked at our pit roast.

We are all looking forward to tying everything up in this last week, keep an eye on the twitter for anymore updates!

All finished at Leadketty!

Hannah and Katie holding the polished stone tool at Wellhill

Scott pointing to the whole pot in situ in ditch 4 at the Dun Knock

One week down, two weeks to go!

Hello all! It's been an eventful week here at SERF with all three of our trenches busy with exciting archaeology. Our students at Wellhill have been exposing features and excavating Neolithic and Bronze-Age features. A number of prehistoric pottery sherds have also been found by a number of our students, as well as other finds such as pitch stone. In Leadketty evidence of a timber circle is appearing; one of the timber circles appears to have burnt clay within it which suggests that the timber post was possibly burnt in situ. Exciting things are also happening at the Dun Knock, where evidence of the ditches are appearing. There is also an interesting possible linear rock feature which we will hopefully shine some light on in the next few days. Some prehistoric pottery has also emerged as well as a stone tool and some vitrified stone. Students and volunteers are working well together and lots of people from the local community have been coming along to listen in to the site tours and visit our displays at the Old School. In the next few days more features (and hopefully finds!) should be appearing on all the sights so watch this space!

Just a quick reminder that our open day is on Saturday 4th July where students will be giving tours of all the sites and there will be more displays and finds in the Old School as well as Dr Kenny Brophy's aerial photography workshop at 10am. There will also be lots of other activities happening throughout the day so pop down and give us a visit!

SERF '15: And so it begins...

The SERF team are back in Dunning and have hit the ground running! It has been an exciting couple of days on all of the sites, with promise of some interesting archaeology ready to be uncovered after two days of cleaning. After cleaning the trench at Wellhill- the biggest trench in SERF history, a massive 2000 square metres- the students uncovered some potentially exciting features. Similarly in our Leadketty trench (which is much smaller and cosier than the trench in Wellhill) potential archaeology is cropping up. Our community dig in the Dun Knock kicked off last Monday when the children from the local primary school came to visit the site and had a go at digging and sieving. Hopefully some future archaeologists in the making! After cleaning and edging the Dun Knock today with the help of some great volunteers we are able to see a possible ditch feature more clearly and also some other interesting features. Despite the sandy soil and the windy weather, the students are enjoying themselves and are looking forward to uncovering some exciting archaeology in the next few days!

Cleaning at Leadketty

The student working hard at Welllhill

Future archaeologists at the Dun Knock!

Dunning Community Programme

The SERF team are gearing up for another summer excavating in the Dunning area. We will be returning to Wellhill to investigate an early prehistoric landscape and returning for another season at the Dun Knock hillfort in Dunning itself. We will be examining the banks and ditches of this impressive Iron Age hillfort in conjunction with a community heritage programme running through the project.

Sign up now! We are looking for volunteers to come and dig, attend workshops and visit the site.

There are lots of activities planned for all ages including some fun, kids based events on our Open Day Saturday 4th July.

Don't want to get dirty? Well, we have plenty of indoor and non-digging activities to get involved with including talks, walks, workshops and tours. Displays and finds will be on show in our Heritage Hub, opposite the Dun Knock site.

More information on events and how to book can be found here. Please share to anyone you think might be interested!

Look forward to seeing you there. More updates to follow.

Ogle Hill Excavations

SERF is digging at Ogle Hill until the 19th of April 2015. 
Follow our progress on Twitter @SERFproject

Millhaugh day 5

Many thanks to everyone involved in the fieldwork at Millhaugh. Research aims achieved. Also thanks to Calum Rollo (landowner), John Neil (farmer) and the SMC team at Historic Scotland.

We’ll be back at Millhaugh in August for further fieldwalking and there are plans, subject to permissions, for excavations in 2016.

Millhaugh Day 4

Katherine Price writes:

Day Four

Another sunny, successful day at Millhaugh. The fieldwalkers finished walking the field, with a final large flake of flint found in the unpromising last corner just before packing up. Those who were test-pitting worked away in good spirits, despite the archaeology remaining elusive. Mystery object of the day was a slate pencil – this resulted in some reminiscing by Dene and Gert who seemed to have personal recollections of schools before pencil and paper became the standard for writing practice. Kenny Brophy made a guest appearance, the large selection of selection of cakes and pastries were much appreciated by all!

Millhaugh Day 3

Day 3 saw a dramatic increase in the number of finds from fieldwalking. The majority of the finds are lithics, including two ‘true’ flint blades. One of the blades is shown in a photograph below. Gert and his geophysics team continued to tick off at the grids and may end up finishing the survey by the end of Day 4. The test pitting continues apace. Very few finds so far

Millhaugh Day 2

Excellent progress on Day 2 of Millhaugh across all three tasks, i.e. fieldwalking, geophysics and test pitting. First photograph is Gert and the geophysics team and below the test-pitters with Becca. Calum Rollo (landowner) visited.

Millhaugh Fieldwork Begins 16th March 2015

We’re back at Millhaugh, Dunning in rural Perthshire this week for fieldwalking, geophysical survey and a test pitting programme. The weather on Monday was decidedly mixed. Despite the conditions the students set about their tasks with great enthusiasm and humour and we made an excellent start to our programme of work. According to the forecast it should cloudy and dry for the rest of the week.