SERF blog

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Day 15: 18/08/09

After a relaxing day off yesterday we were all back to work. It was a good day all around - although it did drizzle for a bit in the afternoon.

At Green of Invermay we continued cleaning the N end on the trench and the stone-packed post-hole that Kenny found a few days ago seems to be part of a wall - a palisade. At the S end of the trench the ditch still seems to go deeper - we are now at a context with ash and occasional burnt bone - lovely.

Until today we had only been excavating a 1m slot through the ditch and it was becoming necessary to excavate the other half. Ben helped me mattock to the top of the ditch, which was hard work. At the end of the day Matt uncovered a possible pit/large posthole between the ditch and the wall - another hooray! This trench is now producing lots of lovely features...

When we came back to the school I got to see the star find from the henge trench, which was a really nice lithic arrowhead. It is tiny, but has been worked finely at the edges. This arrowhead was found by Anna within the henge - brilliant!

Tessa

****
Andy will fill us in on his experiences at the cemetery site...

Today I was at the Pictish cemetery site. I’ve been working on a posthole for my portfolio, its more relaxing than mattocking/shovelling. The features on the site are a lot clearer and more easily identifiable this week especially the barrow. With the change in conditions my posthole appears larger than when I left it last week and so I had to expand upon my original excavation. I planned the stony fill of the posthole and photographed it. Personal finds today consisted entirely of charcoal. Need to finish off drawing the profile tomorrow. Alex stole Gordons hot sauce. Went to the toilet and felt uncomfortable with Dene watching. Took a soil sample from the posthole. Lost my phone and found it in the bottom of my trousers. Emmm I can’t think of anything else to write so thanks for taking the time to read my boring blog!

Love Andy

1 comment:

cathymac12 July 2010 at 17:06
Having never been to Forteviot I must say that the Green of Invermay sounds like the coolest trench.....
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2015 SERF Field School

The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project field school for archaeology students will takes place 20 June - 10 July 2015 in and around the village of Dunning in Perthshire.

We will be posting updates of the excavations here and you are welcome to follow along and make comments. To find out more background information about SERF please visit our webpage.

Follow us on Twitter: SERFProject

We would like to thank local landowners and farmers for their support of our project.

Events in the Local Community
As part of the current phase of the SERF project which is based around Dunning, we will be continuing our community archaeology programme. This is intended to involve participation of local community through a range of activities including a Big Dig, a programme of schools outreach and public lectures.

Previous Seasons

2013 Season
In 2013 we excavated a prehistoric enclosure at Baldinnies, St Serfs church in Dunning, an Iron Age site at Kay Craig.

2012 Season
In 2012 we began the second half of the SERF project, or the first half of our acronym, moving out from Royal Forteviot into the Strathearn Environs! Work now shifted to the Dunning area, focusing on the prehistoric cropmarks at Leadketty Farm. A few trenches were opened around the medieval church of St Serf's in Dunning, which revealed a fragment of a Pictish cross amongst other things. Work also continued on Castle Craig Broch, turning up important evidence for the use and re-use of Roman material culture on an Iron Age settlement site.

2011 Season
In 2011 excavation began on new sites across Strathearn. A new hillfort with three visible ramparts was excavated at Ben Effrey while just down the hill a possible hillfort at Castle Craig turned out to be a broch! The topographic survey of this site shows the ramparts of an earlier enclosure on the site. Digging at Haly Hill in Forteviot uncovered the remains of a post-medieval structure and roadway and produced a lot of interesting finds.

2010 Season
In 2010 further excavations of the Forteviot monument complex were undertaken. We excavated trenches over a henge monument with a large central pit and a double ditched enclosure with a central 'triple cist'. Meanwhile the palisaded enclosure was revisited which enabled us to further record the nature of the postholes outwith the avenue. Also, in the same field, another Pictich square barrow was excavated.

2009 Season
In 2009 we continued our investigations of a Neolithic henge which has been extensively reworked in later prehistory/Early Medieval period. We also dug at a Pictish cemetery - focusing on a large enigmatic square enclosure.

Exploration of the wider context of the complex archaeology of Forteviot will continued with walkover and topographic surveys and a small excavation of a nearby river terrace fort.

2008 Season
In 2008 we opened a trench over a Neolithic henge monument within the large palisaded enclosure. Trenches at the Dunknock hillfort were also opened and aimed to ascertain the location of the rampart and ditch system.

Meanwhile the wider context of Strathearn was explored with standing building survey at Muckersie, topographic survey at various sites including Exmagirdle, Forteviot Churchyard and Muckersie Chapel and a geophysical survey at Blackford near the Pictish symbol stone. Walkover survey took place on the high ground above Forteviot aiming to record cultivation remains, enclosure boundaries and past routeways.

2007 Season

The first season of excavation at Forteviot focussed on the avenue of a large Neolithic palisaded enclosure. This site is full of interesting monuments and features such as a large henge monument within the enclosure.

Elsewhere a large trench was opened at Jackschairs hillfort to investigate the rampart and ditch system. In conjunction with this a topographic survey of the hillfort was performed, with the aim of recording the extent of the ramparts remaining under thick vegetation.

Walkover survey took place at the Black Hill of Kippen, geophysics was taking place in and around Forteviot and a standing building survey was done of Exmagirdle Chapel.

Over several weeks after the fieldschool a Pictish square barrow with several graves was also excavated by a group of keen students.

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Tuesday, 18 August 2009

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