Field Day 10

The question all people ask when they find out I'm doing an archaeological excavation is "What have you found?" It's impossible to find nothing at any point in an excavation, because even "nothing" is something. That is to say, if you don't find anything (artifacts, features, etc.), that in itself can tell you something. It's not as exciting as unearthing the Sutton Hoo helmet, but it's still useful.

We didn't find exactly "nothing" today, but we didn't find that much, either. We were on Level 5 of all three units we worked on, which meant we were past the artifact-heavy levels and into the levels of interesting looking rocks.

Like this rock in STP 3, which looks like it has a tenon joint (no mortice in sight, though, which makes me think that this rock was cut for something else and then reused).


And these rocks, which are held together by mortar, in STP 3B.


And this rock, which I have imaginatively nicknamed "Pointy Rock," in STP 3.


The fit of Pointy Rock next to its neighbor suggests (to me, at least) that it was placed there deliberately, but I doubt that Pointy Rock was shaped for this purpose. Like other rocks in the unit, it was probably originally shaped for something else.


Above you can see the two open units (STP 3 and STP 3B) with their respective recording forms, and below are two pictures showing the empty area where we believe St. George's Church might have stood.