This week I joined the Lyminge Archaeological Project (@lymingedig) for a spot of archaeological digging in Lyminge, Kent. On Wednesday morning I spent two hours having an induction and finding out why there was a dig in Lyminge, where the dig was, what they hoped to find and how to get involved. There was a site tour, which basically involved looking at different coloured patches of mud, which signified post holes, pits, ditches, walls or sunken feature buildings, depending on their size, shape, position or colour. The project is investigating an Anglo-Saxon settlement in the village in the sixth to seventh centuries (approximately). Hope I've remembered the date correctly!
On Thursday morning, which was a lovely, hot, sunny morning, I donned my shorts, T-shirt and walking boots, packed my lunch and set off for the dig site with my youngest daughter, who has been volunteering there for the last two weeks, as part of her degree studies. The project is run by the University of Reading's archaeology department, which is where my daughter is studying, in conjunction with local organisations here in Kent. Initially we listened to a finds talk and had a look at some of the small finds that had been unearthed so far, including a copper pin and some small fragments of glass. My daughter had been excavating a small pit, so she carried on with that, whilst I got to dig out a section of ditch with another volunteer for company. It wasn't nearly so glamourous as the movies would have you believe, but an incredibly enjoyable experience. I borrowed my daughter's trowel, as she had progressed onto drawing a sketch of her pit, photographing it and completing various records of finds and the context - all very complicated! Along with the trowel I had a bucket, a shovel and a piece of foam to kneel on. Sun cream applied profusely and water bottle at the ready I spent several glorious hours sitting or kneeling next to a hole that got progressively deeper, perfecting my tan and making a small contribution towards uncovering history.
Of course the fairy tale would have me discovering something rare and truly amazing buried in the ground, but that particular version hadn't been written. However, that's not to say I didn't find anything, just nothing particularly special. I dug up quite a lot of shells, some were fragments and some whole, some were tiny, whilst others much larger and clearly snail shells. Not modern day snail shells, these were about a foot down from the surface, so clearly the remains of someone's past repast. Alongside the shells, was plenty of flint, which wasn't so interesting to the team. All of our 'finds' went in a finds tray, which had a context number that matched the context label for our section of ditch. Some of the pieces of flint looked as though they had been cut, so they went in the finds tray with the shells. I also found some bones; the first one was like a miniature humerus, about 3 cm long and very thin, a bit like a tiny version of your average stereotypical bone from a cartoon, but definitely mammalian. After that I found a few fragments of bone and then a larger piece, which could have been part of a pelvis or vertebra, and once again mammalian. I found a couple of pieces of what could have been pottery, although I wasn't too sure, and there was lots of slag - the solid, black stone like residue left over from working with molten iron, which is a clear indication of the existence of metal working within the settlement. Some of the other finds on site yesterday included the skeletons of two cows in another section of the same ditch that I was excavating, which created quite a buzz amongst students, volunteers and archaeologists alike.
There were regular breaks to sit in the sun or rest in the somewhat limited shade available - tea breaks in the morning and afternoon and a lunch break too, all of which were timed so that you never worked for more than 2 hours without resting and stocking up on food and water. I learned loads - how to carefully scrape away the soil without damaging the finds, the importance of keeping a neat edge to whatever you were digging, how to record the dig in terms of context, soil type, finds, etc and how to photograph a particular excavation correctly. I also learned that it's monotonous, back-breaking work at times, which doesn't detract from the enjoyment at all, but to say I was shattered by the end of the day would be an understatement!
I can't begin to explain how thrilled I am to have taken part in this project, albeit only a small part. It really was something completely different for me to do and gave a real insight into the amount of hard work that goes into a dig of this nature, and Lyminge is a relatively small one. In the evening I did my usual Facebook and Twitter posts to update my Fifty Firsts progress and I took the opportunity to thank the team via their Facebook page and Twitter account for the opportunity to complete another first. I got a huge lift today to discover they had both retweeted me and sent a reply, which gave me another first: my first retweet and my first reply on Twitter.
All in all an excellent day in Lyminge - enjoying the sun, plenty of time to let your mind wander and forget the stresses of everyday life, burning some calories when digging, learning new skills and new knowledge and meeting new people. If you ever got the chance to do something similar, I would heartily recommend it.
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