DIGGING THE DIRT AT DIRFT

Continued...

Well, to be honest we focused most of our efforts on the Iron Age remains identified across the site as these were the most numerous. These remains date to somewhere between 400 BC and AD 50 (i.e. just before them Romans arrived). In all we recorded more than 50 roundhouses dating to this period, seventeen were investigated and seven of those had detailed recording and excavation.

Lots of material relating to a nearly 3000 years of occupation, including fragments of pottery and field system earthworks still surviving before the soil strip began were identified and recovered. There was also strong evidence of cremation across the site - perhaps as many as 19 cremation burials of Bronze or Iron Age date.

There were also some remains datable to the Roman, Saxon and Medieval periods, but there was nothing to tell us whether they lived there or not…

Now that the excavation is complete, it's over to our post-ex(cavation) team who have completed an initial analysis on the material recovered. Preliminary results indicate 5 periods of archaeological activity with a diverse range of finds relating to these…beyond the really important cremated bone remains, which might give us a date and tell us what temperature the cremation fires reached, we've got stacks of environmental remains, consisting of burnt seeds (to tell us what crops were being grown), animal bones (what people kept as farm animals and ate) and other material that can tell us about the life-choices people made. Most of this (like the archaeological remains) relates to the Iron Age period.