DIGGING THE DIRT AT DIRFT

Continued...

We've also got more than 13 kilos of pottery to try and identify with over 1,400 Iron Age fragments which can tell us a lot about who these people were in contact with (for example there's an Iron Age hillfort in nearby Northampton called Hunsbury). We also managed to retrieve - intact - the top half of an Iron Age rotary quern. This big disc of stone was used as a tool for grinding corn into flour; furthermore, this one has been decorated so it is a really important find - once we've got the chance we're going to see where the rock this quern is made from is sourced and how it compares to other examples in the region.

Perhaps the most unexpected find of the site so far was a lump of iron that was picked up as just a surface find. After being X-rayed it was revealed to be a spearhead of Anglo-Saxon date, which has added another level of interest to this site, even if no evidence of settlement was found at DIRFT.

All in all our excavations at DIRFT have produced some pretty good archaeological material and in some ways the most exciting bits are still to come. Once the study of the material has been completed there's probably going to be a few more surprises down the line. All I can say is: watch this space…