Vindolanda 2014 Day One

After the now traditional pub gathering the night before an enthusiastic, if slightly bedraggled band of diggers hit the trenches.

The main effort at the moment involves trying to figure out what the post Roman "Dark Agers" were up to once the Empire went bust in the early 400s.

Above is a primitive floor surface from the sub Roman days.  Slopped together with whatever fell off the decaying buildings.

An odd pit dug right through a late Roman road.  No plausible theories as to its purpose.

I am currently digging in the ramparts, the packed dirt that fronted the inside aspect of the fort wall.  Generally not the most productive areas archeologically but important in trying to
figure out the late history of the place.

Of course sometimes the interesting stuff does turn up, a few years back an intact shrine to
the god Jupiter Dolicheus turned up smack in the middle of a packed clay rampart!

Small finds tend to be infrequent.  But I did turn up this sad, crumbly ghost of a silver coin.  It was probably once a good quality coin....it was bad for the Emperor's longevity to pay the troops in skunk money.

Ah, but soon I hope to get over to the other side of the site where a deep trench has been put down into dark, funky anaerobicly preserved layers.  Things come up from there in much better shape than my sorry excuse for a coin.  Check out sheep skull that turned up there recently !