Vindolanda Day Ten and Last

And so another archaeology jaunt to Vindolanda comes to an end.  We've had great weather and lots of fun with old friends.  The actual archaeology, while fascinating in a long term sense, was a bit mundane this year.  The team washing up post excavation finds has been rather idle.

Last day pictures.

When digging in layers of organic, anaerobically preserved stuff, the technique is to cut chunks of it with spades, then hand it up top.

It then gets hand crumbled, looking for the small, subtle treasures such as wooden writing tablets.

Quite a bit of the stuff we had to crumble was still a bunch of hard clay, but towards the end we did have a bit of the proper "laminate".  This is a mixture of wood, straw, manure and other materials.

One component is bracken.  This is a fern like plant that still grows on the hills above.  It was used as floor cover and is a great place to find small objects.  Imagine dropping a coin into a mat of smelly shag carpeting.  This is from circa 200 AD, but you could walk up the hill and grab a handful that looks just the same.

No finds of note for me today.  A few bits of broken pottery.  But others did a bit better.  The anaerobic layers preserve metal completely without tarnish or oxidation. This bit of copper is felt to be from the edge of a Roman shield.

Farewell to the frontier of Roman Britain.  Many more mysteries still lie slumbering.  We'll see if the goddess Fortuna steers me back another year.