Yesterday's sun and wind dried the site off pretty well. It did rain a bit overnight but frankly the engineering put in place by the Romans 1800 years ago still works. The drains still take the water out.
So it was back to the deep anaerobic layers. The day got off to a great start. In the first half hour we found the remains of wooden posts and a possible wattle fence. It is pretty hard to show these up in photos until they are completely excavated. And we seemed to only have a corner of what was projected to be a 2nd century AD building. Lots of overburden had to be shifted in our approach to what was hoped to be "the good stuff".
Along the way you do start to see the remarkable level of preservation in these layers. In the upper levels any nails you find are just big blobs of rust. Here's one that could have just come from the hardware store.
Bone also is pristine albeit a bit darkened by time.
My favorite find of the day was this odd bit of worked wood. It was the same corrugated look on both sides.
I'm told it is pine, a wood that in Roman times would have been imported. Best guess? Part of a beer tankard!
Tomorrow we dig into the anaerobic layer a bit deeper, maybe there will be some things of interest.
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