Vindolanda Wraps for the Season - And, What Was Going on in The Dark Ages?

The excavations at both of the sites run by the Vindolanda Trust have now wrapped it up for the year.  Some really good work done at each of them.

There is a natural tendency to be very invested in the areas you've personally gotten down and dirty in.  And in my case that enigmatic Dark Age structure that was slopped on top of the nice, neat right angled cornered Roman features.  I've talked at length about it HERE

An end of season drone shot shows it in a bit more detail.  I've put solid lines around the obvious parts and dashed lines where things are "maybe" extending further back.  Weird...

I generally don't like to speculate too much on these things.  I was only there for a single session, and have not had a chance to study the skimpy collection of artifacts that came out of this layer.  But I can probably say one or two things it is not.  Not Roman for instance.  It's running right over late Roman structures, and besides, they would not build things in that shape.  Or partly blocking the main road for that matter.  From the outline you could speculate on it being a livestock pen, but the sheer volume of rocks in this heap make that implausible.  Too much effort for penning up critters in a big, tall, sturdy enclosure.  Besides, the fort walls were likely standing tall at this time so cattle thievery was probably not the major industry it became later.

Ah well, if I'm lucky enough to be back next year in May that will be about the time this area is finished off, so maybe I'll find out.   

Here is the end of season Vindolanda video.

And I don't want to shortchange the Magna excavation which also finished up recently.  A good season with much uncovered.