| Entry: | Couldn’t do a diary on Thursday due to lack of power so here is a delayed weekly entry. Still removing the infilling which has now gone apart from the baulks and some stuff in the north-east which probably wont go this season. Taking out the infilling has proved remarkably time consuming due to digging it in arbitrary squares and leaving in baulks. I estimate that it has taken four to five times as long as it would have otherwise, lets hope that the information gained is worth the time. I still think that the infilling was a very controlled and structured exercise, does it represent the end of a building or the creation of a new building or both? There is no strong evidence that space 150/151 was abandoned for any considerable period prior to the construction of space 113.
The removal of the infilling has revealed traces of two posts which were removed - F260 on western wall F262 and F261 on southern wall F263. Both posts had been covered with plaster and scars were left when they were removed. Were these posts removed prior to the infilling or afterwards? There were no traces of cuts through the infilling and although this is not conclusive given the conditions I think that the posts were probably removed prior to infilling. Therefore the roof must also have been removed if these posts supported the roof. This removal must have been immediately prior to the infilling as the removal of the roof would have opened up the building to the elements which should have left traces.
Two separate post-hole fills have been dug. (2356) had lots of burnt material and obsidian debutage and (2741) had lots of burnt material and clay ball fragments. Both seem to indicate oven rake-outs plus additional artefactual elements. Were post-holes simply convenient rubbish depositories after the posts were removed or is something else going on? Was the removal of posts linked to other activities and the residues of these activities were then deposited in the empty post-holes - structured deposition?Entered By: Craig Cessford |
