| Entry: | Continue going down through midden / dump layers. There was (4839) which only occurred at the eastern end of the area which sealed a rather amorphous pit (4842) / [4843]. This cut another midden / dump (4844) which lay above a distinctive burning deposit (4845). The burning appears to be quite general and widespread and is definitely in-situ. There is another similar event below and one above which only occurred in the western part of the area. At present I feel that the most likely explanation is that these are deliberate episodes where rubbish/vegetation is burnt over a quite large area perhaps for hygiene / smell reasons or to decrease the amount of rubbish. This burning has turned the bone black suggesting a relatively high temperature. The burnt deposit appeared to contain more obsidian that the other layers in this sequence and had a few nice pieces which appeared to be in two groups [4845 X.1 to X.4]. (4844) and (4845) show signs of root / insect activity which may well be Neolithic in date suggesting an open area where rubbish is not being dumped continuously. This led to the creation of bioturbated sediments i.e. low level soil formation. This is of unknown duration but needn’t be very long perhaps months. So we therefore seem to have an intermittent dumping - bioturbation - burning sequence which is interesting.
The more I dig of this sequence the more it reminds of Medieval and Roman waterside land reclamation sites that I have excavated in Britain, such as Ely and London, where rubbish was intermittently dumped to raise the height of areas to protect them and other areas from flooding and to create useful building space.Entered By: Craig Cessford |
