Cardiff Studies in Archaeology - Specialist Report Number 18


next page

The excavations lasted eight weeks. They began on Monday the 5th of June and were completed on Friday 28th of July. Two groups of Cardiff students were involved each for four weeks. In the first four weeks the labour force numbered roughly 25 individuals. In the second four weeks 27 individuals were present.

The excavation methodology was straightforward and followed the SEARCH procedures outlined by Parker Pearson and Sharples 1999. Finds were normally recorded by context except where the contexts were floors, the finds were artefacts (metal, worked bone, worked stone, pumice, steatite), or if they seemed remotely unusual and interesting, when more accurate locations were recorded. All archaeological contexts were dry sieved through a 10 mm mesh and a sample was taken for froth flotation. Floors were normally sampled at 0.5 m intervals. In most cases all the soil in each 0.5 m square was floated and any finds recovered either by hand or during flotation were recorded by sample number.