Prescot Dig

I’m back from my 10 days holiday and went straight down to the core of things here on site. Quite literally.

This week I have been dealing with my first horn core pit Context: 1598 together with Adrian. I think that the look of a horn core pit is really impressive! It could easily be something taken from a Si-Fi film. The function of a horn core pit is basically the same or similar to a soak-away made of bricks; it’s a form of drain feature.

Liz and Adrian recording the latest horn core pit

The previous horn core pits we’ve had on this site have been in better condition than this one. By that, I mean the actual horn cores were better preserved. In this pit, the cores were really degraded and soft. We should take samples of these cores so they can be analyzed (the age, sex and what breed the animals are) but in this case I am sorry to say that our contribution will be quite poor. But we just have to record it the best we can. Ah well, it can’t always be a one hundred percent score.

Detail of the horn core pit

Anyway, cleaning up the new area may reveal some new exciting features and hopefully more burials. Maybe not everybody agrees with me on that one but I have to say, I like excavating burials. I have been asked quite a few times about why and how we are excavating inhumation burials (skeletons), and if it wouldn’t be better just to leave them where they are and so on.

Liz takng a sample from a cremation burial

Well, when it comes to finding and taking care of the burials, especially during commercial excavations for motorways, housing estates etc., I am of the opinion that it is better, and feels better too I suppose, to carefully and respectfully excavate them in a professional way rather than just dig them up by digging machines and just being thrown into a spoil heap somewhere. Because that’s what would happen, maybe because all the soil and spoil will be dug and moved around in order to put foundations and stuff into the ground. But as almost every time building work takes place, an archaeologist has to taking part in the evaluations and investigations of the areas in question, hopefully things will be treated the right way. But everyone is entitled to his or her opinions of course, but when I explain my way of thinking to those who asked, most of them seem to agree with me.

The remains should also be reinterred as soon as practicable is important to add.

We’ll see what the rest of the area has to offer and it is as exciting as always…most of the time anyway.. Hopefully the rest of the August weather will treat us well too.