What a delight it was this morning, arriving on site in brilliant sunshine after yesterday's miserable weather. As I was filling up the Finds Tent's water containers by the field gate I was watching red kites circling over the pond area, whilst in the field with the newborn lambs I was watching the first swallows I have seen this summer. The pond inside the tent had soaked away and I was able to put the trays outside to dry the finds in the sunshine.
In the two trenches there was a hive of activity. Disappointingly some of the diggers who had booked did not show up or let us know they were not coming, so the team were going full pelt to get towards the bottom of the enclosure ditch as well as try to see whether there was another post-hole and find out how deep the layers of big stones were. Only one more day to go after today and still a lot to try to finish off.
We had two visitors who had come along for a 'taster day' to see what it was like, so I showed them around before handing them over to Carl who was going to do a 20-metre grid square of geophys (resistivity) with them.
Then we had another visitor - Malcolm Wells, photographer from the Petersfield Post, who spent longer than he originally intended with us because he became interested in some of our recent finds. It was just as well Pat and Soo were helping out with washing and recording the finds because I was tied up with visits until lunchtime.
The copper balls I mentioned yesterday now appear not to be ear rings. Overnight Barry Wood had discovered photos of almost identical objects found elsewhere and reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, who recorded them as copper ornaments (studs) for furniture.
Just before I was heading off site to pick up my wife for the End-of-Dig BBQ there was a stunning find by Nicky Ruutel. Deep in the enclosure ditch she had found a flint arrow head, which Juliet considers to be the best find of this dig (so far!). Apparently from the design it dates to about 2600 BCE. Hopefully I will have a photo tomorrow.
At 4.30 all the members and guests about to attend the BBQ got together by Trench 'S' and we gave a brief site tour for those who were interested, then went across to Field Farm where some 28 of us had a lovely barbecue - thanks for which go largely to Dave Butcher, Karen and Chris Wilkins.