Week Two Trials
I am happy to report the completion of the first three squares excavated at Smallpox Bay - and our first surprise of the season: the south post hole line of the large building we are investigating seems to have stopped at 33 feet, an odd length given English buildings tend to have lengths in increments of four feet. We found one post hole as expected with the same large diameter as the others in the line but then nothing three feet further along. The ground does slope sharply between the two spots, raising the possibility that the original topography in this area had more than three feet of soil, and thus a post hole in the expected position would not have needed to cut into bedrock. Alternatively, there may have been a door in this particular spot, which would result in a gap greater than three feet. My guiding mantra in the field is to go from the known to the unknown, so when we resume excavations tomorrow, we will open a new u...
