The Archaeology of Castle Hill, Wittenham Clumps - Week 2 trench 3 update

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The Archaeology of Castle Hill

Trench 3

Week 2

Trench 3

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Interim Summary Reports

Photographs of people at work

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The medieval and later ploughsoils have been removed in this area, exposing the underlying chalk and gravel hilltop. The orange gravel is only visible at the very top end of the trench. In the chalk you can see dark soilmarks, which are filled up ditches, pits and postholes.

Filled up ditches and pits appear as dark patches in the soil.

The pits we have dug so far have been very shallow, as repeated ploughing has sliced off their tops and the soil has slipped gradually downslope. At the top end of the trench are several pits of different sizes; pottery from the surface suggests that these were dug and filled in the Iron Age, probably between 500 and 200 BC.

A middle-aged man was buried on Castle Hill in the Roman period. Her skull is missing, and was probably removed by a plough when the hilltop was used for agriculture in the Medieval period.

First we photograph the trench and make a plan of the positions of the soilmarks. Then we dig out one half of each pit layer by layer, keeping the finds from each layer separate, and making descriptions of the soils as we go. When we reach the bottom, we draw the vertical section through the layers, which shows us how the pit filled up. We also take samples of the layers to look for environmental evidence, such as charred cereals or other plants, snail shells and pollen, or slag or hammerscale from metalworking.

Further downslope, when we first removed the ploughsoils, we found two human burials, one a middle-aged man lying on his back, the other an infant. Both had sherds of Roman pottery with them, and probably died around 1700 years ago. The plough had removed the head of the adult burial, only part of the jaw surviving. Roman burials have been found around the hillfort before, and it now seems likely that the hilltop was seen as a cemetery by the local Roman community.

If you would like to help on the dig please speak to one of the team, or contact Denise Price, at Oxford Archaeology on 01865 263800. Application forms may also be obtained by e-mail from denise.price@oxfordarch.co.uk.