My First Full Week

 I am writing this from Friday the 20th of September to keep myself updated briefly with the events of the past working week. I felt good and ready at 8 am to start my first Monday on the 16th. I was continuing with my area on Friday clearing the layer of overburden soil to expose the limestone bedrock, to expose any features that may be present. The weather had taken a serious turn and it was about 20 degrees all week, this was nice but meant I had to strip the the huge reflective jacket off. Shovelling and trowelling the soil off the bedrock following its unpredictable pattern was quite hard work as the limestone is soft and easily moved, water had eroded it so much that I was basically following the sudden meanders of a stream, meaning I was removing a lot of soil. 

I made good progress the whole first day but with 30 minutes to go I stumbled across a nice piece of black pottery and a few flint hollow scrapers. The pottery was the interesting find as not much had been found on the site for the entire project, which had been going since March. It was a nice section including part of the lip of what was probably a bowl, it also had clear decoration just below the lip which would have continued around the whole bowl. I showed it to Naomi and she inspected it in an attempt to figure out when it had come from, at first glance she thought it was a carinated bowl, the very earliest style of pottery in the UK. If this was the case then it would push the date of our site back a few hundred years to the Early Neolithic, possibly 4000 - 3900 BC, from the Middle Neolithic that we currently thought, making it the oldest flint mine found in Northern Ireland and very possibly the whole of the UK. It also meant that I may have come across a pit feature that would need proper excavation. I went home that day feeling very excited and eager to discover what it really was and continue excavating. 

I returned the next day to discover what it was that I had discovered and if it really would make our site Early Neolithic. After speaking to some pottery experts, Naomi told me that the pottery was in fact part of a globular bowl, not carinated, which meant that it could not have been Early Neolithic, rather Middle Neolithic, around 3600 BC. I was rather disappointed but Naomi was relieved as it goes in line with our original dating of the site, which is around 3600 BC. I went back to excavating my area where I made my discoveries and followed the bedrock round to see if I was digging a pit feature, again to my disappointment it was not a pit and I did not find anymore artefacts. 

I spent the rest of the week continuing with cleaning the limestone bedrock and did not find anything else interesting. However, Naomi and Prianca continued the excavation of their pit, they got low enough where they could remove the soil that joined it to the adjacent pit to the south. This left behind a beautiful archway connecting the pits, plus there was another shaft extending east and downwards from their pit, they got at least 1.5 m and the shaft continued. It was amazing to see where these Neolithic miners had been following the seams of flint creating mine galleries to try and obtain the better quality rock. Another notable event was when we were stopped by the quarrying company and taken off site as they were blasting the far side. We could not see the blast but we all heard the boom, crash and felt the rumble of the ground beneath our feet. 

Also did a wine and cheese night on Thursday evening, I was by far the youngest person there, but met some interesting people from around the world, including other Pakistanis.

I have had a long week, although tired my moral is still high and the vibes on site are still good. I have made the most of the excellent weather, utilising the beach, as I fear that it may disappear for the year. The week has gone relatively quick but I feel comfortable as if I have been here for a month. I am looking forward to the weekend as I have booked the Titanic museum for Saturday, I may also go into town tonight but will keep this updated.