TWMBARLWM ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG 2021

The Big Dig continued from Monday 2nd till Friday 20th August

Hello again folks

I’m excited to get started on the Dig after so many delays over the past couple of years. Please note that I’m writing this blog from a keen amateur’s standpoint and the society’s involvement – all the technical stuff and information about any findings will come from the professional archaeologists at a later date. Their final report will be made publicly available on this website and other archaeological archive sites.

Wednesday 4th August 📷

Looked like it was going to be another clear, hot, sunny day as the volunteers arrived – today we had Rod H, Jess D, Cameron I, Andrew G, – Will D, and Bill FW arrived later on.

DAY 3 : TRENCH 1

Today was a continuation of where we left off yesterday – digging deeper through the rubble at the top of the trench. The digging consists of the archaeologists clearing the surface carefully with trowels and the volunteers shovelling out the excess every now and again.

RH is working towards taking a sample of soil from below the pile of rubble – this will be sent off to a lab to be dated using OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) – which is an advanced technique for accurately dating mineral deposits. (Wikipedia Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optically_stimulated_luminescence).

The middle section of the trench was cleared to a greater depth and a few times we reached different colours of soil that again I will have to await the expert’s opinion on that.

We appear to have found the base of the wall at the bottom end of the trench and believe the area in front of the wall to be the natural level of the bottom of the ditch. The stones that were scattered on the surface on the first day of this dig were obviously pushed from the top of the wall. More research will need to be done into the nature of this wall – an initial search does not reveal a wall on the tithe maps of the area.

It was a brilliant day today with crystal clear views out over Newport and Cardiff across the channel to Weston and Brean Down.

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This archaeological investigation is funded by:
Ariennir yr ymchwiliad archeolegol hwn gan: