Wednesday 9th October 2019

Again the geo-phys team of Chris and Matt of Archaeological Surveys West were waiting for us in the car park when we arrived – this pair are keen. It was slightly better weather conditions than yesterday – no rain but extremely windy even at the car park level.

Just us two volunteers today (Mike and Terry) and two archaeologists from CPAT. The geo-phys equipment was transported to the top of the mountain in the Land Rover and again the foot soldiers had to climb the hill – it doesn’t get any easier.

We continued the geophysical survey of the area – and at least with yesterday’s practice the marking out went a bit smoother and we were able to stay just ahead of the magnetometer operators.

Chris explained to us exactly how the magnetometer works, telling us about high-resolution fluxgate gradiometers and sensitivity to .01 nano teslas but we decided to call them “magic-pointy-sticks”. If you really want to know more about them click here.

A note to anyone who comes up to see what we are doing – if you see the guys with the magnetometers walking up and down the marked out lanes, please do not approach them – the equipment is extremely sensitive to picking up the magnetic fields of any piece of metal that might be on your person

We continued as described yesterday laying out the grid for the magic-pointy-stick operators to follow – although it wasn’t raining the wind was powerful and could easily blow you off your feet on the difficult terrain.

There was a bit of problem with the GPS because the signal kept dropping out from one side of the mountain to the other but it was soon sorted. Trimble GPS equipment was used – click here for more info.

Us volunteers had to leave at lunchtime but not before we saw the download of the morning’s data – when the operators said “ooo look at that – now that’s very interesting” – they were looking at so many black and grey splodges on their computer screen. Their expert eyes could see something which I’m sure we will find out about in due course.

The pros kept going until they lost light and they have now surveyed over 2/3rds of the area we had originally agreed upon.

The photos below show the work in progress:

[Show slideshow]

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