We’ve reached the end of our first week here at Caerfai Camp / Penpleidiau and what a week! Sunday marked our best day yet as we started to come down onto actual evidence for human activity on the site.
The day started off with a fresh team of venturers, who began excavating down into the next layer in Trench 1.
They started to discover a change in deposit – with the emergence of a rubble-type surface.
We were also joined by the Youth Park Rangers from Pembrokeshire National Park led by Tom Moses and Matt. The rangers got stuck in, helping to excavate in Trench 1 as well as opening up two fresh test pits to ground truth the geophysical results further and to understand the stratigraphy (the layers of historical soil build up) of the site a little better.
In the afternoon the finds really started to ramp up!
In the section we have started to dig through the mound of stones, Cardiff Uni student Talia came down onto some massive shaped stones steadfast set into the layer below – they are very deliberately placed there, but it’s not quite yet clear what they could be.
To the south of this, the venturers continued to find round and oblong smooth stones. Expert and CHERISH team member Toby Driver came for a site visit and told us that the oblong stones are whetstones or grinders for working on leather or grains, and the smaller rounder pebbles are in fact Iron Age sling shots! Here’s Venturer Jo with a hammerstone she also found in the southern end of the trench. Actual evidence that people were occupying our site!
Further towards the end of the day we discovered a linear alignment of large stones, as well as a curious circular arrangement of large stones.
We aren’t sure yet what this could be – but it is located in a spot where the geophysics is hinting at a thermoremanent area (ground affected by heating from kilns or fire). It could relate to a packed post hole or a kiln – because – our “find of the day” was a piece of slag which was found right next to this feature! Actual hard evidence that human industrial activity such as smelting was happening on Penpleidiau. How exciting is that! This was the cherry on our cake after a fantastic first week on site.
We’re looking forward to seeing what else the Venturers can find over the next week!
