Mary Harris and my Hotline from the Midden! ( Trench B ).........

Me, hard at work.
Lurking just beneath the topsoil in the northeast corner of Trench B is what appears to be a midden, the extent of which is yet to be defined. Trowelling back the last remenants of the topsoil with great anticipation,I revealed a tightly packed layer of well preserved large edible periwinkles which I was informed was the correct name for these sea shore molluscs. There were a few scatterings of other shells, of which I could recognise cockles and the ubiquitous limpets, but these were in a very poor condition. No problem filling 4 bags (approx. 40 litres) from this context for bulk sampling. The visual effect of all these lovely round winkles rolling about all over the place seemed to interest many of the visitors. Perhaps this is because they are so easy to recognise as oppossed to the jumble of stones appearing in the rest of the trench, the sense of which I find quite confusing in these early days. While collecting for the bulk sample I uncovered a small piece of antler (approx 4-5cms long), tucked in tight beside a large stone. The latter might be considerate enough to be related to its neighbours and as time goes by be seen to be a structure of some sort of which the midden material was dumped against.
A rich orangey red material merges into the winkley deposit providing a lovely contrast of colours, but as yet I am not sure of its nature, but apparently it is making an appearance in other parts of the trench....watch this space for an update!
Find of my day was a piece of Haematite that I first thought was a lump of slag until I wiped the mud away and was left with a rougey smear all over my sleeve. Horror stricken and tounge tied by the sudden appearence of the TV camera in my face, all I could reply to the question "Is this an exciting find Mary?" was "It makes a change from all those damned winkles." Oh well! not your average intellectual reply but then considering where I was working maybe I'll get away with talking rubbish.
It would be nice to imagine the people who presumably ate all those winkles made mistakes like I sometimes do and threw out their favorite culinary utensil with the rubbish. Perhaps tomorrow I'll find a fine bronze pin too.

Trench B from the photographic tower