image

Lucasz drawing the plan of a brick floored building on site

On of the most important tasks for a field archaeologist is keeping track of your records. Last week I began digging a barrel well, which is essentially a well that uses barrels/vats as its lining rather than masonry. As you can imagine it can be quite narrow and thus quite difficult to dig comfortably. However added to this problem is that a barrel well is not neccessarily made up of a single barrel and there may be numerous barrels stacked on top of each other and the feature can be very deep. So in this situation I cannot keep digging and have to wait until all the other features in the surrounding area have been dug down to the same level as I have reached, and then I can continue with my barrel well in safety.

In the meantime my expertise is require elsewhere on site whilst I wait. This highlights the impotance of accurate record keeping as when I return to my beloved barrel well, accurate, well-kept and legible records will enable me pick-up where I left off! Not mention for whoever does the post-excavation analysis!!