Days 7,8,9 and 10: Part 1

This blog post comes with an apology for the severe delay in posts this week. Late nights digging, visits from medieval building specialists, Channel 5 filming and a plethora of exciting discoveries and developments have not left much time for blogging. To cover all the progress this week, this blog is split into three instalments, and this is the first of them. Read on below to find out more about what we’ve been up to this week.

At the east end of the trench, excavation has been continuing in earnest. Larger quantities of animal bone, shellfish and green glaze pottery have been recovered from the midden deposits. Animal bone specialist Professor Peter Rowley-Conwy came on site to look over some of the animal bones recovered and identify some. The amazing preservation conditions on site have meant that the bones have been exceptionally well preserved which has allowed for their easy identification. These same conditions have also preserved subtle features, like butchery marks and gnaw marks from dogs, which provide us with further insights into the dietary and lifestyle habits of the inhabitants. Our current assemblage of animal bones contains the remains of horses, deer, pig/boar, sheep/goat, cow and dog. Some of these bones have been taken back to Durham University to be measured and analysed to assess the relative size of these animals, as some of the cow and dog bones appear to have come from impressively large animals.

Importantly, we have been sieving some of the contexts most abundant in animal and shellfish remains to recover smaller organic remains and artefacts. Smaller animal bones, such as rabbit, bird (probably chicken or other fowl) and fish, have been identified this way. On Wednesday we recovered the remains of eggshell, a substance often missed in archaeological contexts because it often doesn’t preserve well. Bulk soil samples from these contexts have taken to be analysed in the labs at Durham University to assess for small and microscopic plant and animal remains.

On Thursday a particularly exciting organic discovery was made in this area of the trench. Beneath an area of broken and fragmented glass, currently thought to be the off-cuts of glass-working when parts of the building were re-glazed in the post-medieval period, the suspected discovery of whale baleen was found. Further analysis of these remains will confirm whether this find is certainly whale baleen, but its external appearance is consistent with other examples. Because whale baleen is comprised of collagen rather than bone, it rarely survives in archaeological contexts. The excellent preservation conditions across the site may have led to the survival of this find too. Whale baleen is believed to have been used in a range of crafts, and its pliable yet rigid consistency made it a useful material for stiffening bits of clothing. Just how today we use plastic collar stiffeners, baleen was used historically to add stiffness to collars and cuffs, and its lightweight nature made it a useful addition to armour. Undoubtedly, this is one of our most unexpected and exciting finds so far. We look forward to finding out more about this intriguing find in the coming days.