The location of the test pits was totally random and covered a wide area of the current habitation in the village.  This large spread enabled the digging of the test pits to give a sample of the archaeology at different locations and hopefully help shed light on where there was habitation and activity at different point in history.

The pits are just one metre square and are dug and recorded systematically until the ‘natural’ soil, undisturbed by human activity, is reached, or to a maximum depth of 1.2 metres. Taking it deeper than that would not be safe without widening the pit. The natural soil was reached within that limit in our pits.

The first two test pits were opened by children at their school on the Thursday and continued into Friday.  All of the other test pits were started by midday on the Saturday and finished around midday on the Sunday.

The excavation of all pits was recorded in a standard way with each 10 cm layer regarded as a separate context. The test pit records were in a format designed by Carenza for use in the Higher Education Field Academy digs.

Our plan is to continue with this sampling method over time to build up a fuller picture of where in the modern village were the centres of occupation and activity at different periods of its development.