TWMBARLWM ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG 2021

The Big Dig continued from Monday 2nd till Friday 20th August

Hello again folks

Please note that I’m writing this blog from a keen amateur’s standpoint and the society’s involvement – all the technical stuff and information about any findings will come from the professional archaeologists at a later date. Their final report will be made publicly available on this website and other archaeological archive sites.

Tuesday 10th August 2021

Volunteers: Terry E, Rod H, 3 others called in unavailable.
Later Bob R (pm), Norman L (pm), Will and Amelia.

Very misty to start but soon cleared but still very windy.

DAY 2 of TRENCH 2

Before we start any archaeology…

As we gathered in the car park we could see 3 or 4 cows making their way up the hill, on the commons side of the fence. We filled up the ‘kit-car’ and I set off up the ORPA – as I drove towards the Twmp the cattle we’d seen ran in front of the car and got through the kissing gate and went on up to the top of the Twmp. When we eventually arrived at the site with all the equipment we were surprised to see it wasn’t just the 4 cattle on top, it was the whole herd of 30 plus cattle. We decided we should remove them – Harri set out towards Pegwn y Bwlch side of the Twmp to get behind the cattle and we all spread out to drive the herd towards the Twmp.

There was one particularly large bull amongst them who kept trying to mount the cows – which slowed down the whole process. We eventually got them all down onto the flat area below the Twmp and then we had to persuade them to go back through the kissing gate one at a time – some were more willing than others but we won out in the end – the whole process took us over an hour. In the meanwhile I had phoned Howard to tell him about the cows and he promised to come over to repair the gate later in the day (which he did).

Once we started to work on the trench, it was back to the same job as yesterday – lots of trowel work to scrape vegetation from around the rocks and minimal mattock work to take the area down a few inches to reveal the arrangement of the underlying rocks.

Amelia and Will both arrived later in the morning each with a colleague in tow who were also interested in the project (sorry both, I’ve forgotten your names). They were both given the tour around the site and contributed their theories and opinions on the site.

Two or three other groups of visitors to Twmbarlwm stopped by to ask about the investigation and Norman and I gave them

By the end of the day the area of the trench was well cleaned off and although the perceived circle was well defined the first impressions seemed to be that the outer rocks had been pushed or fallen off the top of the pile – but no real signs of any underlying structure. There appears to be a layer of smaller rubble along the top of the rampart in the top right corner of the trench set in red soil. The depression in the middle of the circle was taken a little lower but Richard left it at the level to record at this stage.

Although this area was fairly severely burned – evidence of that burning did not seem to go down very deep into the sub-soil around the rocks.

We wrapped up about 4:30 and made our way back down to the kit-car which was still surrounded by the cattle – we effected a minor repair to the gate to stop the cattle getting back through – Howard came to do a more permanent fix later in the evening.

[Show slideshow]

This archaeological investigation is funded by:
Ariennir yr ymchwiliad archeolegol hwn gan: