The third week just finished, the picture is getting a bit clear. We have finished and returned the soil of the trenches with postholes. In spite of well preserved postholes in both trench 2 and 3, there wasn't possible to connect them to a clear house plan. Including the postholes from the surrounding area gave some conclusions of possible extension of buildings.
The material from these trenches was very limited, consisted of some animal bones, pieces of iron, like nails, rivets etc, but not much more. It point to that we are dealing with some kind of outhouse, not a manor. Due to the limited material, no dating could be made from artifacts. The construction point to a Viking age dating, like earlier excavated houses of that type at the site. We have got wood/charcoal from some of the posts, giving us a possibility to date the buildings that way.
The other main area of excavation is a bit to the north, and deals with a Medieval manor (picture to the right). So far, we have got very good picture of the house plan, very much resembling the manor excavated some years ago at the site. The two houses seems to be more or less the same size, and have the same layout. A rather rich material, mostly just outside the entrance, give a clear picture of a medieval living house.
Besides the two mentioned areas, we have started on a third area, connected to a house a bit further north. It can partly be seen in the ground before excavation, in the form of a raw of boulders. One of the more fascinating finds from the area is a mould of sandstone with impressions of some different small objects, mainly of tiny mountings for belts. One of the impressions, about 1 cm wide, resembles very much a belt decoration found earlier at the site, made of bronze and dated to the end of the Viking age.
Starting on Monday, we are now entering the second half of summer's field course. We will carry on the excavation of the medieval manor, and extend the area around the house remains in the north.
Dan Carlsson