Eggshells

We’ve said before that the best finds often come at the end of the dig. It was no different this year with a very unusual discovery.

Our Environmental Supervisor, Rory, was very excited about this particular find. He spends the dig with his team in a corner of the site putting soil samples from the trenches through a floatation process. They are looking for things like burnt seeds and fish bones. This year, Rory was brought a sample containing eggshell – something he has never before found in a sample. He spent a long time picking out all these bits.

The sample came from the bottom of a stake hole at the edge of the hearth within the major north-south timber building in Trench 1. It will be put through a process called Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) which should allow the species to be identified. Eggshell can also be used for radiocarbon dating so the find should enable us to obtain an accurate date for use of the hearth and the timber building.

So, a great discovery.