In the eastern half of EU23, my team in the trench excavated a stone ashlar at the same (ish) level as the bedrock. The supervisors speculated that it may have been a work stone or placed there covering an intentional deposit, but didn’t have enough context initially to feel ready to say for certain if it was intentionally placed or not. 

As we moved down around the flat slab of stone, we discovered a distinct ash layer directly beneath the ashlar, which was so clearly concentrated under the ashlar that so we chose not to remove any of the stone or ashy soil until we had dug around a little more and garnered an understanding of what the purpose of the ashlar may have been in context with the layers beneath it. This is a strategy we employed a few times on site, choosing not to remove something from its resting place until we could gather more information on why it was there.  As we dug slowly around the ashlar, keeping it in place, the layers of ash, soil, and collapsed cobblestones beneath it became unbelievably clear, the layers distinctive enough to be an archaeology textbook photo. 

Melanie, Dr. Tom, and Dr. Olson all crowded around and concurred that the layers were remarkable to see, all commenting on how such clear stratigraphy is something rare to see in actual archaeology. Seeing such clear layers is a useful and almost surreal way to imagine the story of the site, it makes it much easier to see what may have happened and the order in which floors were built, covered, when walls collapsed, etc.., like looking at hundreds of years happening all at once.

Noting each layer gave us a much clearer picture of the chronology of the things we had been finding layer by layer, including the ashlar and the secrets that lay beneath it. Getting to peek through time and hearing my supervisors remark on the intrigue and the abundance of this site makes me incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn at and experience Vigla.

Annika Schramm