Connecting the dots.

The Classes at the university have started and most of the students have gone back to school, some in Gotland but most of them in Lund. They will be greatly missed and needed, because without them and the international students and researchers from the fieldschool, we could never have examined this site as thoroughly as we do.

As I´ve mentioned before we have about 20-25 wooden stakes, and three hearths in layer three. I like to play around with these in my mind, connecting them in to structures. Connecting the wooden stakes into oval hut formations and then connecting the hearths to the hut formations.

Yesterday we made an interesting discovery, we found a shallow ditch in the southeastern parts of our excavation area. The more we looked at it we suddenly realized that to the north was a row of wooden stakes that connected well with the ditch. And to top it of we have a hearth, partly covered by the profile bench, that also fits in very well. This could be the most clear structure that we have from this site.

I have made a drawing to illustrate it. Please keep in mind that I´ve made this drawing entirely from memory, and my memory is´nt what it used to be. But it gives a good schematic view of what it looks like.

The structure in layer three, Rönneholm 10: The black dots represent wooden stakes. The south and southwestern parts of the ditch is still a bit unclear, so the lines are stippled. In the north part of the structure is a hearth wich is partly covered by the profile bench.

Arne is marking out the ditch. Above him Anna is uncovering the bottom layers from a accumulation of netsinkers. The surface that Arne is standing on dates back to the Villingebaek phase, about 8000 years ago, and the surface wich Anna is excavating is propably from late kongemose.

It´s a bit tricky to see but, in this picture you can see the north end of the ditch connecting with some of the wooden stakes. The wooden stakes are covered with white cups. Behind the bucket is a lighter area wich is the hearth. We use the wooden boards to stand on so that we won´t damage the surface.