Day 8: Old bones and healing wounds

The cold snap was epitomised this morning when the team's 'washer' (a wet-sieving machine) was frozen solid. This machine doesn't clean clothes (the team's are too muddy to bother) but the material from the trench - over 1000 litres so far.

It works on simple but effective principles. Buckets of soil-encrusted stones are poured into a bath of cold running water, then tumbled and sieved until the soil washes away. But here's the clever part: willing archaeology students do the tumbling, with their bare hands. From morning till night.

Back at the glamorous sharp-end of the dig, principal excavator Dr Miles Russell and the two Professors, Darvill and Wainwright, ploughed on despite the thunder, lightning and hail. There were some striking finds from all ages, including both Roman and prehistoric pottery, plus another Neolithic flint scraper.

Fragments of animal bone are also common, but it's important to remember that these are not fossils. Fossilisation - where minerals replace the original material - requires tens of thousands or even millions of years. We'll know more tomorrow, when an expert arrives to put some metaphorical flesh onto the bones.

In today's clip, Dr Russell speculates on the mind-set of the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge, and why he's finding topsoil packed into the bluestone holes. Were they attempting to "heal the wounds?", he asks.

Published: April 2008