The first day in the field

Today we started the excavation. We began to take off the turf on both locations. On the plateau is the turf layer almost completely removed. Beneath it we found both a layer with stones and a more clayish layer. The latter is probably the fill layer of the mound been exposed. It has barely rained this summer which is problematic. It is very hard to see coloration's in the soil.
We found a couple of datable finds. The most numerous find category was couple of foil capsules that disappeared in use sometime in the 1970s and probably a more than 40 year old hose end in copper. Another datable find was a 1 öre for Oscar I or Karl XV (we need to look in the coin book). The strangest find was a large, probably 18th c. coffin mount. It seems like someone has dug up a rotten coffin on the churchyard and thrown the mount over the wall. We have fortunately not found any human remains though!

From Offerlunden we found that the top layer beneath the turf is filled with loads of fairly recent debris. It has been substantially filled up with rubbish. It is another indicator that the topography of Gamla Uppsala was far more varied just 100 years ago. The depressions in the area have been gradually filled up and some have even disappeared.