Day 4 – Chasing yellow

Today we began to dismantle the Pearson Avenue to get down to the much awaited yellow medieval habitation layer that lies below the darker modern deposits. Patches of yellow are appearing in most of the squares . A lintelled drain was carefully followed on its journey
through the building on its way to the moat. This drain is running through the medieval walls and our mission now is to determine whether it was put in later or integrated into the construction of the medieval walls when they were first built. With charcoal deposits occurring more frequently at this level Penny Johnson has been ramping up the number of samples she is taking for environmental evidence. She still found time to direct a tutorial on sample processing to our UCD volunteers. Bea and Anelia have identified a further eleven fossils and have been keeping our on-site fossil man, Mick Mongey, on his toes. Aidan Giblin and Mick Mongey have been all over the news this week with the launch of the Resurrecting Monuments pioneering ‘virtual tour of St Doulagh’s church’ in north county Dublin. To access the virtual tour go to https://www.fingal.ie/digital-heritage-projects

The newly uncovered drain runs towards last years section. The Cistercians loved their drains.

Penny giving a tutorial on sampling to our UCD volunteers

Catriona and Bernie have been washing and cataloguing the large quantity of finds coming into the finds office

Penny sampled charcoal from the top of the lintelled drained. She found peas, beans and grain.

Sadie Rose from Waterford (second from right) is very keen on archaeology. She did her school project on the excavations at Beaubec. She is pictured here with Anne, our host, Lily and Sadie Rose’s mother (on the right).

The excavation at the end of Day 4 (Drone photo by Anthony Murphy).

Alex McCullen took this artful shot of the sun low in the sky at the end of Day 4.