Because of the fantastic job the flotation volunteers have been doing processing the soil samples from the Minchery Paddock excavations at Oxford Archaeology we are happy to announce the first of our residue sorting dates!

Saturday the 16th of March 10am till 4pm Venue: Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, OX1 2JA 

Residues are the collections of finds such as shells, tiny mammal bones, fish bones, charred plant remains and charcoal mixed with very fine gravel from the soil samples. These finds are often too small to see and recover on site and are retrieved by washing soil through large sieves to collect them.

We now need to sort out the tiny artifacts from the gravel using tweezers, microscopes and magnifying glasses, ready to send to environmental experts for analysis. The evidence from these samples will help with environmental reconstruction- building up a picture of what the landscape may have once looked like for our site and previous land uses. We also hope to get lots of dietary evidence for the Priory which we are very excited about! We already have some exciting material from the pit features in trenches 1 and 2.

We are very pleased to have Rebecca Nicholson, Environmental Manager from Oxford Archaeology at this session helping us to identify the finds in our samples. This session is suitable for completely new volunteers as all training and equipment is provided- just bring your lunch! It would be great to have some of the volunteers who processed the samples back too to see the next stages of the process following all your hard work.

**There are limited places on this event so you must let us know if you would like to attend, if you cannot do all day but will still like to attend just let us know**

Places to be confirmed by Monday the 11th of March.

archaeology.east.oxford@googlemail.com