The process of archaeology systematically records and then destroys one context of history to discover what lies below and which in turn is waiting to be discovered. Last summer we expanded our 2013 Trench and in so doing we created Trench 3 where we uncovered the magnificent rutted medieval road. We resisted calls to cut through it then and chose instead to dig through the roadway in Trench 2 which yielded fabulous results.
This year it had to be a return to Trench 3 to investigate further. We wanted to know what lay below the surface we had previously uncovered and we were not disappointed. It was laid on limestone bedrock. Some might think that this is an unexciting result but for us it confirmed what we always thought since our first exploratory trench in 2012 - that our predecessors used the limestone outcrop as a natural trackway and later this was enhanced to become the old Fryston Common Lane shown on the first official 18th century map of the village.
However, it did have one stunning surprise for us; volunteer Charles started work on the penultimate day to excavate the northern end of the trench and to his surprise found a road drain below a line of stones. There were no signs of the drain being man made and we therefore assessed that it had evolved naturally from a fissure in the rock; this had been eroded over time and enlarged by water running off the trackway. By the time the Benedictine lay brothers constructed their medieval road they recognised the value of this natural feature as they packed this fissure with closely fitting pieces of limestone to channel the water away from the roadway.
The big surprise came when Charles started to excavate the drain – he found 5 small sharp flint artefacts which obviously would have not travelled very far; our track, road and dig site must have been used by our Neolithic ancestors!
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