distinctive regional traditions

[CARTOON REALITY]

Fascinating.... Not sure what it's got to do with the Neolithic though - are we talking flesh-pits here?

Flesh-pits? Have dugs many tanning pits in my time. John Travolta nowhere to be seen.

[Jack]

bugger - nothing new then

I'm just collating raw data at the moment, plotting stuff on maps and colouring in etc. Haven't started crunching numbers and cross-referencing yet.

Am gonna try and compare erosion of pit/feature edges, look for primary silty fills (Ta Dino), evidence of collapsing sides (in the chalk-cut pits). Then compare the different neo features, with the IA and RB ones and with ditches and other silted up features.

Hope to come up with some conclusions.

But off the top of me head...................noticed one large pit with Peterborough ware pottery in it (and no other pottery) had a primary fill of collapsed chalk from the pit sides (with undercut bit caused by this) overlain by dark silty fills. Very similar sequence to the ditch that cut it (Which was IA I think). So far its the best contender for a neo pit being left open. But need to check the other finds in the pit, the size and abrasion of the sherds and (hopefully) where the sherds were in the fills..........and of course the biological data.........and eventually radiocarbon date (probably by next year!)

[vulpes]

sorry, meant fleshpots

[Wax]

So does the soil and rock types the pits are cut into dictate the level of preservation and identification in the record? I know some who cannot spot features unless cut into a natural, or soil very different from the fill.

[P Prentice]

shit pits vulpes - shit pits

[CARTOON REALITY]

I could never shit a hole one.

[P Prentice]

an older civilisation indeed

[CARTOON REALITY]

You're such a pet.
Have a good weekend.
I'm off to the Mournes , Millstone quarry survey.

[P Prentice]

that's what they all say

[Dinosaur]

So does the soil and rock types the pits are cut into dictate the level of preservation and identification in the record? I know some who cannot spot features unless cut into a natural, or soil very different from the fill.

Am currently writing up a project where probably the distribution of pits through time would have been of interest, but utterly undermined by the fieldwork having been done over 20 years by a variety of units using different methodologies etc, and its quite obvious that several of the 'away' units had no idea what they were doing on different subsoils/natural to what they were used to so can't trust any of their 'negative' results anyway - eg. it shouldn't be possible to not notice 1.5m of stratified Roman settlement?.....a small neolithic pit doesn't stand a chance! Have also found references on monitoring paperwork to pits not being recorded cos they didn't have any finds...errrr, not very helpful when most of the ones I'm interested in don't anyway.....and without adequate records its hard to tell whether a lot of the 'natural' features were or not....and then of course there's the nasty habit a lot of people have of machining trial trenches down to 'clean' natural - those'll be the big blank rectangles in the middle of all the surrounding archaeology making up the 'dirty' bit just a bit higher up........ :face-crying: