News Story
Highdown Big Dig News!
As many of you know we ran a hugely successful Big Dig at Highdown last summer in partnership with the wonderful Worthing Archaeological Society and National Trust Archaeology.
Over 6000 of you came to visit us on site and see live excavations of one of our most iconic local landmarks - we believe that as a result of this the Highdown Big Dig was the most visited archaeological excavation in Britain last year(!!!)
We were not only blown away by the community response to this special dig - the archaeology was also significant and we believe we have changed the historical narrative of Highdown with our finds.
Most of the results from the lab are still forthcoming, but we are delighted to reveal that the complete skeleton that we discovered in Trench H has now been radiocarbon dated by our friends at Archaeology South-East. These results suggest that, rather than being part of an earlier Romano-British cemetery, she died firmly in the Anglo-Saxon period, with a 95% probability of death between 674CE-877CE, with the more likely range of 674CE-754CE (53% probability) This puts her in the transition period between paganism and Christianity in Sussex, and may explain why she was buried without grave goods. We also now know that this individual was a woman who died age 40 or above, demonstrated by the wear on her teeth and joints.
Of course, as always, questions remain - we noted what looked like other graves nearby, are these members of her immediate family? Is the famous pagan cemetery at the summit linked to this later cemetery down the slope? What was the late Roman ditch surrounding in Trench F?
Next year in February we are hosting a major exhibition of our finds during last year's dig - we will also be hosting a weekend conference to coincide with the exhibition, titled 'The Highdown Story' - this will feature experts from across the country and will include a walking tour of Highdown on the Sunday - more details to be revealed in the coming months.
We are very hopeful to return to Highdown next summer to further investigate features discovered last year - we hope you will all join us again for a brilliant fortnight of digging!!!
