The YAT makes an extraordinary effort to involve the public in this project. It's not uncommon to have groups of school kids come through and try hands-on activities that archaeologists do every day. Today, for example, some 5-6 year olds tried their hands at sieving, washing, and digging through the spoil heap to find anything the diggers missed during the regular excavation.

In addition to the school kids' programs, they've posted numerous signs around the site and have paid guides to talk to people, and signs out front in the street advertising the project. Today they had me wash finds in the display area, and I got to see a load of nifty medieval bits and coins that some metal detectorists had found and taken to the local nearby museum, to have them identified and returned to their possession.

Although the forecast called for a big cold front to come through with heavy rain and gale-force winds, we had delightful sunshine and lazy clouds instead. Waking up to the nice weather convince me that it would be a good idea to take the Panoscan to site today, which I did. I'll post the results soon -- tonight we have a lecture on the archaeology of York, so I'll probably make them after that in the later evening.




St. Mary's Abbey's ruins, here in town, were created during Henry VIII's dissolution.




Some visiting school kids sieving for small finds.




Taking the Spoil Heap Challenge -- the kids may keep things they find if we don't want them, since they won't have a context if they're in this pile of dug-out dirt and stones.




Here the kids learn how to wash material, from an archaeologist known as Bone, who heads the YAT's educational program.




The Panoscan rig atop the spoil heap, which provides the best overview of the site in one fell sweep.