Digging Below Zero

Here I am drawing some graves north of the church in Holstebro, Jutland. I’m wearing 3-4 layers of clothing because of the rather extreme weather conditions on my current dig. We’re talking thick wooly stuff and insulated gloves and bonnet and insulated waterproof boots. And of course the archaeologist’s trademark: the pipe.

And that is not a medieval church in the background. In fact that church was built in 1907 and it’s parly the reason why we’re digging. You see, the church council would like to pave the area around their nice big pseudo-romanesque church for its 100th anniversary but (un)fortunately, this very church is built on top of a 15th century parish church that was demolished with dynamite(!) in 1906. That church in turn had replaced an older 12th century granite church. So the new church and its future pavement is right on top af what was the city graveyard from the 12th century till 1865.

The future pavement requires that the top soil is replaced with stabilizing sand in a depth of 85 cm (that’s almost 3 feet) beneath the surface. The archaeological survey done in connection with the work yields a lot of information about the graves and the use of the graveyard.

A few inches of snow actually helps to keep the soil from freezing during night time, but it’s a heavy job shoveling snow in the morning to clear the field, even though we keep it covered in rockwool mats and plastic blankets.

Once the soil is exposed to the icy morning air it immediately starts to harden from the cold. This means we only get to draw small sections at a time, always working against the clock and the weather.

In the picture you can see how much ground three archaeologists can cover in one freezing day (It’s the area where the snow has been removed).

In the picture below you can see the grave of an infant child. From the coulur of the fill I would guess that the individual was buried somtime in (roughly) the 18th century.

Showing no traces of a coffin, the grave fill only contains a few fragments of the skull. These bones are probably too fragile to collect and will decompose completely in a very short time. All we can do is to draw, measure and take pictures of the remains and then excavate the grave carefully. In the picture north is up.

The grave is about 55 cm long (less than 2 feet) and judging from the size of the grave and the bone remains the buried child has died sometime in the first few years of it’s life, my guess is it died before it turned one year.

This is not a complete excavation and most burials will be will be preserved in situ meaning they will not be excavated. Most of the buried individuals lie further down than 3 feet so we only see the outline of the grave; the expression ’six feet under’ isn’t far off in this case.

However, some of the graves are not that deep and they must be excavated and documented in more detail because the construction workers would have to destroy them. The skeletal remains are collected and subjected to further research by biological antrhopologists.

Digging in the midst of winter was never my idea of archaeology. It’s nice work and it’s paid. But its neither elegant nor beautiful.