what have they found.... in the ground?

this is the view of across the whole of the site - if Falmer Stadium was finished i would be stood on the pitch or probably more precicely somewhere in the away stands

looking across the field you can see activity up in the top corner

its almost exactly where the carpark is meant to be

this is a picture of it zoomed in

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you know im gonna have to take it all back when i said all that stuff about archaeology using industrial machinery

cos, would you believe it, when i met up with one of the archaeology team - there he was actually holding a trowel!

and this one is holding a gps theodolite - shes marking out that dark brown circle - taking about 8 readings round the edge of the circle

theyre interested cos it shows where a post has been put in the ground probably by mesolithic hunter gatherers about 9-10,000 years ago - the dark brown bit is where the wood has turned to, er, brown dirt (tell me if i get too technical for you)

they also showed me loads of knapped flint - i thought all the bits were arrowheads but they said theyre just offcuts really from when they were making arrows or axes and to find those proper bits is pretty rare cos they were a careful lot those mesolithic folk

- so now the archaeo's have diggered trenches down to mesolithic depth and not really found anything all over the site (except loadsa knapped flint)

EXCEPT IN THE SPOT WHERE THE CAR PARK IS SPOSED TO BE

before you footie fans start having a hernia, its not gonna delay the building in anyway - this isn't the mesolithic taj mahal - but it seems like a big find

- and here it is, a possible mesolithic roundhouse!

ok, it might just look like a bunch of dirt, but thats because, well it is

ive taken a little vid and that might make more sense of it - but what youre looking at is where the darker patch of dirt is - is the foundations of a probably mesolithic building (at a guess its about 10 metres across)

it could be a roundhouse - but it doesnt go all the way round
so it might be an animal enclosure - except the mesolithic were hunter/gatherers so didnt keep livestock

basically theyve just found it and theyre throwing guesses around - they said they ll dig down more and do a few cross sections and try to build up an idea of what it was made out of and looked like

- and then when theyve got the gps of all the outlying posts theyll look to see if it can be made into a shape and era that makes sense

How to start building a stadium... Falmer style!

The very first sign of any stadium being built here in Falmer was 3 guys and a spade - early one morning

very first crew - 3 guys start to build a stadium

it was the 7th october and turned out to be the road widening crew just measuring out and putting in posts - it seems this junction is gonna have to be widened for the site lorries

that week it was all go, as a few days later there was a different crew - all highvis jacketed up too - but this lot had ARCHAEOLOGY on the back

they put posts in and they messed about with theodolites - i asked one bloke what they expected to find and he said

" oh some stone age tools, flint arrowheads, that type of thing"

"a neolithic settlement?" i asked

"i shouldn't think so"

they were around for 3-4 days and then it all went quiet again for a coupla weeks

AND THEN THIS WEEK...

well i thought that was it all done for the archaeology, a fine and subtly science, but now the crew has returned in force with some serious heavy plant machinery

don't believe a word if somebody tells you this archaeology game is all about painstaking hours of carefully rubbing a piece of rock with a toothbrush, slowly uncovering delicate artifacts
nope, it seems you just charge in there with two industrial diggers and a dumper truck
so theyve spent the week landscaping the area to look like a dirt-bike racetrack - i'm hoping theyre lovingly recreating a scene out of Junior Kick-Start from days gone by

next week ill definitely try to interview an archaeologist - praps we'll get to see some of their finds or maybe i'll just ask to have a go on the all terrain quadbiking!!!