Hadrian's Wall. 59 Excavation conditions in these pre-Hadrianic levels were challenging and the work that took place was tightly confined by the existing framework of the third-century stone foundations of the vicus above. The levels under examination remained waterlogged for the duration of the work due to one of the wettest winters on record. The remains of Vindolanda forts III-V (c. A.D. 100-140) survived in good enough condition to be able to ascertain the outlines of individual buildings, room-divisions and to rescue important material from their floors. The landscape of pre-Roman Vindolanda was encountered below the Roman remains in this area. A sharply sloping hillside of natural boulder clay (from west to east) had been heavily disturbed by the Roman army's attempt to level the land for terraced platforms onto which they could build their new timber forts. A large number of artefacts came from these early deposits included 19 writing-tablets which consisted of a mixture of ink and stylus tablets with an unusual bias toward the stylus variety and a complementary collection of six stylus pens. Amongst the many hundreds of other artefacts were the remains of a cavalry sword, a cavalryman's spur and an example of a Roman wooden toilet seat. Over 130 leather boots and shoes also came from the excavations, including an important collection of children's shoes, slippers and a wooden bath clog. (c) In the field to the north of the Stanegate road, the excavations continued in the same trench that was opened for investigation in 2013, extending it by 5 m to the north in order to explore the edge of what was suspected to be a kiln or industrial area in the 2013 season. 60 Excavation revealed that a very well-preserved kiln had been dug into the natural clay bank of the field. The kiln site had at least two major phases, firstly as a large square stone-built kiln and then secondly and intensively as a smaller clay-lined kiln to the south of the original structure. It would seem that the initial purpose of the kiln was to produce brick and tile, presumably for use at Vindolanda itself and possibly for a pre-ordered construction job (such as a bath-house) rather than for a wider export market. None of the tiles or bricks carried a stamp, a usual feature of legionary tile works, again suggesting supply to a local market as there is less of a need to stamp a product that is not being exported. As the excavations continued in this area, it became clear that before this part of the site was abandoned there may have been quite a diverse range of production taking place, beyond its originally designed purpose. In addition to brick and tile, there were also a great number of 'wasters' from all manner of vessels, cups, storage jars, cooking pots and lids, some of which may have been copies of fine wares as well as coarse wares.
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