15th September 2013, 05:22 PM
My experience is that whatever you read about ditch-profile vs date in the literature is generally b***ocks, varies from region to region, site to site and ditch to ditch. The same ditch can have V or U-shaped profiles within a few feet of each other, and also vary wildly in size (never forgetting extent of truncation). And remember, many ditches were dug to drain water, so what you're actually digging is water-eroded. Watch modern cattle in the landscape, they love being in the field-ditches so absolutely trash the sides - if you look at the ditches of many e.g. Iron Age enclosures (and modern fields), the outer edges of the ditches usually have a shallower profile than the inner edges, presumably cos the cattle could only get in from the outer edge (evidence for hedges?)