Looking into the past.

This summer I was involved in a excavation at Binsted in Sussex, this was a 13th century Tile Kiln site, as you will see from the picture this is a very impressive site to excavate.
The excavation was over a two-week period in late summer, the weather was very good, no rain, and only a couple of days were two hot, really good digging weather.
As the kiln was uncovered thoughts were crossing my mind to the people who had built this kiln why back in the 13th century, what was most interesting was that through the poll tax returns for the period, we were able to name one of the possible kiln workers who worked and I suspect built the kiln.
This sort of find does bring things alive; one has people to relate the building and the working of the kiln to , and questions then start to appear, who were these people, how many were there working on this site, where did they live, what were there families like, how old were they, and where and when did they die and where are they buried.
Some of these questions can be answered, but many cannot, we can guess, but is that really good enough?.
So how do we look deeper into this, well research of old documents can help, but the documentation for the working peasants of this period are few, there are the Poll tax returns, they help, but only to certain periods.
Look at the pictures and see what you think, !!.