Daily Journal

Area D

Trench 8

July 5, 2004

Today started with the continued cleaning of locus five. Two small finds were removed; and obsidian flake and half of a weight (rounded stone with a hole in the middle) after discussion last night we realized that the trench is 9x4 instead of the 8x4 we had thought. The reason for this is that we never measured a 1m balk into the south side as we had originally planned. Since we are loosing the full meter on the north string it was decided we did not need a balk on the S side. There is a large pile of rocks in L5 running back into L7. After examination we decided that the rocks were a natural feature and removed them along with the rest of the topsoil from L5. L6, a patch of rock displayed by the removal of L4 showed up in the balk created by the removal of L5. We previously thought it only extended partway into the upper tier (L3+L7) it is now clear that it is simply not visible but does continue until it comes out into the balk, the function of this feature is still not clear. Bradley expressed that it night be a robber trench. We will excavate L3 and L7 which sandwich L6 down to the level of the bottom of L5. Hopefully this will allow us to better discern what L6 is. Thought out the Loci up to this point we have found several metal stakes. The type of stake which the UTARP team uses to hold down tents and demarcate trenches. One such stake is sticking up vertically out of the middle of L6. Another is visible coming horizontally out of L3 (though the balk created by L5,) another two were found in L1 and L5. This seems to indicate that we are still in topsoil. At the end of the day L3 was mostly removed. There is still some leveling and balk cleaning which must be done before the locus can be closed.