Aug 10, 2000

Locus 1003 I'm writing this jounal a day after the actual day of excavation since we went to the week-end trip. This is the first time I wrote the journal day after... So, my description may contain some misleading remarks. I decided to remove as much dirt as possible today. As I mentioned above, this is the first time that the trench was leveled. We started excavating from the East side and dug all the way to the West side. The east side is still in sub-topsoil, but the west side could be in occupational level. after clearing the surface, there were gradual line, but definate difference between the soil from west to east. Conveniently, the soil seems to be divided just about 2 m line. It was probably not a good idea to combine the west side of the trench and the east side of the trench. After the bashing has fiished, I brushed the surface and see if there is any sign of occupation. On the NW cornaer and SW corner, the soil seemed very compacted; almost like a mud-brick, especially on the North side. The texture is silt, white-grey in color. In the central part of the West side, soil was somewhat loosely cimpacted, and had some pebbles within the soil. It also appeared brownish. The soil on the North and West did not had any pebbles. There was a definate difference in the soil (something is going on!). Some soil of the NW looked like a mud-brick. However, the bashing crew did a horrible job of making a flat surface, and I really could not tell what was going on. The surface had many bumps and low spots. I told them to make the West side more flat. Also, the West side was much higher than the Eat side. We finished our job for the day while flattening the West side. So, tomorrow, we will make the surface nice and flat, and see the surface. there might be a mud-brick surface! About the east side, I will divide the trench into half (I don't like digging with two completely different levels) and excavate it deeper.  This is only my thought, but in the past, the area where my trench was the edge of the mound. All the east side is just piled up erosion layer. Dividing the trench seems like I am excavating two trenches in one trench; it will be more work!