Friday, July 21 2017

AM

We continued working in Locus 7.  We are removing the mottled brown soil of Locus 7 and exposing the plaster rich deposit beneath.  This plaster rich deposit seems to extend across the entire locus and based on the 2016 soundings, likely is the beaten earth, plastered floor surface of EPOC4.  In the western half of Locus 7, the semicircular stone feature found in 2016 continues to the north, although it doesn’t continue its current shape.  Instead, it appears more like a cluster of small and medium-sized stones.  These stones are situated atop the plaster EPOC4 floor and may be a cobbling.  We must expose the feature fully though before we can definitively identify its function.

We are using trowels to define rocks and excavate Locus 7.  Soil is hand sorted in the trench then screened through a 1 cm and a 2mm gauge sieve.  We are finding high quantities of plaster, pottery, bone, slap, and vitrified terracotta, but little tile.  Bone appears most densely concentrated in the western half of the locus, over and amid the rock packing, while burnt materials and evidence of metalworking, particularly slag, is concentrated in the eastern half of the locus.  In the western half of the locus, we found a vertebra (Find #59), a tooth (Find #54), a tusk (Find #55), a small tooth (Find #56), and a large molar (Find #57), while a crucible fragment (Find #53) was recovered from the eastern half of the locus.

We continued defining with trowels in Locus 7.  The hard-packed surface is appearing both east and west of the rocks, however the concentrations of plaster on the floor of EPOC4 disappear to the west of the rocks.  While defining, a tooth (Find #58) was discovered to the est of the rocks.

Special Finds:

Find #53

• Locus 7
• 108.25E/42.74S
• 26.60m A.E.
• Crucible fragment

Find #54

• Locus 7
• 106.25E/41.98S
• 26.59m A.E.
• Tooth

Find #55

• Locus 7
• 105.36E/41.61S
• 26.52m A.E.
• Tusk

Find #56

• lOCUS 7
• 105.24E/41.83S
• 26.55m A.E.
• Tooth

Find #57

• Locus 7
• 105.17E/41.39S
• 26.54m A.E.
• Molar

Find #58

• Locus 7
• 106.54E/41.87S
• 26.68m A.E.
• Tooth

Find #59

• Locus 7
• 106.04E/41.73S
• 26.62m A.E.
• Vertebra

Find #60

• Locus 7
• 105.38E/41.62S
• 26.53m A.E.
• Perforated(?) bone

Find #61

• Locus 7
• 105.78E/41.45S
• 26.59m A.E.
• Knuckle bone

PM

We continued removing the last of the Locus 7 soil and defining the underlying rock feature.  With more definition, it is no longer certain that the newly exposed rock feature is a continuation of the semi-circular feature excavated in 2016.  They now appear to be two separate features, although there is a small line of stones on the western edge of the two features connecting both.  The southern feature - that excavated in 2016 - is triangular shaped and is the denser of the two packings, while the northern feature is roughly rectangularly shaped and the rocks are more diffuse.  This diffusion may have been caused by tree roots, which may have disturbed this feature.  While defining the stones of the northern rock feature, we recovered two bronze fragments (Finds #62, #63).

The two rock features also seem to differentiate plastered floor from beaten earth floor.  Both rock features are situated directly atop plastered floor and the plastered surface continues to the east, but immediately west of the rock features the surface transitions to a compacted beaten earth floor.  The surface, likely the floor surface of EPOC4, slopes upward gently from south to north.  While defining the stones and tracing the slope of the floor, we found a knuckle bone (Find #64) and a joint bone (Find #65), along with a tooth fragment (Find #66) from along the N section wall in the W half of the locus.

Once soil was removed from Locus 7, exposing the floor of EPOC4 and the rock features, we closed Locus 7.  Closing photos and elevations for Locus 7 were taken.

Closing elevations: Locus 7

• 105E/41S: 26.57m A.E.
• 107E/41S: 26.71m A.E.
• 107E/42S: 26.59m A.E.
• 108.50E/42S: 26.67m A.E.
• 108.50E/43.34S: 26.55m A.E.
• 107E/43.34S: 26.47m A.E.
• 107E/42.50S: 26.54m A.E.
• 105E/42.50S: 26.41m A.E.

A crucible fragment (Find #67) was found in the pottery box.

Special Finds:

Find #62

• Locus 7
• 106.23E/41.78S
• 26.62m A.E.
• Bronze

Find #63

• Locus 7
• 106.05E/41.74S
• 26.59m A.E.
• Bronze

Find #64

• Locus 7
• 105.65E/41.53S
• 26.60m A.E.
• Knuckle bone

Find #65

• Locus 7
• 105.91E/41.81S
• 26.58m A.E.
• Joint bone

Find #66

• Locus 7
• 105-107E/41S
• 26.57-26.77m A.E.
• Tooth

Find #67

• Pottery box find
• Locus 7
• 105-107E/41-42.50S
• 26.41-26.71m A.E.
• Crucible fragment

Locus 7:

• Tile and plaster: ½ bowl
• Pottery: 105 sherds
• Bone: 26 fragments
• Slag: 9 fragments
• Vitrified terracotta: 14 fragments