Wednesday, July 5 2017

AM

Work began with a pick pass of the western third of the trench.  Soil is medium yellowish-brown in color and claylike in texture, with numerous small rocks.  Soil was hand-sorted in the trench directly into buckets.  We recovered very few materials, just a few small, heavily eroded fragments of tile and an iron nail head (Find #5).

While picking, we began to uncover some larger rocks in the central meters of the trench, running roughly north-south from an outcropping of bedrock just to the north of the trench.  This is oriented roughly perpendicularly to an east-west running line of stones in CA85.  These may form the walls of a structure, with a corner in the unexcavated area to the south of CA86 and the west of CA85.  Therefore, we are defining all rocks and leveling the trench floor, in order to determine if these rocks preserve architectural features.

Special Finds

Find #5

• Locus 2
• 48.01E/27.98S
• 26.28m A.E.
• Iron nail head

PM

Work continued in the afternoon with defining rocks.  The larger stones running down the center of the trench are fairly loosely packed and seem to continue westward, although they are clearly delineated to the east; these stones extend southward from the exposed bedrock to the north of the trench.  It is not clear whether these stones comprise an architectural feature or not.  Soil is excavated from the stones using hand picks and trowels and was sorted directly into buckets in the trench.  Only small fragments of tile were recovered.

As we defined the rocks, a new soil began to appear in places.  Some rocks seem to overlie a new, olive-yellow deposit.  Additionally, there are no rocks in the SW corner of the trench.  If the rocks form an architectural feature, in conjunction with the stones in CA85, these rocks could form the NE corner of a walled structure.

Closing elevations for the day were taken.

Closing elevations:

• NW corner: 26.24m A.E.
• NE corner: 26.21m A.E.
• SE corner: 26.20m A.E.
• SW corner: 26.21m A.E.

Locus 2:

• Tile: 23 fragments
• Pottery: 4 sherds
• Bone: 0 fragments