August 10, 2001

After a much deserved and less than breaky break we got back to digging today. Thankfully, my worst fears were not realized and there was neither looting, turkey nests, or baulk collapse in the trench.

I think we finally came near finishing NW pit L5047 today. Some remaining parts of NW-SE mudbrick wall L5037 (which I had earlier thought was finished) were found sealing the eastern portions of the pit, finally settling my question of whether the pit was sealed by the wall as it was by surface L5034 or whether it was cutting said locus. Indeed, the wall is above the pit, which is great for a couple reasons. First, it definitively (in my mind at least) associates the wall and the surface, and as the pit is absolutely full of great charcoal (and hence carbon samples), it should be possible to get a good date from near that surface, which, when associated with pottery from the surface may produce some good results. I'm crossing my fingers, at least, given the surface itself produced no carbon. Back on topic, though, the pit seems to have two distinct layers, the soft, ashy layer (L5047) and a slightly harder (though still soft) ashy fill with still more charcoal inclusions and a burnt yellow color scattered throughout (L5057). This latter layer fades into a soft brown fill with many pebbles which may be related to the pit, but also may be something different. I'm a bit puzzled by it at the moment, as is one section of the pit, this pebbly fill clearly is at least 50 cm deep. Obviously it isn't a surface, but I should be below topsoil in that part of the trench, so I'm not entirely sure what it is.

The interior (area which would have been enclosed had the wall continued) area to L5045, L5058, was dug up to the clear mortar line in the wall today. In addition to the usual pottery, lithic and bone finds, some ashy deposits turned up, but rather than being fine ash, they were large, white-gray chunks ash. Along the eastern baulk an area of tougher soil was found that I think is either the original surface where it wasn't cut by the pit or may be another course of mudbricks (as we found the wall due to two good mortar lines, but only the center course was clear at the top). Either explanation is possible, however, right now I'm learning towards the former because...

L5055, on the W side of the mudbrick wall, which I originally thought was an oven (clear, thin, curved line of ash), appears to be some slightly different. When digging it, an either outside was not discovered, and the ash line is actually a very thin, sloping layer (which made it easy to peel the covering soil off). One theory is that this is the ash layer surrounding oven L5029, in the SW corner, and it will be sloping to the surface, which, and we're probably still a centimeter or two above the very bottom here, is only three centimeters higher than the tough part of L5058. This would rewrite some of my earlier ideas bout how the oven was cutting wall L5008, so it will require further examination, but it's a possibility. There was also one notable small find, KT 5337, some very red soil/plaster material, that I think may be from the inside surface of L5045 and either collapsed in or bonded to one of the rows of mudbricks that was too melted to articulate clearly.

Finally, towards the end of the day we started excavating what appears to be a shallow ash pit (L5059) in the center of the trench against the eastern baulk. Soft, ashy fill, with the Big Three. Otherwise unremarkable at this point.