Daily Log: 24 July 2007

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24 July 2007, Tuesday

AM:

We began by using trowels in the southwestern extension (locus 14) in an attempt to define the extent of the rock feature. We are still finding little potential, but some tile and pottery on top and within the few scattered rocks. We continued to loosen soil with trowels. All soil was sorted, troweled into buckets, and dumped. More bedrock was exposed and rounded stones as opposed to the broken rocks that make up the majority of the feature. We continued loosening soil, sorting and dumping from locus 14 extension. The floor was leveled and the baulk walls were trimmed. The floor was leveled to the same level as the rock formation in the main trench and the soil has become a very light khaki brown; as opposed to the medium brown soil a few cm higher. The soil that is appearing is yellowish khaki in color with a galestra like texture. Since it appeasr that the rock formations does not extend into locus 14, we decided to open another extension on the eastern side of the main trench in order to find the full extent of the feature.

PM:

We laid out the new extension on the eastern side of the main trench, while a few team members

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finished cleaning the floor of locus 14 extension. The rock formation in the main trench extends all the way to the eastern wall, and we want to expose its boundaries. The eastern extension reaches north 2.5 meters from the northeast corner of locus 11 and 1 meter east (see illustration pg 52). We hope that this extension will expose the eastern boundary of the rock formation. We believe we have uncovered the western boundary. The northern edge of the formation is seen directly south of the bedrock in the main trench. The rocks are less concentrated on the southern wall of the rock formation and we considered opening a southern extension to see if we could expose a more distinct definition of the formation. We decided to use trowels to attempt to expose more rocks on the southern side instead of opening a new southern extension due to several tree stumps that are outside of the trench on the south side that would make excavation difficult. The team split up with one person working on troweling around the large stump located centrally on the southern wall of locus 8. We hope to expose more of the southern boundary of the rock formation. The rest of the team worked on the new eastern extension (locus 15).

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Locus 15 was declared in the new eastern extension. Opening photos and elevations were taken and recorded.

Elevations:

NW Corner: 77 cm bd  =  22.67 m AE

NE Corner: 84 cm bd  =  22.595 m AE

SW Corner: 99 cm bd  =  22.45 m AE

SE Corner: 104.5 cm bd  =  22.395 m AE

Coordinates:

NW Corner: 155 East; 94.50 South

NE Corner: 156 East; 94.50 South

SW Corner: 155 East; 97 South

SE Corner: 156 East; 97 South

A pickpass was made over the entire locus 15 extension. All loosened soil was sorted, troweled into buckets and dumped. A few pottery sherds were recovered and some worn terracotta. While troweling near the southern wall of locus 8, special find #1 was recovered.

Find #1: Courseware base (see pg

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for sketch)

Locus 8

113 cm bd  =  22.31 m AE

151.13E; 96.30 S

The soil in locus 15 is dark brown topsoil that has a loose grainy consistency and a thin root mat. Directly below the root mat, the soil has a claylike texture. Some carbon inclusions were appearing on the southeastern corner when soil was removed. The locus 8 soil is still grayish color and grainy texture. The large courseware base sits directly over light gray rocks that appear to be part of the

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southern part of the rock formation in locus 8. All loosened soil was removed from the pickpass made in locus 15.

Locus 8 Finds:

Terracotta: \xbc bowl (11 pieces)

Pottery: 15 sherds

Bone: 5 pieces

Locus 15 finds:

Terracotta: \xbc bowl

Pottery: 5 sherds

Bone: 0 pieces

Locus 14 finds:

Terracotta: 1/5 bowl

Pottery: 5 sherds

Bone: 0 pieces

(Sketch of eastern extension w/ coordinates)

(Sketch of entire trench)