June 13, 2007

Area D

Trench 6

Jason Kennedy and Barish Uzel

Today we began by taking down Locus 141 in the southern portion of the trench. We made one pass with the big pick and cleaned the locus and uncovered nothing more than a continuation of the fill. We then decided to make another pass with the big pick when we uncovered a surface with reed pseudomorphs (Locus 146) and a fetus burial (Locus 145). Bradley and Barish worked on delineating the surface in Locus 146 and removing the burial in Locus 145, which appears to have been placed in a reed container. The workmen then made one pass with the big pick in Locus 142 in order to determine the depth of wall 131. While the workers completed this, Jason took down Locus 129 and uncovered a surface that was potentially the foundation surface for oven Locus 129. However, after assigning it a new Locus 147, and uncovering a concentration of lithic production tools (Lithic cores and blanks {KT 7) and two hammerstones {KT’s 2 and 3), the surface probably represents a lithic work area that was sealed by the construction of the oven in Locus 129 or some other burning of the surface. The workmen then took down Locus 143 between walls 117 and 131 in order to try and find a connecting wall. Next we took down Locus 144 in hopes of finding a connection between wall 139 and wall131. After determining that wall 139 and wall 131 probably did not connect, we removed wall 139 and cleaned the locus for closing photographs and elevations.