Journal / Summary:F-11-2001-Summary

August 21, 2001

Final Summary F11

We excavated a 1x1 meter sounding unit at the Western outskirts of Area F. The purpose of the sounding was to help us define where Area F ends. Similar trenches were F6 (4x2) and F11 (2x1) and F12 (2x1). We always tried to dig this trench as quickly as possible; thus we used the big picks until the trench was too deep for them, wherein we switched to the small picks. The starting elevation was 68.95 and the final elevation was 66.43. We mostly tried to dig in arbitrary 20-25cm. levels.

The first couple of loci were fairly sandy, but contained few rocks. L10002 started to get a bit siltier, and it remained that way through the majority of the sounding. This silty soil was generally quite brown, fairly typical of the normal "fill" soil that we have been finding in Area F and G. We found pottery and bone throughout the sounding. Most notably, we found an obsidian flake in the final cultural locus (L10009).

L10010 is the virgin soil that we've been finding elsewhere in Area F. The soil is a very fine brown/red sand with lime deposits. This soil was also found at the bottom of F4, F6, F11, and F12. The soil started in F10 at about 66.43.

There was a road that some Turkish men started building across the Tepe. We decided to put F11 and F12, 2x1 soundings, underneath the cut that the bulldozer made in order to give us a quick account of the cultural material's bottom elevations. The soundings were about 10 meters apart (F12 was north of F11). In haste, we originally named them Roadcut 1 (F11) and Roadcut 2 (F12).  

F11000 was a brown silt with quite a few larger rocks (20cm x 10cm). The bottom of the locus ran into L11001, the sterile lime soil. The top elevation was 67.21 and the final elevation was 66.54.

F12000 was similar to F11000, except that we managed to find a small bit of pottery mixed into this locus. F12,001 was the same sterile soil as F11,001. The top elevation was 66.41 and the final elevation was 65.83.

The most interesting thing to come out of the excavation of the Area F soundings was the realization that the bottom, sterile soil is very different from the very rocky, sandy matrix that we were finding in Area G. We seemed to have stumbled upon an interesting geological query that will hopefully be answered in future seasons.