Day 12 (Josh)

Here we are at Day 12 with only two more days left to work on the site. Because the last day will be backfill day, in which we fill in our holes to protect the site until Dr. White  returns at a later date, and next week we will be mapping the walls in our units, however far we make it today will be where we stop.

I left last week still working down through level 8 in Unit 4 to 100 cm below datum (cmbd). We've been working through level 8 for a good bit now, but are finally just about to our 100 cmbd  goal. We have continued to piece-plot everything that we find, and are using only trowels because there are just  so many artifacts in the level. Mostly all of what we have found are flakes of green rock, and a few that are quartz. We have about five larger rocks in the floor of our unit that are resting on a level below 100 cmbd, so they will remain there until a later date

The several larger rocks in the floor of Unit are marked above and possible features are visible.

Once we had finally finished our piece-plots and reached our 100 cmbd goal, Dr. White came and took a look. He noticed that around the larger rocks, the soil was darker, and there was a good bit of charcoal present. He thinks that it is very possible that we are coming down on a feature. After we had closed out level 8, Nate and I began the task of putting all of our piece-plots on the grid we have on our forms for each level. After completing that, Dr. White had us begin a floor map that would map the areas on the floor that he had marked, as well as where our larger rocks, and a few flagged artifacts were marked. 

The floor map with Unit 4 on top and one of our grids with piece plots.

Because we will be laying down what I believe is weed barrier to protect the floor of the unit and then filling in the block with backdirt, this floor map will help to show where we left off when Dr. White comes back later to continue the excavation. We are filling in the units to protect them from weathering and anything else that might effect them as it could be awhile before Dr. White gets back to them. The best way to do this is to put all the dirt back, and everything below will remain untouched. The first day of maybe another field school, or future archaeologists who come to work on the site later will be to take out all the backdirt down to the weed barrier where we are now.

Unit 6 (to the south of Unit 4) also finished off with level 8 today and are also at 100 cmbd. Their floor can be seen on the bottom half of the map. It looks like they are also coming down on a feature. This is where we ended the day, and is as far down as we will make it for our field school. Next week we will draw the walls of our units in profile before filling in the backdirt on the last day.