Unit 21866

Category: Layer    dug in 2016

Area: South 

Interpretive Categories: infill of clay balls and stones into oven 

Data Category Information: Location: feature; Description: oven; Deposition: heterogeneous

Discussion: 21866 refers to the infill of pit 21870, which is cutting 2 the earlier floor (21867) until now exposed of oven F579. The oven is located in the north-western corner of space 170.
The infill is composed of 2 distinct layers both associated to a high concentration of fragmented clay balls (90%) and stones (10%). The upper layer is soft, yellow-orangeish and contains medium-little fragments of clay balls and stones, while the lower one is firm, dark grey and associated to bigger fragments of the same materials.
It seems to me that the lower layer, more compact and stable, was used as a firm base to sustain/stabilize the upper layer that is instead more loose and friable (the reasons for that might have been structural as well as thermical). A confirmation of this hypothesis comes from the orientation of the clay ball fragments, that in the lower part of the infill have almost all their rounded surface rotated towards the surface, while the broken part is stuck in the soil: their proximity created some kind of uniform, compact and concave surface which was covered by the loose and littler fragments of the same tools. At the moment I can not say if the the upper part of the infill had also a structural function (thermic isolation/stabilization of this specific part of the oven) or if it represents the broken rests of some cooking activity taking place in the pit.
For the moment I can also observe that the that the inner surface of the oven if formed of 2 clearly distinct sectors: the frontal one, related to the pit filled with clay balls and stones and and the inner one, related to a flat burned surface. It seems possible that the different part of the oven were used for different porpuse/cooking techniques. Further analysis will help to understand this feature. 

Consistency: upper infill is soft; lower infill is firm 

Colour: upper infill is yellow-orangeish; lower layer is dark grey 

Texture: upper infill is silty clay; lower infill is clay 

Bedding: layered 

Inclusions:  

Post-depositional Features:  

Basal Boundary:  

Unit Stratigraphy (as recorded in the field): above: (Click to view the record) 21870 below: (Click to view the record) 21865 

Total Deposit Volume: 32 

Number of Samples recorded by excavator: 7

Number of Related Diary Entries: 0

Settlement Phase:

Associated Mellaart Levels (from Space):  

Associated Hodder Level (from Space): Unassigned at present 

Finds Room Information:

All material from site passes through the finds room for washing and separating before it is passed onto the various lab teams. The finds room keeps a basic inventory of what is found. A finds material type list is given here. Further analytical detail maybe provided by the Lab Team data below.

X Finds Material: nothing recorded  

Finds Material Stored: nothing recorded  

Lab Team Data

Please note the list below does not represent everything that might have been found in this Unit, but represents the datasets we have available on-line. Please contact us to obtain more information about this Unit.

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