| Entry: | Arrived almost two weeks ago but the first week was taken up with the construction of the steel shelter over Ruth's area, just adjacent to the North; unfortunately, this took a much longer time than anticipated and in the end a professional construction team had to be brought in from Konya to complete the job which happened only the other day.
Work began on the North area just over a week ago with cleaning; the building had been protected by plastic sheeting and some spoil infill and had survived very well although the plastic had kept the surfaces perhaps a little too damp as a thin film of green moss covered many of the walls and floors. There is very little continuity in the team from last season - only myself, taking over from Roger as supervisor, and Louise D. who, as last year, will only be working on and off. Ali and Naomi have moved over from Mellaart to the North (while Engin has crossed the other way) and there are two new people to the project - Chad and Charlotte. At the moment this is a good size as we are working in fairly confined spaces to remove the last of the burials.
The aim is to try and complete these within the first fortnight of work so we can then begin the removal of the architectural features of Building 1 such as the platforms F.13 and F.37, and the internal walls, F.3, F.8 and F.10 before going down into the infill layers below. Less burials than I thought were remaining which was a relief although they are still taking some time; a double infant inhumation (F.44) under the wall moulding on the north wall (F.26), F.40 another double infant burial the upper one of which was removed last year, disturbed/disarticulated burials (F.42, remnants of F. 38 and a lower one, beneath F.41) under platform F.13 and similar burials (F.29) under platform F.37. Bashak on the human bone team has been up helping and mostly working on F.44 which has just been completed. As with all the skeletal remains, they appear fairly solid but are extremely brittle - though they do not seem to have suffered much over the winter. Unfortunately F.44 has just been shown to cut an earlier infant burial F.45 which is now being removed by Charlotte; also some skull fragments are lying in the northern edge of the fill for F.44 under the wall moulding (F.26) and step (F.46), some of which came off but one fragment still continues under the step F.46 which is worrying as it suggests the step was constructed over a burial which perhaps F.44 has cut. This is worrying because the construction of the step appears to be a primary element of the phase I floor plan; on the other hand, we have fairly conclusive evidence of at least one burial like this; after the removal of the infant in F.40, the articulated legs and pelvis of an ?adult appeared at the base of the cut suggesting a complete inhumation with its head lying well south of F.40 and sealed by the primary floor packing layer [1451]; in other words a pre-building burial. Mellaart claims to have found such in his excavations so this is a good corroboration; my worry is that more may be found. The last thing I want is to spend the season excavating more burials and I think everyone else feels the same, including the human bone team. The burials under platform F.13 are being fairly rapidly dealt with, but a very early, disarticulated group has recently been found, associated with those lying under F.41 - this may be one of the earliest under the platform and has a greenstone pendant associated with it. F.29 under platfrom F.37 is taking the longest, partly because the extent of the cut was never fully resolved last year, but there are three groups/individuals at least, one of which has now come out. Naomi is working here and Charlotte was helping. Some of the floors from here have also been taken down so now only the lower most floor remains. Although then, most work has been focused on the burials, I have also been trying to remove remnant floors and have now started taking off some of the wall plasters in preparation for going down - as the burials are completed more people can work on these. In terms of the interpretive issues surrounding the building, I have had to slowly become re-acquainted with the phasing and matrix and there are many problems to be sorted out. The phasing produced for Building 1 was done in almost a day by Roger and I back in Cambridge at the end of '96 and it almost certainly needs refinement; in particular, the floor sequences need to be studied more carefully and in conjunction with the drawn sections, something which I am hoping to do with Wendy this week. This is further beset by the problems of relating macrostratigraphic units (our floor units) with individual, microstratigraphic units (individual floor layers, usually only a few millimetres thick) across the whole building - and with othe fetaures, especially burial cuts. Indeed, the relation of the burials to this sequence needs to be tied in - the information is there but needs to be checked; the big problem is not so much the stratigraphic relationships but the non-stratigraphic ones, ie. phasing or broad contemporaneity of burials and this is where sorting out the correct floor relationships are crucial. Moreover, within a burial - especially one such as F.38, which contains multiple recuts and interments, how far can we reconstruct a sequence from the skeletal plans - I am sure last year some on site interpretations were made but unfortunately I do not think they have been recorded anywhere (perhaps check Roger's diary?). Beyond this, there is the broader issue of phasing itself and whether it is over-emphasising discontinuities in the sequence - this is one of the advantages of a matrix is that it does not need phasing. Having said that, there are cases where it is relevant - for Building 1, I think the major change to dividing the rooms so only the northern half is used (present phase III) is a useful horizon to mark - but can the same be said for the distinction between phases I and II - and can one generalise about such horizons? Anyhow, I would like to resolve the more specific issues of the sequence fairly soon so that when we start digging the infill deposits, I have the story of Building 1 more or less sorted.Entered By: Gavin Lucas |
