| Entry: | A couple of things have come up in conversation today that I want to remember. First of all, Roddy said that the south wall of his sequence looked very unstable and it was likely to have collapsed. Also, his buildings were very short lived, evidenced by less than 3 re-plastering events or floor sequences (this is in stark contrast with the 4040 houses with multiple floor/wall re-plastering events- although Roddy did mention that one house in the area [B. 68? B. 69?] did have multiple re-plastering events and this was associated with an increase in human interments?). It is possible that Roddy’s houses were rebuilt because they were structurally unsound and possibly collapsed. From my point of view, this could be one possible explanation for the use of a single quarry, since this house had a short occupation. Is there a correlation between a low occupancy duration and exploitation of resource pits, thus explaining why the 44-56-65 sequence is made of similar fabrics?
The other thing that I keep forgetting about is that room fill IS NOT made of bricks. Roddy was saying that the room fill is typically a different fabric and texture than the exterior walls. It would make sense that the upper courses were being knocked down, broken, trampled and used to infill the structure to create a foundation for the succeeding structure but this does not appear to be the case. So, if they were not recycling ALL the bricks (we know, of course, that SOME bricks were recycled and re-used) and not using the bricks to infill the houses, what happened to the upper courses?
Also, there seems to be a break in the sequence after B. 65. It looks as if the northern neighbor B. 75, was abandoned and then there were a series of "activities", evidenced by the accumulation of a midden, a pit, multiple fire spots and truncations. Not much of B. 75 exists and this is a result of Neolithic activity. It is possible that B.65 is built over a midden or at least is the first in a new sequence because of a marked alteration in the underlying floor plan.
Another topic that has interested me this season are the results from the drill core survey. Chris has been calling it a "brick builders yard", meaning that most of the sediments around the mound are a sort of "ready-mix", where not much needed to be added. To the naked eye, these deposits appear more clay rich than what I find in most brick samples across the mound, which have more sand and are more silty. I’m exporting every sample that I can so I test the natural deposits against the building materials and also process both natural and cultural deposits with XRD with the hope of being able to find a match or locations for possible raw materials.
The other aspect of these cores that is of interest is the reverse sequence matching resource exploitation in building materials. The bricks of the lowest levels appear to match the resources nearer to the surface and the later fabrics match the sediments at a deeper depth. It makes sense then to assume that large extraction pits are being sunk into the landscape. However, the foundation trenches for the 4040 shelter has hinted at some interesting new trends. I’m finding sources being used in the 4040 that I’ve not seen used since Level VIII in the south. For example, F. 2221 has a white marly mortar which has not been used as a mortar since Level VIII. Also, backswamp materials are again being used for bricks AND mortar. Simon had evidence of a backswamp brick in FT 7 and the mortar of F. 3005 was also the same "backswampy" fabric. Are they robbing/ recycling/ re-using or have they opened a new extraction pit? It would make sense to have opened a new pit and the materials are seeing are not far from the surface but at the same time being used in conjunction with "late" materials, such as this characteristic orangey brown silt-rich fabric.
Chris also has some ideas about bricks being "cut" and lifted, instead of being mixed and moulded. I’m not too sure I agree with this because of the cultural inclusions I find in the bricks, such as obsidian flakes, pottery and charcoal. I suppose if the river was cutting a midden or somehow cultural material was being incorporated and re-worked into the alluvium, then the bricks could be "cut". Ethnographic examples support this, as I remember the expert brick builder in Kuckukoy mentioning that foundation bricks are typically cut, rather than mixed and molded, because the natural bedding made a stronger brick, capable of supporting the weight of the superstructure. However, I have an issue with size, given just how large the Neolithic bricks are. This suggestion has significant implications for the organization of labor.
Both Amy and Flip did a mould of a burnt brick and found evidence for cereal chaff, which we sort of always assumed would be there but couldn’t previously detect because it was uncharred and didn’t appear in flotation. Plant voids are typically visible in the interior of a brick, as are phytoliths, so the inclusion of organic temper is fairly well documented. Also, Flip identified wood ash phytoliths in U. 12033 (Level VII house in South). Flip considered the presence of these phytoliths as unusual and likely to have been an intentional temper because of the absence of expected background noise, if it were natural. So, I just don’t think bricks were being "cut". Also, I think the micromorphology study by Wendy and Burcu indicate that there is no internal structure to the bricks, again suggesting that bricks were mixed and molded.
On the topic of size, I think I disagree with this so-called site-wide trend of the bricks getting smaller through time. I am just not seeing any evidence for it. Full wall profiles are visible in the sections of the foundation trenches and the bricks are STILL over 100cm+. In Simon’s FT 26, there was a single brick that measured 119cm and then disappeared into the section implying that this brick was longer than 119cm. There are other examples of bricks exceeding 80cm, which I had always assumed would have been standardized by the later periods. So where does this discussion come from? I’m fairly certain that even in BACH and in Bldg 1, the bricks are equally larger and not necessarily "hand sized", as I’ve been lead to believe.
The last point is about the structures found under the surface houses in the 4040. The foundation trenches have provided a snapshot of what is underlying the surface and the trend is similar to what is found in the south: when a house is rebuilt, a different brick fabric is used. This was true for F. 3005 in FT 18, which is a north wall under B. 59. Also true in Simon’s FT 7, where the underlying walls were a different fabric than the overlying structures.Entered By: SHL |
