| Entry: | I’d spent practically the whole of last Friday catching up on all my diary entries, Craig had entered one during the week and by yesterday all was lost. Anya doesn’t understand what happened and we can only imagine that they were accidently wiped off by someone else when entering their diary. So here I am again, on a Friday, trying to recap. I had actually re-capped on all the priority tour discussions, I now no longer have that information but mentioning the priority units should enable anyone to cross reference to the relevant specialist data.
This week was quite eventful, we had a press day and a foundation laying ceremony for the museum on Tuesday, all went very smoothly. The site looked impressive, clean and organised in that we’d laid out paths to direct people around the trenches. We’d definitely learnt from last years experience.
In this section of the diary I want to recap on the introduction of the priority tours and the results. It was basically felt that last years ‘specialist tours weren’t focussed enough and so a new type of tour was introduced this season to give fast track feedback on specified types of deposits under excavation and to try to ascertain the nature and source of these deposits.
The priority units flagged up in the Mellaart area have mostly concentrated on the types of building infill. Basically in the field we were aware that there were differences in these types of deposits from building to building and we wanted to know whether these changes were also apparent in the material assemblages and what it may signify. We started off with units in building 2. 1868 from space 117 was a large arbitrary layer of dumped deposits, pretty much the same as those excavated from this space last season. This was defined as a mixed assemblage with pretty much of everything present. The same was also found for unit 1873, a similar deposit. However it differed as far as the faunal remains were concerned in that there were a lot more large bones present (I feel a bit frustrated here ‘cos there’s a lot more to say about the results of the priority units but I threw my notes out after I’d entered this information the last time). This change however is probably more due to the material lying at the interface of 1873 and 2024. We’re not too clear on what 2024 is yet, its a fairly uniform spread of yellow organic type material, Wendy initially thought it might be pigment. It was littered with some very large and possibly primary deposition of bones. This horizon defines a change of use and from what Roddy’s been excavating recently appears to mark the end of a phase of life of the building. This is because cutting layer 2024 are various pits interpreted as ‘retrieval’ cuts, that is they’re located against wall faces where we have defined wooden post impressions and we think the cuts are the result of digging out these post features and possibly wall mouldings such as cut 2060 with fill 2048. The floors that lie below 2024 can be seen in the sides of various cuts and are unlike the clean floors we’re used to in primary phases of buildings. This and the depth of the crawl holes at either end of the space has led us to believe that we may have here a secondary use of the building being used more as an ‘outhouse’. 1873 therefore represents the primary dumped infill of this building.
We compared the priority infill units of space 117 with 1803 of space 116, 2006/2019 in space 113 and 2000 from space 109. As I mentioned before these deposits had different characteristics in the field, 1803 was pretty similar to 1868 and 1873 but contained less material, 2006/2019 was a very dense deposit of unsorted but fine degraded building material and relatively clean of artifacts and 2000 was similar to2006/2019 but with a bit more domestic type debris. The analysis of the material reetrieved reflected these differences but all that could be established was that different sources of material was being used per area. The assemblages from 1803 displayed differences with those of space 117 thereby implying a change between the infilling of spaces 117 and 116. However Jim then quantified the material and the result showed very little difference between the infilling of these two spaces. The outcome was that all the infill deposits of all these spaces will be compared on a quantification basis.
It suddenly struck me yesterday that there is a pattern to these infilling events, this came about after visiting the north area and noticing that the infill in building 1 was very similar to the infilling of spaces 109 and 113, that is that they appear to be secondary deposition as opposed to building 1 which has characteristics of a primary deposition. The pattern is that the infill of spaces 109 and 113 and building 1 were constructed over, but building 2 became an ‘open’ area. So, can we interpret the infill of spaces 109 and 113 and building 1,as ‘packing/levelling/consolidation for the later building horizon, therefore deliberate and probably a single event ( be it over a number of days) as opposed to building 2, abandoned/derelict, falling into disuse and collapse then being utilised as a dumping ground. These dumps are then accumulated over time, comprising of domestic waste and building debris. A further change is seen when building 2 is backfilled and the walls are invisible, the deposits change from large massive dumps to fine accumulative and interdigitated ashy lenses. Quite what this change signifies is beyond me at the moment.
Another priority session addressed the nature and significance of pit cut 2050 in the south east corner of space 113. The fills analysed were from the top, 2028, 2036, 2047 and 2059. These were prioritised because we have no idea about the function of this pit, one interpretation was that it was a ‘retrieval’ cut. If that were the case we would imagine that the fill would have been the same as the deposits it was cut through 2072, which was also made a priority. However this was not the case, but then its not necessary that when the cut was made the hole was backfilled immediately and of course the fill may have nothing to do with the cutting of the hole ie. the backfill is secondary to the use of the cut. The function of this cut remains unresolved.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
