| Entry: | 28th July Yesterday I wasn’t well, so worked in the lab in the morning, trying to get to grips with my data. Still having problems getting things from finds staff -eg. they say things haven’t arrived although people tell me they’ve taken them there. I know it’s difficult, but now I’m only on the receiving end, I want my stuff! - having been the one getting material to specialists quickly for years. Anyway, I’m sure it will all settle down soon. Despite going to bed immediately after dinner last night, I was exhausted today - probably a delayed reaction to yesterday’s illness and absence of food! Tried to dig am, but couldn’t take photos as the reorganisation of the tarpaulin for the shelter means the morning light floods into my space, which I hadn’t expected. I did sort out the articulated bone with Rissa - possibly dog or fox - but then had to give up and go back to the house early. Slept through the rest of the morning! - but managed to get some work done on site pm, at least photos, and sorting out where this micro-fauna is coming from, but the level had done to West so I was stuck on some things. Peter has found micro-fauna in 2858, the room fill which is mainly to S of the plaster on the S side of the crawlhole in the W wall. Because we want to clear this stuff out quickly, I was taking out all the room fill under one number - it is the same stuff, but has been cut by sections and reduced to different levels across the building. So some 2858 comes from W of the ladder against the N wall, which is in the E half of the room, but that hasn’t gone to flotation. Having a closer look at some very loose fill immediately N of the plaster by the crawlhole, I found micro-fauna in it, and this seems to run under the plaster, or at least there is a little wedged under on the S. I suspect the micro-fauna came from this when Shahina was cleaning under the plaster the other day when we lifted some of it. If so, that means it’s got the wrong unit number. I’ll have to sort it out tomorrow - I was rather too brainless today.
I finally got the 3021 material for tomorrow’s priority tour. It’s packed with unbaked clay beads and figurines, extremely rough and ready. Very unusual material - I wonder how much more of this there is, that doesn’t get picked up. Unfortunately it all came through flotation, and has got rather damaged. Some breaks are clearly new, others are harder to tell as they have been rolled in the water. As many pieces are clearly missing, it may be that they were deposited broken; on the other hand, some may have dissolved. Not all the deposit was floated, but most was. I don’t know if I’m missing some because it wasn’t spotted, it wasn’t there, or it broke down too much. Perhaps when we have a deposit rich in this type of material we should dry sieve it at the house before floating it.Entered By: Naomi Hamilton |
