| Entry: | Today I started excavating my first human burial, where Scott helped me start to excavate it early in the morning since I have not done a burial before let alone a neonate. There were fragments of skull and vertebrae that came in at the end of the day yesterday when I was not out in the field, and that is how they found it was by hitting the skull first. The individual was in near proximity to where a neonate was found last season. This individual was positioned on it's stomach, and head towards the west. Most definitely a chalcolithic burial in the room fill we have been taking out of this area so far - though it seems unusual to have so many artifacts in articulation if this is room fill. It is suggested that this is a rapid deposit event, where everything in the room was deposited at once. This may explain why a neonate is entirely intact while still surrounded by fragments of animal bone and pottery, where there is no sign of a cut or other disturbance to suggest any other deposition event took place. I was new to working in this area, as I was originally working in Space 343, which was also room fill but with much less material coming out. Working on the neonate was a challenge, where I was afraid of breaking or moving some of the bones out of place. The skull was still not removed by the end of the day - but the rest of the body was lifted and brought back to the lab. There was a fragment of pottery found in contact with the right side of the rib cage, and it appears the ribs were crushed up against it time of deposition. Many phytoliths were found underneath the bones and other fragments of animal bone and pottery, though this was a common occurrence and observation by the other excavators in this area - where many artifacts lifted had phytoliths underneath them for the most part. This may suggest remnants of a basket, but it is difficult to tell since most of the room fill has phytoliths associated with them, probably during the deposition event. The neonate was also found abutting the plaster of a buttress on the northern part of the room, where it had almost appeared to have been partially inside the plaster or buttress itself (but was not). I am looking forward to taking the rest of the skull out tomorrow, and hope to have more practice with these types of burials as I learned a lot excavating the neonate since it was very well preserved in the soil. |
