| Entry: | Today I continued digging unit 15180 in space 449. The aim was to go down another 20 cm on the level of the antler and horn core, together with the skillfull help of Numan, who does a really amazingly levelled planum. After that we began to expose the wall of feature 5057. I think we will go on with exposing the walls 5056, 3326 and 3334 tomorrow.
While going down, even more clay balls came out of the roomfill, mainly located in the eastern part of the unit, but one also in the western part. Several broken ground stones as well as some worked bone could be found, too. But the clayball concentration is probably one of the most interesting things about this unit. With a look at the sketch, the conectration is highest in the corner of features 3324 and 5056. A beatifully polished stone ball came from the sieve, but must roughly be located in the centre of the unit.
The upper 20-30cm of the unit didn`t contain clayballs at all, but bone tools. Now the finds in the unit consist mostly of clay balls and ground stone, what makes me think of different events of dumping So in unit 15180 we maybe see an earlier dumping event, constisting of pottery, clay balls (which can`t be used as heating stones, as they are all unfired, and their shape is quite humble, not really decorative) and broken ground stones. This dumping event is mixed, especially in the eastern part of the unit, with a lot of collapsed wall, partly painted red, and with some burned parts. Above the clay ball dumping event, we have a deposition of large pottery and mainly bone tools / worked bone (unit 15160). Lithic deposits play in general a minor role in this unit, although next to the antler, (in the ealier dumping event) lies a flint or obsidian core (Ihave to take a closer look tomorrow). Also the soil itself changes between those dumping events, the soil in unit 15160 and the upper part of 15180 having a texture containing a lot of silt and clay, whereas in the lower part of 1580 the soil gets more sandy, but pure clay lenses also occure more frequently, making the soil look yellowish - brown , in contrast to the dark brown soil of the later dumping event. |
