| Entry: | The grave cluster in space 40 is getting more and more complex. In the southern part, we have a well preserved skeleton of a 5-7 year-old child (19484) in a secondary burial on top of an adolescent or young adult (19742). In the north part there is one seemingly complete skeleton of a child (19489) and an upright cranium of another child (19488). In the north-western corner a foot and a leg have appeared, which could be a part of 19742 or a fifth individual.
As the infill (20202) into which the graves were dug is compound and mixed to a high extent and many animals have dug in the area, it is hard to define the grave cuts. We have some fragmented lines, but even those are insecure and none of the graves have yet been completely defined. It complicates the sampling and planning of the work process, but at the moment we cannot do much more than dig it all at the same time and feel a bit bad about it. In one sense, we would have had to excavate some parts simultanously anyway, as many of the bones are fragile and would be moved or destroyed if we went deep down in only some parts in the middle, but we really have to work hard on the cut definitions in the next few days and try to sort it out as fast as possible.
This far we have only separated the grave infill in one southern (20203; skeletons 19742 and 19484) and one northern part (19491; skeletons 19488 and 19489), mainly for sampling reasons. The stratigraphical relation between skeletons 19742 and 19484 is quite clear, both because the larger skeleton is lower with the child bones placed centrally inside it, and because the child skeleton is well articulated while the adolescent skeleton is disturbed by the child grave. It is a good thing that we can get this kind of clues to the stratigraphy as well.
We would prefer to to be able to continue further down in space 40 as soon as possible, but at the same time we are excited about the grave cluster. In the upper parts, although the graves are mixed to a high extent, even the hand and foot bones are generally articulated and in a good condition. No more grave goods this far, but there are clear similarities betweensidian mirror grave cluster F3630 some ten meters to the east, so we keep our eyes open… |
