| Entry: | End of week and I feel really drained. I have managed to get ridof the deposits in space 172 relatively quickly but have amassed a major paperwork backlog to deal with. The main thing that I sorted out was the bin sequence at the western end. Bin 514 is constructed first, then bin 515 and finally 516 so there is a progression from south to north. Hopefully the bin fills with ochre (4671) and (4673) which have been prioritised will produce interesting results. Do they represent normal use or some form of abandonment activity, I’m inclined to think the latter. There were also a series of badly preserved floors/accumulations (4686) which have also been prioritised and will hopefully provide a nice contrast to the dirtier ones from space 171.
I then removed a spit of infill (4689) beneath the building which proved quite interesting as it had a large piece of obsidian X.1 and two bone clusters X.3 and X.4. The obsidian is part of a pattern of single large roughly shaped pieces, which are normally found only in hoards, which have been found in the infill beneath buildings - the others are 4205 X.1 beneath building 2 and 4355 X.1 beneath building 16. All these items seem to be too deeply placed beneath the building to be easily recovered so what are they. Should we think of them as hoards albeit consisting of a single object or as a separate type of deposit? They are presumably some form of foundation deposit and broadly analogous with hoards (4209) and (4210) but I think that the single pieces are probably at least a slightly different phenomenon from the larger groups perhaps possessing different symbolic overtones - if meaning is context specific does one of these objects on its own mean something different from a nearly identical object found in a larger group?. It would be interesting to have a larger building sample to see if these single pieces are relatively common in infill or not, as far as I recall there wasn’t one beneath building 1.
I will now have to spend a while tackling walls and there is the whole question of the shoring being put up which is not something that I am looking forward to.
Ian’s arrival has as normal created a fair amount of disturbance which is probably largely productive as it forces us out of a rut and to look at the longer term picture. I find it very easy to just keep my head down and dig without thinking about the overall schedule which is not looking too good at the moment. I am already cutting as many corners as I am happy with and don’t see any practical way of reaching the natural if it is a great distance beneath the bottom of the 1960’s deep sounding. Hopefully thing will speed up a little soon simply by the area being dug getting smaller. Unfortunately logistics will probably kick in fairly soon and low us down again. I am also worried about the three ring circus that the project normally turns into when everyone is here, health and safety means that access to the deeper areas will have to be quite strictly limited and it will probably be impossible from a time point of view to spend large amounts of time on individual features/deposits such as burials/artefact clusters etc. As I am well known for my tact and diplomacy I have a feeling that I may end the season viewed as a cross between Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Antichrist in some quarters.Entered By: Craig Cessford |
