| Entry: | Today is the 13th anniversary of my graduation (well the first time around anyway), that's interesting isn't it ?
Well its a little while since I last made this type of contribution, since before I went on my Holiday. Anway, had a wonderful, hassle-free time in Northern Cyprus and can recommend it to anyone.
Whe I returned to site I thought that all the infill in Space 163/170 would have been removed in mine and Charlie's absence, but oh no, with the exception of a little shaving down around the area of the last burial nothing has been done. First job was then to get the rest of the NE corner down to the level of the NW corner. Then guess what? there's been a change of plan. Space 163 has been put on hold so I have to work in Space 173, the small annexe (I refuse to use the word antechamber) to Building 6, Space 163.
Since then I have done a lot of work in the southern part of this space (work resumed in Space 163 after a few days when Anwen, Duncan and Jonathan bolstored the workforce). This work has involved little sediment removal and a lot of paperwork generation as this area appears to be the interface between the 'dirty' south and the 'clean' north in this Space (much the reversal of the situation in Britain really!), and has involved the removal of numerous small floor repair deposits and ashy spreads. The main features at the southern end of this space were two fire installation features, though the space is not being excavated up to the south wall so these features have not been excavated in full. The upper of these features was F502, which like other features in this space, had been heavily truncated prior to infilling of the space. Consequently only a thin layer of infill, the installation base and superstructure survived. below this feature was an ashy layer which covered another fire installation, F523. This was a slightly bigger feature and excavation involved the removal of a few fiddly bits. It too had been heavily truncated though consisted of upper fills, an extremely hard burnt base, lower ashy fills below this, a truncated superstructure and cut. With such heavy truncation of both features their actual function is difficult to ascertain, though the lack of any apparent side opening in either case would suggest hearths rather than ovens. Both fire installations were related to a number of spreads of rake out, and interest in these has concentrated on the amount of obsidian debitage present. Unit 4808 had a high concentration of debitage flakes and I think unit 4898 will produce similar results. It seems likely therefore that some obsidian flaking was taking place somewhere in this space with the debitage being swept into the dirty southern zone.
Directly north of the fire installations and rake outs was a large area of flooring which consisted a main, multi-layered area and numerous repair patches, all of which have been grouped together as F527. To the north the floors appear to overlie infill of the space below, but to the south the layers appear to interleave with ashy spreads, creating a far more more complicated sequence. Removal of the main block of floor layers has also revealed what may be another fire installation feature and possibly a couple of other features, though removal of this material is still ongoing. Well thats the archaeology just about up to date, but I've not quite finished yet!
Firstly, It has been noticed that since the shelter went up over the site and our view out has been restricted, the workmen have realised this and have once again reverted to their idle ways, which seems to be a particular trait among members of the foreman's family. Large stockpiles of material to sieve have thus built up as they don't appear to be working a lot of the time. Fortunately today, the recently-arrived Konya students sieved a large volume of material and appear to have made a very good job of it too. Certain of the workmen have been threatened with dismissal in the past, it may soon be time to carry out such a threat.
Secondly, priority tours and filming are beginning to take up too much time. I know they are an important aspect of the project, indeed I have had some excellent feedback from some of my samples, most recently the information concerning obsidian debitage from rake-outs. However, the main object this year is to excavate as quickly as possible and I still think more time should be made of the 5 - 7 session for this type of activity rather than eating into valuable excavation time.
Thirdly, our numbers are now increasing as members of the BACH team descend on our once peaceful community. With increasing numbers some tensions are bound to develop, though so far there appear to be no problems. Off-site, however, certain people who have been here for much longer seem intent on breaking the basic ground rules of the project. One person in particular can be singled out here, and indeed does the same thing every year, which quite honestly is seriously pissing off a number of people, including myself. The object of this seems to be the attention seeking of a thirteen rather than a thirty year-old. We are all supposed to be professionals here and I think the majority of us are managing this in sometimes difficult situations. I have no time for people with such over-inflated opinions of themselves who disrupt other peoples and the project's functioning. With this type of attitude one should either grow up or get out.
On that note I will take my leave from this keyboard and hope to write again soon, when hopefully infill removal will be underwayEntered By: Peter Boyer |
