| Entry: | I moved out of space 181 about a week ago where I’d been working moving spoil since finishing in Building 23. Helped Jon and Charlie remove floors in their respective spaces. Jon has been away the last couple of days so working in space 182 while he’s gone. At the northern end of this space he’d largely uncovered a surface (5240) and I first excavated a deposit (5241) which looked like it would be overlying some more of this surface. In the event it just lipped over the edge of it. 5241 was a compound layer of what appeared to be occupation deposits - thin bands of material with discontinuous horizons of phytolith, ash & charcoal flecks and plaster. Left a block for micromorphology. Chased this deposit to the south but at some point there was a change and I decided that I was digging something different - was no longer stratified and possibly with small flecks of phytolith throughout - and appears as if it might run under surface 5240 so stratigraphically had to be something different. Excavated up to the 971 northing so south of this have given this deposit the no. 5242. Removed some more of the ‘rubbly’ material (5238) which overlay this - it appears though as if there might be some of 5238 still in situ on the western side of the space here, but at a lower depth - some large lumps of plaster visible which I thought might resolve themselves into a feature but increasingly look like just more lumps of plaster. On the eastern side of the space here there is one potential feature where a distinct ‘arm’ of material is projecting into the space - but as yet it doesn’t seem to go with anything. Just to the north of this is a shallow circular depression in clean floor plaster. Whether this will be connected with a larger clean plaster surface we won’t see until 5240 and a thin dirty layer of grey clay and plaster beneath is removed. To the south of all this activity is the dark brown layer 5239 which stretches across the south of the space - may even be infill. This has a distinct edge on approx. the 969.8 northing but not straight - v.irregular so if this some division of the space then not the usual neat demarcation. 5242 appears to be overlying 5238 where I’ve dug into it slightly to define this edge.Entered By: Richard Turnbull |
