| Entry: | Diary entry 8
In the last 2 days I have been doing some more exploring of the walls, only showing that the corners of the building are not where they had been assumed to be in the SE corner. The wall has been built on top of what looks like midden (11436), but another wall has cut into that for our building. It is also vaguely possible what the all had collapsed in building 10, and building 44 did some underpinning of the remains, or something. More evidence is needed, and exploration in the next few days should clear this up.
Otherwise I have been working on platform F.1312 removing layers and the last few repair jobs and construction work on the ladder slot F1331. The shape of this cut has become more leaf shaped as the repair units have come out - the base now shows up as an almost perfect oval cut into the platform edge, seemingly with a little of the outside edge of the platform pushed away and into the rubbish pit area (F.1325). Today I removed a small layer (11449) of what looked like platform surface which was isolated on top of a small raised area of the rubbish bin/house floor - this appears to reinforce the interpretation that the platform was built and smoothed off, then the cut was made into the platform to insert the ladder or stairway, and subsequently erosion, wear and tear on the setting necessitated multiple repairs which spread out mixing with the rubbish pit deposits which has started to be formed. Rain coing from the hole in the roof further complicated the archaeology by making the layers very flakey - every single platform layer that came off platofrm 1312 was harder and more compact at the South end, probably caused by trampling and puddling/dampness.
Today I removed a pot (11446) which had been partially buried under the platform. It was lower than the rubbish pit deposits, all of which had to be removed before this pot was exposed, and it then had a cut all of its own. The pot came out looking very nearly complete, but in many pieces - it was the biggest pot to come out of this house so far. Samples were taken of the platform fill inside it (S1), the fill inside the pot (S2) and a residue sample from the base of the pot (S3).
Finally I began to remove layer 11456 from F.1312, this is certainly the last layer to come off, it is almost identical with the current house floor which appears to be the earliet, and what is being exposed is identical to the house floor (1435?) - All the inclusions in the layer above of bone, obsidian, pot etc have reduced in quantity dramatically - it is possible that 11456 is in fact part of the initial construction and belongs with the layer below and the floor, together representing the initial construction phase pre-plastering, and habitation.Entered By: Alex Pryor |
