| Entry: | the last diary entry of 2005.
The last week has seen the complete removal of construction foundation of deposits/walls associated with building 44, F. 1345 and F. 2062 and the partial removal of there southern and western counterparts F. 2053 and F. 2054. The latter could only be partially removed because we need to understand the sequence of the deposits to the west and south and their relationship to the walls before we go any further. As with building 56 the arrangement of the features mirrors that of building 44. We have three platforms F. 2055, F. 2057, F. 2058 and a bench, F. 2056 along the eastern side of the building. A further platform on the north wall F. 2059 with a fourth platform F. 2063 at the south west. The oven is again partially cut into the southern wall of the building and a hearth lies over the NE corner of Platform F. 2061. A ladder base can also be seen in the SE corner of the building. F. 2064. Where the building differs is the addition of a niche in the north west wall and a small room also at the north west. Both of these features had been blocked. The removal of the blocking to the niche (10659, 10660) revealed a placed deposit of a shell necklace directly under the blocking (11691). The building appears to be remarkably preserved and was fairly pristine in terms of cleanliness, with virtually no occupation deposits on the surfaces of the features, except a partial grindstone lying directly on hearth F. 2061. It may be they tidied up the building prior to the next construction phase and possibly this was the material we saw lying in deposits 11648 and 11644 placed within platform foundation F. 1345. I have given new numbers to the walls that are new or had some alteration before they were incorporated in building 44. The north walls still remain F. 1339 and F. 1342, although there remains the remnants of foundation wall F. 2053 over F. 1339 at the north east which should have been at least partially removed this year, but we only realised the relationship at the end of the season and it is retaining later features to the north that really should be dealt with first before we remove any more walls. The northern and southern walls of small room at the north west of building 56 has are respectively F. 2066 and F. 2067. The west, south and east walls of the building are respectively F. 2068, F. 2069 and F. 2070. These again have only partially been revealed and in he case of F. 2070 still lies completely under the foundation of building 44. Here in lies the problem if we keep going down without actually finishing a building completely, not only can we only partially reveal lower buildings, but the various specialists never get closure on their material if we don’t completely excavate everything within a building. My solution would be to at least create a excavation perimeter around a building and there we draw an arbitrary line at where to stop. Basically if we excavated the deposits 3-5m around Building 10, 44 and now 56 then we would be able to cope with unexpected rooms wider walls etc and we would be able to get some handle on the relationships with the deposits around the building. It would basically give us some freedom of movement around the building while at least excavating one building in its entirety. Of course that would mean other buildings would only get partially excavated but that’s always going to happen at Catal, in any area we excavate. If we fast tracked it with discretionary sampling then this could be done relatively quickly and we would be able to catch up with building 56 after the final removal of buildings 10 and 44. If a long season does happen I would also recommend that any potential team leaders come earlier than their respective teams and 'train' with the pro's or brush up on their techniques then they could pass on that experience to their own team members, this would only benefit the project in the long run. Anyway I have again enjoyed myself and the project appears to be consolidating, what I mean by that is that the steady return of the same people has meant much more communication between the various labs and the excavation teams and any potential points of conflict tend to dissipate, basically people talk to each other on an informal rather than formal basis and that’s much better.
So see ya later.Entered By: RR |
