| Entry: | We excavated more of the midden deposit (12988) this morning - up to the western edge of (12980), which is the upper midden overlying (12988). We can now say that (12980)=(12971). The excavation of (12988) released another mud-bricky demolition/dumping deposit in the SW corner of the space (279). We excavated this deposit (12993) - very few finds, which looks in turn to be overlying another cleaner yellow mud-bricky deposit in this SW corner. However stratigraphically the next layer to come off here will be another midden deposit (which may turn out to = 12972). We have noticed in this SW corner that we have inter-digitation of dumping & midden deposits rather than one simple dumping/demolition event.
On the east side of the space we then started to excavate (12980). This is a compound layer at the top of the midden consisting of an upper layer of grey clayey silt - about 10cm thick, and underneath this a mixed layer of ash, dark brown and black patches of burning, greenish yellow sandy silt from the layer underneath - containing alot of animal bone and also quite frequent large sherds of pottery. Beneath this comes a clean light greenish yellow/grey layer about 6cm thick with a band of dark brown/black burning at the base. It is this horizon that forms the major uppermost tip-line in the midden and led us to distinguish (12980) from (12971). Not sure how to interpret this layer - feels like this maybe some kind of in-situ activity - the layer was also noticably stony. This layer will continue into the section at the edge of ex though so it will be available to micro-morph. Possibly the animal bone will also show something - though the bone had that golden 'crunchy bar' look to it and fell to pieces very easily. I'm also curious about the greenish tinge to the light layer.
We have more of (12980) still to excavate and then we will have released the midden underneath (12988/12971) on the east side and then maybe (12972). To the north side of the space the midden deposits ar coming off mud-bricky deposits and today we were able to see that one of our wall plaster lines was extending further south and turning to the west.
Had one nice figurine today that Halousi found in the dry sieve - from (12988), had a distinct pointy nose - looked a bit elephantine....Entered By: RT |
