| Entry: | The end aim of the season to reach floor level in spaces 116 and 117 looks good one day and not good the following. The fact that Cicek has the tops of a thin walled feature 72 implies we're not far off, the fills of the space are apparently homogenous, sterile looking building debris fill. Space 117 looks good, we've got some nice plaster areas on the N wall and today Roddy has exposed an expanse of horizontal plaster, it looks in situ, floor or bench(?), slopes southward, the only hiccup is that the void in the centre of the room, that had been sealed by a heap of plaster collapse, is pretty devoid of visible floors in the side as is the side of Mary's cut to the S of Roddy's plaster. However we're not in despair as sections are very misleading. I spent the day taking off midden layers, desperately trying to follow a horizon of tipping, the lenses are so ephemeral in places its impossible to keep track of them. I aimed for a fairly large chunk of multiple lenses but it grew and grew. Within were several lenses and solid fragments of differing types of coprolites. These varied in orange yellow, yellow brown to greeny yellow. Dense, well digested to coarse texture with well chewed hackberries, to whole hackberries and a more fine grained and fibrous type. Wendy took a couple of samples through this area and found one deposit with possible digested bone. This led to a topic of discussion with the specialists on camera. Interestingly, Christine mentioned (not on camera), something she read on the consistency of defecation of the ancient world, that it was normal to be loose and solid is a sign of a modern diet. This would fit in with what we have, I had thought the flattened nature of these deposits was due to the overlying soil weight but I think Wendy is right in suggested it may represent the original consistency. This is assuming it is all coprolite, Wendy says some might actually be food remains. the discussion then led on to the implications for the use of space. Basically it doesn't really change my understanding of an open area used as a convenient rubbish tip and occasionally as a convenience. Anwen and Atakan have drawn some wall sections which we hope to reduce n height to avoid collapse during the year.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
