Unit 21790

Category: Layer    dug in 2015

Area: South 

Interpretive Categories: Dirty floor of sunken floor 

Data Category Information: Location: building; Description: general; Material: occupation; Deposition: composite (floors/bedding/plaster/packing/occupation)

Discussion: Dirty floor lying beneath layers of make-up and plaster (U.21780). The floor is extremely ashy near the eastern border of the hearth (due to hearth activity). The unit presents a very patchy aspect due to the degraded / eroded condition of the floor. Excavation was quite tricky, as it was difficult to chase the stratigraphy of the layers.

The unit presents multiple colors: dark grey, grey, black, brown, oragish-brown, white. Inclusions of charcoal, nodules of plaster and clay aggregates were observed. This dirty floor also contains a large amount of marl in the mid-western portion of the surface. All the inclusions mentioned were more frequent in this western part of the floor, where it abuts the hearth. The soil was more friable near the hearth and much more compact towards east. It required a leaf trowel for excavation.

This dirty floor was sitting on top of very fine layers of grey make-up and patches of plaster, which were more clearly exposed in the northeastern corner of the surface. So as we dug through, we tried to follow this layer of plaster and, where it was absent, we traced the grey make-up lying right beneath this plaster. It was decided to excavate this dirty floor until it reached this earlier layer of plaster, because it was sealing the ledge of the platform (F. 7401) to the east of this sunken floor. So now we may remove this plaster lapping onto the platform to unlock it.

As we mentioned before, the degraded state of this sunken area made it difficult to understand how the micro-layers were sat stratigraphically. The reason for this overall aspect is probably related to the use of the area as a place for food preparation (as it is right next to the hearth), as well as a pathway connecting the storage room in the southern part of the house to the living area in the north. Therefore, it is very likely that this floor was used and reused through time, where remnants of food preparation were dumped and the surface cleaned, and where the inhabitants of the house stepped on very frequently to access other parts of the building.




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Consistency: Soft to firm. 

Colour: Light brown - orangish, white, grey. 

Texture: Silty-clay. 

Bedding: Compound. 

Inclusions: Charcoal, plaster and clay aggregates, specks of marl. 

Post-depositional Features: Trampling. 

Basal Boundary: Anthropogenic, gradual, even. 

Unit Stratigraphy (as recorded in the field): above: (Click to view the record) 21794 below: (Click to view the record) 21780 

Dry sieve volume: 0 

Total Deposit Volume: 5 

Number of Samples recorded by excavator: 3

Number of Related Diary Entries: 0

Settlement Phase:

Associated Mellaart Levels (from Space): Unassigned at present 

Associated Hodder Level (from Space): Unassigned at present 

Finds Room Information:

All material from site passes through the finds room for washing and separating before it is passed onto the various lab teams. The finds room keeps a basic inventory of what is found. A finds material type list is given here. Further analytical detail maybe provided by the Lab Team data below.

X Finds Material: nothing recorded  

Finds Material Stored: nothing recorded  

Lab Team Data

Please note the list below does not represent everything that might have been found in this Unit, but represents the datasets we have available on-line. Please contact us to obtain more information about this Unit.

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