C3 Week 4 Weekly Journal

July 26, 2001

This week has been interesting we have dug in the entire area and have found things that are important all over. I will start with the SE corner. We removed most of the cobble surface L3013 which has the stone feature in its NE corner border. We found some grindstones and some interesting pottery in the surface. We also found that the stones that were scattered throughout the surface actually lie deeper that the surface. That means that the cobbles were put down after the stones. I'm not sure if the stones are part of a bigger structure hiding in the baulk or what I need to dig further to understand their function. They are not part of the rest of the area unless the area was terraced at this point.

In the NE portion, now L3024, we decided that since we weren't seeing much in the midtrench baulk which L3024 is part of we would bring it down about 50cm to the surface that we could see in the baulk which was a few centimeters above L3018 and L3020. We went down and found nothing remarkable until we dug a 1 m window into the SW end of L3024. Here we found a cobble surface that is the same as the one we found when digging in L3018. Under L3018 which is west of L3024 and abutting it we found a series of cobble surfaces one on top of another but not continuous west. What I mean is that there area a series of surfaces that are on separate levels starting ant the W baulk moving east and continuing to the mid trench baulk but every do often another level appears a couple of centimeters above the last but is was not present over the surfaces east of it. We originally thought that they were surfaces that were eroded each year by the seasonal rain. After finding the surface continuing into L3024 and looking at the section of C2, which shows surfaces cutting into the hill and even downwards into the hill against its natural curve, I think that a second possibility is that the area was terraced and that these could be eroded and worn steps up to a higher level. Though the eroded surfaces idea is not out the window.

Lastly in the SW part of the trench I have been working on articulating the stone wall L3005 and seeing what it is doing relative to the cobble surfaces in L3025. I was wondering why if it continued N why we didn't see it over the cobble surface or in the section of C2 which abuts my NW baulk. After some articulation I found some stones that run eastward and may mean that the wall L3005 may corner at a east running wall. I'm not sure if this is contemporary with the cobble surface. I will have to see if I can find a connection next week.