Field School Wrap-up - Block 4

Don’t really have much to say about Block 4. I didn’t spend all that much time in that area; just stopped by briefly from time to time as I passed through to other areas.

This block was opened up at the end of week 4. Here are a couple of shots of it mid-way through week 5.

There were a lot of potential post holes in this block as can be seen by the many red flags within the units. Each of these had to be drawn onto a map marking their locations before further excavation could continue. In the photo above Amy is taking measurements to plot the locations while Shelby records the data.

Some of those flags also mark pieces of pottery found at that level. Each of those needed to be documented as well. There was a great deal of pottery found throughout this block. That, along with the post holes that were later verified, suggests that a structure also stood here as well.

Since we were starting to be pushed for time, emphasis here was placed on excavating downward to the sterile subsoil within the existing units rather than expanding the block to cover a larger area. That way we could fully explore the things we had already flagged and document the rather complex soil patterns that had been found.

Here is a shot of Block 4 early on the final day of field school.

All that remains to be done is to document and excavate that little area left in the upper corner of the photo. Dr. Bob is seen evaluating the profile there. Once he was done with that, we started digging out that last little section.

However, that little corner still held some surprises. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any more photos of this Block. Wish I had.

As soon as they started digging out that last chunk, a large concentration of pottery was found. At least 2, large and fairly intact vessels were unearthed, along with many smaller fragments. Regrettably, they were quite fragile and broke during the excavation process. Not to worry though, they are being reconstructed back at the lab. And, in the process of cleaning and preparing the pieces, it was found that the vessels contained seeds of some sort. These will eventually be sent off to another facility to determine what kind of seeds they are. Apparently, these were storage vessels, either for seeds that would have been used for food preparation (ground into flour) or for seeds that would have been planted at a later date.

Excavating finds of this kind is tedious and time consuming work. We were actually unable to completely remove this pottery by the end of the final day. Some of the staff and students went back the following Monday, after the official end of field school, to complete the task. It took most of the day but they finally got Block 4 completed.