Interesting day. Began by having crew clean surface of trench to continue to chart appearance of mottled/organic rich/clay matrix that first came up in eastern corner, as Locus 6. I had them take down the level of Locus 7, in the center and western areas of the trench, and this meant moving a considerable amount of large rocks (see sketches in notebook). The clay matrix is now visible across the northeast half of the trench, so I then had the crew move two of the large rocks in the southern corner (see sketch) so that they could start taking down Locus 8. By lunch the clay matrix of Locus 6 was appearing in this corner, with another level of rocks. Also in the morning, Vartan cleared the juncture of the NE and SE walls in the eastern corner, and exposed the course of the NE wall, proving that the wall continues and that indeed there is no gap or door.
Right before lunch we removed the row of rocks that had delimited the northern corner from the rest of the trench, which I called Locus 9. However, very quickly it became clear that a large amount of bones were coming out of this very small area (see notebook for sketches), and little to no ceramics or obsidian. After watching Vartan remove these bones- unfortunately some were broken in this stage- I more carefully cleaned the area and began to doubt whether or not this was actually a collection of human bones, not animal. Without training in osteology, however, I waited until Lori and Ian came to look at the remaining in situ bones, which proved more convincing as human to the three of us. I therefore cleaned the area, drew it, photographed it, and took elevations (see notebook) and have entered it as a feature instead of a Locus. Interestingly, the soil was still very dark, and not the more medium brown/yellow organic soil of the eastern corner, suggesting instead that this body was interred or dropped into the overburden. However, the line of stones that I drew and which we removed might possibly have been a barrier or surrounding feature to the burial.
After lunch I tended first to Feature 9, then had the crew continue to explore the confusing western corner of the trench more, as this is the only area where the soil is still very dark, and still not similar to the clay matrix of the rest of the trench. By the end of the day I realized that this needed to be its own locus, which will become 10, as we start to take down the clay matrix elsewhere.