Today was interesting, partly because we opened up Locus 22 in WSAC, and also because we exposed more of the doorway between the two rooms, leading to some intriguing questions of architectural stratigraphy in both rooms.
In the morning, I started the crew of 4 removing Locus 22 in WSAC, with the intention to move below the floor surface that we photographed yesterday and reach bedrock. I divided the room in half lengthwise, and started the guys in the NW section, to try and see the floor in the baulk cross section. This locus was screened, and one larger piece of charcoal taken for potential analysis (WSAC.22.C14.02). However, the matrix did not change in this first pass, and in fact the tops of stones appeared in the northern corner in the NE wall, suggesting that this medium brown/tan/mottled clay matrix (the same as Locus 17 above) continues down, and we were not actually at a floor. Locus 22 is also producing a lot of material, both ceramic and faunal, and lots of bits of charcoal. It is possible that I will extend this to the rest of the operation, to try and expose a floor in the entire trench.
In the area of the doorway an interesting configuration of stones is apparent in that a) the three large stones in the SW baulk that we thought were the face of the door are not resting on other stones, and are likely pushed forward and b) between the two 'faces' of the doorway, about 60 cm down, are two stones, not yet cleaned, which appear to be in a line, suggesting either an earlier wall, or careful blockage of the door. These stones could potentially go underneath the upper course of the wall, suggesting that the builders of the Iron 3 period walls reused an earlier structure. This configuration also seems to align with other areas in WSAD especially, like stones in the NE wall that are not resting on other stones, and Feature 16, which could also possibly be an earlier wall. However this means that I might have blown through a very ephemeral Iron 3 floor, which was much higher than in WSAC. It also means that the doorway might have been higher than the floors in both rooms. In order to investigate these theories of multiperiod architecture, we decided to open up the doorway more and clean in between the rocks.
Before lunch Lori decided that the three stones making up the upper course of the SE wall in WSAC should come out, as they are blockage in the door, and were sitting on top of soil, not another course. These would also allow us to see the bottom course of the wall better. I drew these and Lori photographed them after lunch. I then opened up WSAC.23 and WSAD.23 as the same locus beneath these stones, because the stones actually straddled the line between the two loci. We removed this locus, which was the dark rooty soil of the overburden, and only a few artifacts were recovered. After that I opened WSAC.24 and WSAD.24, again as a shared locus between the two operations, as the medium brown/loamy soil underneath Locus 23. We still have to finish excavating this locus tomorrow, but one very large chunk of charcoal was recovered from this locus (WSAD.24.C14.01).