Today's aim was to level the excavated surface of Locus 12 and Locus 13 across the operation, to excavated Locus 14 and to determine the length and characteristics of Feature 15, the alignment of stones running along the partition wall. When we stopped yesterday the northeast edge of the operation was about 40 cm higher than the southwest. The day ended up being confusing, trying to figure out floor contexts and the nature of the SW wall and the relationship of Feature 15 to those excavated last year in WSAC. I started the team in the morning leveling the upper elevations of Locus 13, about a 1 meter by 4 meter swath abutting Feature 15. Many of the stones were only just exposed above the surface, and I wanted to see if the stone alignment continued to the NE edge of the operation where the doorway to WSAD was. The guys did one pass of this and screened it, and came up with a bone awl. While this was going on I had Zahoro trowel around the southern corner and excavate Locus 14, which did not produce any other noticeable fragments of the same vessel and does appear to have been crushed by rock fall and may or may not be associated with Feature 15.
After one attempt at leveling Locus 13, I had them do the same for the northern part of Locus 12, the darker overburden. They screened this as well and found a worked ceramic, potentially a spindle whorl with a very large central opening. A large grinder/polisher was also found in this locus.
I took measurements after they had troweled the new excavated surface, and realized that we were still about 20 cm above the excavated surface in the southern and western corners, so after lunch I had them start a second leveling pass through Locus 13. At this point the surface is a confusing mixture of the same clay-y matrix of the cultural fill in Locus 7, but with some areas more hardpacked with orange and black splotches and a couple pieces of charcoal. Lori came over after lunch and we both agreed that surrounding Feature 15, the excavated surface does not yet look like a floor, and the elevation is still about 20-40 cm above the floor excavated in 2010. I decided to have them level Locus 12 and 13 to try and see the bottom of Feature 15, and whether or not there is another course of stones; currently some of the stones are definitely positioned in top of others that are only partially exposed.
The crew removed one large stone from the southern corner that looked like rock fall as it was leaning against the SW wall, as well as the very large stone sitting on black soil in the western corner. At the end of the day I had them trowel and clean this area to expose more of the SW wall. Lori and I talked about whether there is a potential doorway to the room where the wheelbarrow ramp sits, so the goal for tomorrow is to shorten the ramp to see if there indeed is a gap in the wall, and if not to rebuild the ramp.
At the end of the day I also had the guys start removing Locus 16 which I opened as the soil delimited by Feature 15 and the partition wall, roughly half a meter wide and 6 meters long. The upper part of this locus is the same as Locus 13, a tannish brown clay-y fill, but it turns to a more hardpacked, orangish clay with distinct splotches of organic material, and I had them stop at this level. I am unsure if that level represents a floor or lived surface as it is still higher than the floor found last year, but tomorrow I want to take soil samples from this locus and the southern corner.