Roman on site today taking samples from the SLT 13 locus 5 stone basin and surrounding context. We started the day by cutting back a little more of the locus 2 soil to further expose the soil around the basin for sampling. This soil we put through a screen to see if anything unusual might be found in association with the feature. But nothing particularly unique was found, just smaller bits of bone, obsidian and pottery. Afterwards, we took a formal photo of the context. Roman designated five areas for sampling: the soil within the basin was A, and B-E were sections of soil outside the basin from the exterior wall of the basin to about 60cm out. I made a sketch of the sampling plan in my notebook. We brought several large yellow plastic grocery bags to collect the samples. The soil from the basin filled most of them (7, I think), and I collected a small handful of artifacts as Roman removed the soil. But interesting, while troweling down in the basin, Roman found a tiny paste(?) bead; I was amazed he noticed it, but he remarked that it's part of his specialty from looking at tiny seeds all day. True enough. He threaded a piece of grass through it, and I put it in a foil packet and then a plastic artifact bag (Ar/Ts.SLT13.5.C.1). The exterior samples B-E were sampled by Roman in the cloth bags, with one bag per sample. So these were much smaller samples than the basin itself, just a few cm down.
While Roman was sampling, I had all the guys digging in SLT 14 locus 5 to be out of his way.