In the morning I photographed Locus 25 (jumble of rocks in NE area, near doorway) and the workers removed them, revealing three large stones of the paved floor underneath. In the screen a small piece of bivalve shell was found. I then had one worker trowel in this area while the rest of the group started taking down Locus 16, the matrix delimited by the linear stone feature and the SE/partition wall. As they went down, the matrix did not really change, and some of the large stones of the lower course of the wall seem to continue down, so it is possible we still have another 10 to 15 cm to go, but the space is becoming narrow and difficult to excavate without knocking off the top stones of the linear feature. I also had two workers clean up the area of the southern corner of the room, where the two walls join together, and where there are several stones that seem like rock fall. The workers also removed three medium sized stones that were near Feature 15 and the SW wall but were sitting on top of the paved floor, and probably fall from either the wall or the feature.
I declared Locus 26 as the remaining area of brownish fill, along the NW baulk and into the western corner, and abutting the paved floor, where there do not appear to be any stones. I was unsure whether this was a clay floor which had not preserved well, or whether there would be more stones of the floor at a lower elevation, as we had found some at the end of the day Saturday running into the NW baulk. I had the workers take two soil samples in this locus, and both hit stones about ten cm down, so I had the team do a 10 cm pass in this locus to try and find the extent of the paved floor. These stones are roughly 10-20 cm lower than the stones discovered last week, so it raises the question of whether the split-level was an intentional feature of the built floor; if the lower elevation floor possibly represents an earlier occupation (although I don't believe this because the fill directly above is very shallow and not characteristic of a floor); or if some sort of erosive action lowered the stones in the center of the room. And what is the large circular stone doing in the center of the operation- is it a base for a large post? It's top is roughly 30 cm higher than some of the stones around it, which seems odd for a column/post base; an in situ groundstone?
At the end of the day we were troweling along the NW baulk where the stones are appearing, and I am still unsure as to the extent of the floor and how it articulates with the doorway and the SW wall.