Today we opened up a new operation, WSAC3, which covers the western quadrant of room WSAC; the operation is 7.5 m wide and 10 m long, matching the length of WSAC2 and abutting the NW baulk of that operation. The SW wall of the room seems to be covered by this new operation but the NW wall is less visible from the surface.
In the morning Lori's, Jake's and my workers moved the rock pile that had been sitting in this area so that we could open up the new operation. I took photographs and then had 6 workers (2 extra from Lori) take down Locus 1 as the topsoil/sod. Meanwhile, 3 workers troweled and screened Locus 31 in WSAC2, the brown silty overburden in the SW doorway. We spent the day trying to expose the NW face of the doorway which is messier and less preserved than the SE face. We managed to get a good piece of charcoal from the bottom of this locus. At this elevation the matrix changed to the tan/mottled more clay-y matrix of the cultural fill, similar to Loci 20 and 23 over the paved floor, with bits of charcoal and splotches of orange and yellow. I opened this as Locus 32 after lunch and had these three workers take that down for the rest of the day. There was an area of charcoal that we sampled for analysis in this locus. By the end of the day the workers in WSAC3 had removed about 2/3 of the sod.
I finished the NW baulk drawing today.