Got a lot done today as we push to finish WSAC3 by next week. Started crew of 6 in the morning finishing the removal of Locus 11 up to the stones in the linear feature (10), which were surrounded by a darker soil than the more lighter brown/mottled clay of the cultural fill. Also near the ramp the soil is still darker, probably following a swale in the room. After we cleaned the surface of the stones of Feature 10 I photographed the branch of stones running N to E and had the guys remove these (two needed to be broken) and there were no stones underneath them (aside from the several smaller stones in between the larger ones), just soil. See notebook for sketch of stones removed, including the large one that was floating on darker soil next to the wheelbarrow ramp, which had two smaller stones under it, and two stones hanging off of the SE baulk. We troweled this area down and swept it but I forgot to take a photograph of this surface. I'm still unsure of how the darker looser soil around the stones of Feature 10 connects to the cultural fill.
I then opened Locus 12 as the strip of soil left over from the removal of Locus 8 and abutting the NW wall and the assemblage of smaller stones in the hook created in Feature 10. Lori suggested that they might represent part of the NW wall of the room's internal fill spill out, since that area in the northern part of WSAC3 seems to have been opened. Locus 12 did not have many materials (no lithics) and we did not come down on any large stones connecting the linear feature to the NW wall. I then opened Locus 13 under Locus 9 between the linear stone feature and the NW wall and the wheelbarrow ramp to come at the smaller rock pile from the SW, but I decided to stop halfway through (at lunch) as it needed to be screened. The soil here is much darker and a gritty moist consistency and seems to go under the stones of the feature, as well as under some of the stones of the NW wall. Gagik while shoveling this locus brought up several pieces of bright orange, fired clay, so I am still wondering if we have some sort of pit or hearth feature in this area. Lori pointed out what I had seen yesterday that the wheelbarrow ramp might be covering another doorway, in which case the stones to the N are the face of the doorway, but then what is the linear stone feature doing so far out from the wall and right near an opening? Although Lori's room N might have a doorway near the oven feature.
After lunch we got the fixed screen and I opened Locus 14 as a 2 by 4.5 m arbitrary area extending along the SE baulk in the cultural fill to try and reach the floor level (from WSAC2). I took two soil samples from this locus to try and get some of the botanical material near the floor (sample A was right near the SE baulk, and sample B was a meter to the W in an area of darker soil, see notebook). Screening this locus slowed us down, but we managed to pick up about 2/3 of it as well as two measly pieces of charcoal (since we don't have any yet for the entire operation, although Locus 14 has such small specks mixed in with the mottled, clay-y matrix of the cultural fill). I think I misjudged the SW area of this locus in the darker, but still compact soil, similar to WSAC2's difference between loci 23 and 26, because we were getting a mixture of the much more tannish brown and the darker brown. We didn't have a chance to trowel this area yet but we can't be more than 5-10 cm above the floor.