Well this entry is going to be brief since I'm wiped from a day in the sun and an evening of coding small finds.
T44 is turning into pit city. I am getting a crash course on late bronze age gegharot as the tally is now up to 12 pits -- all with diagnostic LBA finds from complete vessels to a mondal (sp?).
Here's what I have to say about the pits-- for as cratered as the unit is looking, i've never seen such clear pits! They are cut into bedrock and usually filled with a fairly loose brown sediment. While I am annoyed that we keep finding them as we move westward in our effort to expose bedrock it is keeping the last few days interesting. I certainly have taken a lot of soil samples and created many a new loci!
There does not seem to be a method to the madness.The organization of the pits, from placement to size does not appear to have any clear rationale. It seems likely that this area had to be used for production -- or trash -- but there is not a particular pattern in the types of objects. The density of fauna is fairly low; we have a decent albeit not exceptional number of stone tools -- namely polishers and groundstones. Given the density of EBA materials, from andirons to pottery and the style of architecture I still have reason to suspect that this was an EBA room that was re-utilized later on. The floor and other contents were scrapped so that pit-city could develop.
The plan for the next few days is to excavate to bedrock (in the whole trench), take final photos, and elevations. As the 2018 season is wrapping up there certainly is a fair amount of database work to do!