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Code
AFG.08.17
Season
2008
Narrative

Following Ruben's mapping help yesterday, Adam joined us at Aragatsi-Berd to help map another quarter of the site. We shot a 4th benchmark (ABM4) on the west side of the site's "second" terrace and were able to map the northwest quadrant of the site from that benchmark. Adam shot 1006 points in about 5 hours of work and only the southwest and east quadrants remain to be mapped.We had a very heavy rain overnight and spent the first hour or 90 minutes of work cleaning rain colluvium from operations AB1 and 2. Once this work was complete we photographed both trenches formally and commenced excavations in the AB2 locus 12 pit, the AB2 locus 9 rock fall pedestal, and the AB1 locus 13 wall fall locus.In AB1 we began pulling rocks and cleaning towards the likeley AB1 bedrock floor, collecting numerous obsidian flakes, sherds (both LB and EB), and faunal materials along the way. There were many atragalus bones present in the locus 13 matrix. Several jar stoppers and potential stones tools were also collected. The bedrock surface continues to slope to the northwest, but may be much deeper in that corner as well, suggesting a pit of some sort. We will be able to clarify tomorrow as we clean out that corner more thoroughly.In AB2 we continued to clean the out the locus 12 pit, moving northwest towards the trench's wheelbarrow entrance. We pulled more stones there (locus 11 matrix) and were able to define the circular (curvilnear?) pit's northern turn. We also revealed several fully articulated vertebral segements in the center of the locus 12 pit, definitely large mammals. We will descend further in the pit tomorrow and attempt to string the vertebrae togther as we bag them. We also continued to work in the locus 9 pedestal today, pulling rocks and cleaning an apparent clay surface from the southeast side of the pedestal near the locus 4 wall to the west. A hole opened up at the pedestal's northern margin towards the end of the day, likely a rodent burrow, but we will investigate further tomorrow.