Week Four: Amy Hair

We will soon be entering week 5 of field school, and so far it has been amazing! This summer I’ve been working in units 128 and 130. Both units deal with a circular public structure. This structure was rebuilt three times and seems to overlap with another structure. Unit 128 was opened because it was supposed to catch all three wall trenches from the circular structure plus the other structure that it intersects. Unit 130 was part of a few units that were going help us see all three wall trenches.

Amy and SarahJane excavating

Amy at the Ceramic Workshop
Amy at the Ceramic Workshop

I started out the summer in unit 128 where the public structure intersected with another domestic structure that was later deemed structure 36. The circular public structure was first excavated prior to this summer and we knew that it was constructed three times. However, the real question was to figure out the relationship the circular structure had with structure 36, the one it overlapped with. While in unit 128 we first discovered one of the wall trenches from the circular structure cutting though the unit and through structure 36. Because we could see the wall trench through the unit we were able to determine that the structure existed prior to that phase of the circular structure. In the wall trench of the circular structure we had found a really neat piece of decorated Oneota ceramic! While working in structure 36 we had also found a portion of jar rim, it didn’t look as though it had any decorations on it, but it was still really cool! At this point we were about 10-15cm above the floor of structure 36, and could still only see one wall trench when we were looking to see three. From there I moved over to unit 130 to help look for these wall trenches and get a better overall picture of the circular structure.

I spent about a week and a half in unit 130 where we discovered all three wall trenches and a feature in the north wall. We first discovered the feature because the soil was a darker shade then surrounding soil and had a different texture then the really thick and light soil surrounding it. In the feature it self there was some bone, charcoal, and really large rocks. We really weren’t entirely sure what the feature could be, and it quickly began to disappear as we moved deeper down in the unit. Soon after finding the feature we were able to locate all three wall trenches! There was an inner wall trench, that was the furthest west, an outer wall trench that was in the middle of all three, and an offset trench that was the furthest east. After finding all three trenches, we were able to determine that the offset trench came after the middle inner trench. Now that we had a better idea of where all three wall trenches were supposed to be, I moved back over to unit 128 to see if we could pick up where the wall trenches were supposed to be.

Pretty quickly after moving back over to unit 128 we began to uncover all the wall trenches we had expected plus one! After going down a few centimeters in the unit we were able to see the other two wall trenches from the the circular structure. At this time, we had noticed a patch of really dark soil that contained a lot of charcoal with in. At first we thought it was just a natural disturbance of some sort, however, we quickly discovered much heavier amounts of charcoal and realized that the rectangular structure 36 had a wall trench associated with it! What is really odd though it that only the first wall trench we discovered was visible on the structure floor, the other two stop at structure 36. This observation led us to believe that we maybe seeing the door to the larger circular structure! They had to get into the structure, and we just happened to observing the evidence of a possible door to the structure! My favorite thing that was found in this half of working in unit 128 was found just outside one of those wall trenches, it could be one of two things. It was a piece of decorated ceramic that didn’t have temper in it! It could either be part of an effigy or a piece of a child’s pinch pot!

Right now, we are currently finishing up exactions in unit 128, and then I will be moving to work in another part of the site. All that’s left to do in unit 128 is dig the wall trenches out to see if there is anything more that we could learn from inside them and finish up the accompanying paper work. Over all field school had been a blast and super fun! I am really going to hate to see it end in a few weeks!

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