Today was the third of our four "Volunteer Saturdays" for family, friends, and community members. We had a great turnout for the day that received the "Hottest and Humidest Day of the Summer Award for 2007."

After opening the excavation area, several of us worked on cleaning up the several units with our hard-to-see wall trenches in them. I cleaned up the new excavation unit on our elusive east wall with good results.

Finally, we have three (or perhaps four) well defined trenches for the east wall (shown in yellow -- the very wide one probably represents two partially overlapping trenches) -- along with a rectangular fireplace (outlined in blue) intruding into one of the trenches

I was assisted by Ellis Durham -- one of our most experienced volunteers. Ellis has been out many days this summer (and has volunteered on almost all of our field school projects over the past 10 years).

I also had some great help from volunteers Sandy Norby (B.S. Anthropology 2005 and an alum of our 1999 field school) and friend Karen Pendley.

By the end of the day, we had cleaned up seven units -- ready for mapping on Monday morning.

Nearby, Field Director Emily Beahm directed excavations on the rest of the large pit feature started earlier this week. Here Emily and Sarah work on excavating the ash and charcoal deposit at the top of the feature.

While Gwen and Cy carefully screen the soil removed for smaller artifacts and bits of charcoal.

Later in they day, they were assisted by Robert Miller, a volunteer returning from last year. By the end of the day, they had completed excavation of the upper zone of the feature -- which appears to represent a final episode of use during which ash, charcoal, animal bones, pottery sherds, and other artifacts were dumped in the top of this pit. The deeper zone is very different and appears to represent gradual accumulation of clean soil.

Several students and volunteers continued work on the northwest corner wall trenches. Here, Travis and Matt continue excavations of one of the west wall trenches while Matt's fiancee Tara observes and Rachel works at the screen.

Here Rachel is assisted at the screen by father Lee Bagby -- his first try at archaeology.

Volunteer Jennifer Clinton (alum of our 2006 Castalian Springs Field School) directed excavations of a new portion of the north wall trench with help from students Lori Ford and Andrea Patton. They managed to expose a nice section of posts in this trench segment. In many of the trenches, the remains of posts or "molds" where the posts decayed are not visible. Catching and recording this section of postmolds gives us very critical information on the diameter of the posts, their spacing, and placement within the trench -- all of which allows us to interpret the architecture of the building with greater accuracy.

The edited photo below highlights five of the six posts discovered in this trench segment.

Far out on the western edge of the field, Jesse, Renee, Teresa and Larry handled a crowd of family and friends volunteering on the dig. On the walk over to check on their progress, I noticed a Colorado Potato beetle munching on the nettles.

Here volunteers Sara, Austin, and Vaughn Hamill, Susan Ghorbani, Elizabeth and Emily Ca~nas, Collin Howster, and Lee Bagby work with students Renee, Jesse, Teresa and Larry.

From another angle, volunteers Clayton Ingalls, Sara, Vaughn and Austin Hamill, Susan Ghorbani, Carolina and Emily Ca~nas, Lee Bagby, and Collin Howster work with students Renee, Larry, and Teresa.

We appreciate all of the interest and help from the volunteers today -- apologies that my order for 85 degrees and 10 percent humidity didn't come through!

Project directors and students are now off for a welcome day of rest on Sunday. More news on Monday!