A brief sidetrip to one of the two ponds on the state property provided us with several turtle sightings -- one of those is surfacing in the middle of the photo below.

We also found some evidence of the local deer around the pond edge...

Although stormy weather swept around various parts of Middle Tennessee today, Castalian Springs was not amongst those locations. A great day for digging -- party cloudy and partly sunny (depending on the moment) with a nice breeze. As a result, we managed to complete quite a bit of excavation -- but what we found has raised as many additional questions as the answers provided.

In the area of our possible "palisade trench" -- investigations of other features in two units converged on a simple conclusion. We have another parallel trench running across both units. Below, Richard, Natalie, Brandy, Jesse, and Beckah are excavating this second trench.

After excavation, we had two parallel trenches running the full length of these two units (the "old" one is on the left and the "new" one is on the right in the photo below).

With some consternation, while examining some other features in the same units later in the day... we discovered yet a third trench in between the other two that appears to run almost the full length of both units.

At this point, with three parallel trenches -- we will have to re-evaluate our previous interpretation of a "palisade trench." In the field, we gather information and create hypotheses that best explain what we see at that point in time. As a science, however, archaeology is also about continuing to gather more information -- as that new information arrives, we have to step back and reevaluate our earlier ideas. If the new information doesn't work with our old hypothesis, then we develop different or more refined interpretations based on that new info.

So, where are we now? While it's possible that we have three consecutive versions of a palisade surrounding this ancient town (in other words, a town wall was built, rebuilt slightly off from the original one, and then rebuilt again), this would be fairly unusual from what we know about town walls around A.D. 1250. We are retaining this as a possibility -- but we need some additional evidence to support that notion. Another possibility is that we are looking at a wall-trench building of some kind -- a house or public structure. These types of buildings are frequently rebuilt on the same site -- yielding multiple wall trenches. They are usually slightly offset to give stability to the walls of the reconstructed building -- without pest control companies, the wooden structures of this time probably rarely lasted as long as 30 years. Those are our two best alternatives with what we found today.

So, how do we decide which of these alternatives is the "best" explanation of what we found today? We need more information.

About 6 meters to the north of the three trenches, Jonathan, Barrett and Beth worked on their excavation -- if these trenches pass through that unit, we can be fairly certain that we are looking at palisade walls. A 12-meter long trench would be too long for typical houses or public buildings.

What they found only raised more questions -- they found another trench, but it runs perpendicular to those to the south. The photograph below shows where we are as of this evening. In the upper center of the photograph are the units containing the three parallel trenches -- the black lines show where two of these should probably go if they are palisade trenches. In the foreground is the "unit to the north" -- the yellow lines running from left to right outline the trench Barrett, Jonathan, and Beth discovered. The blue lines are where the continuations of the "palisade trenches" should be -- but we aren't certain we've found evidence of them yet. In the far background of the photo, the black lines cross two of our newer excavation units under black plastic -- we'll work on those on Saturday and see if we can find any evidence of multiple parallel trenches. Given our current uncertainties, our simplest solution is to "gather more information." So, the white outlined areas are excavations that we will start digging over the next couple of days.

While you scratch your head wondering if we have a clue what's going on -- the answer really is "yes, we do." We've opened the first "windows" into the earth of this very large Native American town and have already discovered a number of fascinating and spectacularly preserved features created almost 1000 years ago. We're down to two possibilities for the features in this area -- and we have a plan to test which of these two alternatives is the "right answer." We'll see what happens as we continue our investigations over the next few days.

Elsewhere on the site, we continued investigating our large pit/structure on the southwestern edge of our excavations. The tents in the background of the photo below are above the excavation units containing the various trenches discussed above. While some of our dig members worked on "Feature 4" -- we opened another excavation to expose the southern edge. Robin and Lacey are working on stripping the sod from that new unit.

Further work on the "old units" revealed an exciting new discovery -- a central pit packed full of burned limestone fragments. In the photograph below, the circular pit/structure described in several past days is outlined in yellow. The blue outline shows the limestone fragments filling the new central firepit.

In the photo below (from a different angle), the firepit is at the lower left and the burned bottom of the larger pit structure is surrounding it.

By the end of the day, the "new excavation unit" shown above was well on its way to being down on the "top" of the southern edge of the pit structure. Below, you'll see a shot across the previously excavated portion and the "new" firepit as Robin and Lacey clean up the sidewalls on the new unit.

As of today, our 2006 field season is 60% complete -- we've demonstrated that this ancient Native American town is filled with answers to questions we've already thought of -- and with questions that we are only beginning to formulate. In our remaining 40%, we'll answer a few more questions -- and we'll undoubtedly raise many more.

Fortunately, the Castalian Springs Mound site is now protected by state ownership -- we will have a chance to continue asking and answering questions for many years to come.

Our investigations of our current "burning questions" will continue on Saturday -- maybe we'll have some new answers when you check back tomorrow night!