We focused our efforts today on three features -- 1) the trash-filled pit on the southern edge of our excavations; 2) the wall-trench house on the northern edge of our excavations; and 3) the circular pit/structure on the western edge of our excavations.

We almost finished the trash-filled pit on the south -- Barrett, Beth, Jonathan, Brandy, Natalie, and Richard continued to excavate this pit today.

Only three work days ago, we were just exposing the top of this pit...

It has produced an enormous amount of pottery, animal bones, and other artifacts discarded by the inhabitants of this town some eight or nine centuries ago. Among the several hundred objects recovered today was a spectacular example of fabric impressed pottery -- showing multiple bands of different weaving styles.

Among the several hundred pottery sherds discovered in this pit today is a large decorated handle from a pot.

And many more fragments of animal bones from meals long past -- including several box turtles.

Up to our wall-trench house to the north -- Jesse, Meagan, and Bekah exposed enough of the features to define them a bit better. With our work today, it appears that we have some overlapping posts and fireplaces from different rebuildings of the structure. The photograph below shows what appears to be a burned post (circled in yellow) along with a probable hearth (circled in blue).

With space at a premium in this ancient town, buildings were rebuilt on the same location over and over again as the years passed. With the construction techniques available and without termite, pest, and vermin control, these buildings were probably torn down and rebuilt every 20 or 30 years. Sometimes they were built the same size -- in other cases, they were expanded (probably to accomodate larger family size or increasing affluence). Given that our structure was rebuilt at least twice, we can estimate that this building was there for at least 50-100 years. In order to determine whether it was rebuilt the same size or larger, we'll have to expand our excavations to determine the length of the south wall and find the other corner on the west wall (shown in blue below).

Over on the west side, three of our crews worked to finish exposing the circular pit/structure. With apologies for the bad light in the photo below -- we have found the southern edge of the feature and are beginning work on the missing pieces in a few spots. From the work today, it seems possible that we have an "entrance" into the pit from the east (on the upper part of the photo). The fire pit in the center also seems to be a solid and well defined feature at this point. We'll continue excavations here on Tuesday -- and have some better overall photographs for tomorrow's web page.

If the weather holds, we should have a much better picture of these two buildings over the next couple of days