I spent a bit of time early this morning trying to persuade some goldfinches to come close enough for a decent photograph -- no luck there. Three of our raven or crow friends were in the field next to our work area, though, and one of them agreed to pose briefly for a photo atop a hay bale.

Each night, various colonies of ants build their homes beneath our plastic. Usually, these are the familiar "anthills," but this morning one of these colonies left us a curiously question-mark (?) shaped hill -- we have lots of questions left to answer. But, probably, their question was more like -- "Why the heck do you people dig us up every day?"

Mid-morning, Drs. Tanya Peres (one of our project research faculty) and Jackie Eller from MTSU dropped by to inspect our progress.

In our westernmost excavation areas, we continued our exploration of "Feature 4" -- the large (apparently) circular pit and possible structure. Although much of the day was taken up with taking notes and making drawings, we began excavation of the "midden" filling several sections of this feature today. Below, Ryan and Erica begin excavation of the rounded corner in their unit.

As we expected, this ancient garbage deposit is filled with interesting artifacts of "daily life" used and discarded by the people who lived at Castalian Springs a millenium ago. A fragment of deer antler -- most of the larger tines have probably been used as tools.

Many large and small fragments of pottery -- including this large rim portion of a storage jar.

And, intriguingly, we are retrieving numerous fragments of fabric impressed pans. The "decoration" on the fragment is the impression of fabric or textiles on the "bottom" of the pan. Just as we sometimes use discarded clothes and other fabrics as rags after they outlive their primary purpose, ancient Mississippian peoples used their discarded fabrics to line the molds for these pans. They could then use the fabrics to lift the pan from the mold. Since the clothes and other textiles created by these peoples rarely survive over the centuries, these impressions in ceramic are often our only way to reconstruct the multitude of everyday and fancy fabrics they created. At Castalian Springs, many of these pans may have been used to evaporate the mineral waters from the springs to produce salt and medicines.

We recovered a number of these pans last year across the highway in our digs (see the entry for June 17, 2005 for example).

Similar to last year, we are also recovering fragments of a special kind of flint or chert. The fragment of flint or chert shown below is a very special kind of stone available only on the western course of the Cumberland River in Stewart COunty and along the Tennessee River. Called "Dover Flint" -- this highly prized material was traded throughout the eastern United States. This fragment made its way to Castalian Springs from Dover, Tennessee or thereabouts.

On Saturday and through the next week or so, we'll continue investigating this feature and its contents.

In our northeastern units, we continued investigations of the possible palisade trench and house patterns today. In the photograph below, Georgia Dennis captured me instructing several students on how to excavate the feature we thought might be a hearth or fireplace.

It now appears to be more likely a pit feature filled with garbage, but still interesting.

Our crews also completed exposing the feature that we believe to be the palisade trench -- in the photograph below, I've included yellow arrows showing the edges of the trench, but have left the points between for your evaluation. The trench is very clearly evident running from left to right in the photo. We'll be opening several new excavation units on Saturday to see if we can follow this feature a few meters further to the north and south.

Two of our crews have worked super-hard in four excavation units so far -- and found little or nothing for their labors. Nonetheless -- their efforts have provided important information for our overall team effort. Where things are "not" is just as important in developing our understanding of this ancient town as where things "are." Small consolation in the absence of the "thrill of discovery" -- but Barrett, Jonathan, Beth, Jennifer, Tracy, and Lynne have maintained good spirits throughout. Maybe in the next pit... Below, Lynne, Tracy, and Jennifer lay out some new excavation units for Saturday.

Excavations will continue on Saturday with help from a number of volunteers. Check back and see what we find!