What's been going on

So HOLY CRAP I haven't blogged in a looooong time.

So, in the past 11 days we've gotten a LOT done.

First, we excavated down to the floor mat. That was easier said than done... it took us 3 days of excavation (which is just plain ridiculous, based on rate). Basically it was our first stratographic level, so everything was a "excavate until you hit black" more than "go down 5 cm" At some points, we were removing soil with dental picks (I, thankfully, was spared this task).

We also removed both the complete pot (which is actually partially broken, but mostly intact which is still a HUGE deal). Whole Mississippian pots haven't been found for at least 60 years at angel. two years ago they excavated a building that was used to make pottery... none of it was intact.

We also removed all of the broken pot, which was surrounded by a bunch of maize kernels... like actual kernels that you could pick up (I didn't get to ]: ). These are pretty rare, but don't help diagnostically do things with early Mississippian Angel people and their 80% corn diet business.

Another cool thing that went down this week was a visit from a paleoethnobotanist... an archaeologist who studies plants, basically. She did some cool things with taking apart the parts of the mat that were well preserved. Based on her preliminary stuff, she thinks the mat was a cane mat, kind of similar to bamboo mats in Southeast Asia. She knew a lot of cool stuff about plants in archaeological context. She also found a log in our unit, which is cool. It's also near the center feature which MAY be a fire pit. MAYBE

Interesting thing about the area below the mat: we found rocks. Like the kind you would use to skip stones on water... They were under the mat, and cover a pretty largish area of the unit. We're hypothesizing that the rocks were used as like drainage... but we're not sure why, since they're not ANYWHERE else in the other 3/4 of the building. We also think we found the entryway to the building, based on where the rocks are. I think that's awesome.

Anywho, we're in sterile soil now. This week seems like it's been going on for years! we're coming in earlier and later, but we get a lot done. Today we did posthole explorations. We found FOUR posts... and i found two... in the same hole that I dug... it was kind of awesome. (the second post was a bonus, and not based on the stained area that I was excavating.

We've been having some weather issues. Mainly it's been RAINING. Now, normally rain isn't too bad for archaeology, but with the whole mat issue, as well as horizontal rain and downpours, our ability to work in the field is diminished. We had to end early today (like. 1.5 hours early) because we had absolutely nothing to do inside during the torrential downpour.

All that's left for tomorrow--OUR LAST DAY-- is drawing profile walls in Kd and cleaning stuff up. Should be a good end to the season.

I am still amazed by how fast all of this is going... but still seems to drag on. :-\

I might post new stuff tomorrow, concluding thoughts, etc.