today i finished level 5 dirt. after three days of it, it is finally down 10 cm from level 4. we are now about 65 cm down from our datum (NW corner nail). we found very very little today. we found some milled wood and a couple of nails and bits of glass and a big ol' bone (cow). we left our feature 15 metal hoop as we were excavating the dirt around it to get to the level it was in. we will likely take it and the bottle botom sitting in it tomorrow. it's hard dirty work and i thoroughly enjoy it. we had a lot of tourists today. one young girl (10 yrs old?) decided to help us out and did some screening and lab work. she seemed to really like it. her mother liked it well enough but felt really dirty. one of the sub-supervisors told me of a really cool trick for teaching kids how to excavate. i wanna try it some time. it involves pudding. lots and lots of pudding. mmmm...
we went up to the Barbary Coast today to see the progress being made there. the unit i was working on is mush deeper and they pulled 16 bells and there was at least one more in the wall. further down they found a child's shoe. they extended the unit another 25 cm to the north of the foundation i had found, to see how wide it was. it looks as though it was just what i had exposed, but they are not deep enough to be certain. the other unit has found a wooden floor! it looks really cool! the wood is very fragile so they have decided to leave it and close the unit. there is a debate as to whether is is the barber shop floor (1890 property map) or from a later building (stable). as far as we know no other building has been there...
2 comments:
OK, was the trip to the other site part of your time for the day, or was it considered an "after work" trip?
Does "close the unit" mean they just stop digging, or does it mean "close" as in throwing the dirt back in?
M
it was part of our education. when we visit other sites and units we learn things. so it was part of our day.
when a unit is closed they stop excavating, take pictures, fill out a lot of paperwork (what was found, how deep it was, why they stopped, depth measurements) and then they do stratigraphy. every 10cm they measure the depths of each layer and the measurements of anything sticking out of the side walls, like rocks, bricks, artifacts, etc. then the paperwork and the stratigraphy drawing gets filed and we are done. until we leave the site and fill in the holes.
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