2011 Day 5: Nearing the End

Today, we opened some more units and dug deeper in others with the hope of distinguishing the areas that were previously excavated in 1959/69 from areas that were not.  We have definitely located one of those spots, but the cellars have yet to reveal themselves.

The yellow soil in the far unit is untouched, sterile subsoil, and therefore the bottom of the unit.

Derek and Michael map a profile of this unit's sidewall.

The massive backdirt pile that has accumulated this year.  Tomorrow we throw it all back in.

Tomorrow we will continue to excavate in the morning before we backfill.  Its amazing how quickly the week has flown by.  However, due to the hard work of all the volunteers, we were able to accomplish quite a bit in just a few days.

Everyone Hard at Work

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Day 5

The dirt pile is getting bigger...
Father and son, Ted and Alex, continue to excavate
Richard's knife fragment (the hilt is on the right)
The feature as it is now A couple of our questions were answered today. We finished excavating one of Deetz's test units. At the bottom was the rest of the Coca-cola bottle that we found yesterday, further convincing us that we had found one of the grids he opened in '68. The area that we opened yesterday, where the crew cleared all that brush, did not contain evidence of the cellars. So, we know where they are not located. However, nothing else was uncovered in those units either, indicating that we may have found where he had his datum (they would not have placed it where they would be excavating). Richard's unit definitely yielded the most artifacts this year. He had to use two hands to carry his bag by the end of the day. One of the items he recovered was a knife fragment that still had the hilt attached. Tomorrow we will do a little more digging, photographing, and mapping before we close up the excavation for the year.