Brick-a-Brac

Christy, Ken, David B. and I were back at CU2 last Saturday, 21 May 2011. We did all the same stuff as last week, but with more awesome this time! We work really great together as a team, and made a lot of steady progress on our excavation pit.

We started off by smoothing things down to the bottom of Level 3 (26 - 36 cmbd). The ground in our pit was really rocky in the north/southwestern half, and all full of silty clay soil in the north/southeastern bit. I was having quite the fun time with the pickax, loosening up the ground to get through the last few centimeters, when -- kerCHUNK! I hit a big something and saw a slash of red peeking through the dirt. I started digging around to find the edges of the object, and what do you know? Nothing left for it but to jump around like an idiot, yelling "I found a brick, I found a brick! I found a WHOLE BRICK!" And then to do a happy dance.

"PELFREY!" I yelled. "We got something for ya!" David P. came over, and he got happy too. Started talking excitedly about how all the bricks from this one local company had maker marks on them, and maybe this one would too! (Except with my luck, it'll probably turn out to have been exactly where I took the huge chunk out of the brick with the pickax. Sigh.)

I went diving for the brick to yank it out, but Bossman David B. told me to leave it in situ, since it was located at the very bottom of Level 3. We would officially excavate and log it for Level 4. Argh! Want! That's like having a loose tooth, and your parents keep telling you not to play with it. But we left it there, and drew a sketch of its location on our Excavation Pit Level map page, and took a bunch of photos... here's another one! 

I got to finish logging all of the artifacts from Level 3. I really like organizing and counting and logging and bagging and stuff. It's so wonderfully meticulous! I offered to do it for Level 4 as well, but was told I needed to let someone else (i.e., Christy) try it out too. Anyway, here are all of the little baggies of bone and metal and glass and ceramic and structural bits that we found in Level 3. (That little red and white plastic strip is a measuring tape that David P. either made or brought to pass around; each red and white square is a centimeter. Pretty cool, huh?)

 The day progressed in a wonderfully steady, productive way. We all got into a rhythm of digging, hauling, screening, chatting, and taking little breaks; the day just flew by.

I'm really bummed about missing the lab day next week. I would LOVE being a part of washing and cataloging our finds, and especially getting see what other people have been pulling out of the ground! I'll be up in Oregon next weekend, so this is a request for folks to take and post pics, okay? Pretty please? :)

See you in a couple weeks... I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day Weekend!