After the storm passed through last evening with the cold front, the morning temperatures were spectacular for archaeology -- low 60s. The high was around 80. Most of the crew finished excavating units through the plowzone to expose the tops of our major features -- the wall-trench house and the large garbage deposit. Below, Brittany, Clay, and Mallory shovel through the plowzone.
For the morning, our friend Bill Carey (aka "History Bill") visited to film for a video destined for "Tennessee History for Kids".
Among the artifacts discovered today was a scale from a gar -- a freshwater fish. Although this specimen shows no signs of use (at least based on our field observations), Native peoples prized the scales of the gar for projectile points.
Our limited exploration into Mound 2 continued today -- reaching below the plowzone and slopewash into what is starting to look promising for undisturbed mound levels. Some different colored soils are starting to show up (see below) -- at this point, these are hard to interpret. But, by the end of the day on Wednesday, we expect to have some better understanding of what these different colored soils represent.
