Today our class began its excavation. We decided to dig three trenches. Trench 1 was located by the doorway to the Women’s League Cabin and was two meters by two meters wide. Trench 2 was by the back patio and was 1.5 by 1.5 meters wide. Trench 3 was located to the West of the main patio along the downward slope, and was one meter by one meter wide.

We split into three groups, one for each trench.

Alex’s colleague from the University of Southern California, Tom Garrison, came to introduce the Total Station to the class. He also helped set up the grid areas for the trenches.

Meanwhile, the group assigned to Trench 2 had to clear the dirt on top of the paving stones before they were able to determine exactly where the best trench location would be.

Once each group had established where they were going to dig their trench, roles were assigned. Shirley, Adam, and Erika filled out excavation forms for their respective groups. They had to detail the layout of the trench on the form’s grid so that we can visually understand where all of the artifacts were found.

Theo’s job was to manage a photo log for all the trenches. He kept track of the context (which layers of dirt were in each photo), the artifacts found in each context/location, and the direction he was facing while he took each photo. In order to match the specific photos with the records of the excavators, he had to mark which trench and context corresponded with each photo number. Here are the photos in chronological order: