(no subject)
I spent yesterday afternoon excavating another baby burial. I came across the fragmented skull last weekend, right up against the corner of the building I've been working in. We couldn't make out at the time exactly what it was (other than a skull) - site director thought it was probably a dog. Anyway, having realised that I was in danger of digging a hole in the corner (we don't dig holes, we dig layers) I spent the first part of the day bringing the rest of the area down to the same level before going back to work on my "dog". I knew there were some other bones in the area, so I went very carefully, just in case I had an articulated skeleton. It took me a while to work out why this canine didn't make sense and things weren't quite where I was expecting them! A dog, you'd expect to be laid on its side, of course, and first I got a second scapula where I wasn't expecting it and then a pelvis completely in the wrong place. It was only when I stood back and looked at the whole thing that I realised I had an infant lying on its back. Duh. And the piece of odd shaped skull that we couldn't make out last week was suddenly, obviously the top of one orbit. I think I need to go on an osteology course. This one was much bigger than the last, a neonate, I'd guess. So I knelt there and talked to it while I exposed its little bones and wondered what had happened to it and how it had ended up there. I think we're going to leave it there and re-bury it in situ.
That corner's problematic, though. When I first found the skull, it seem too high up - above the floor level I was working down towards. I then found an adjacent area of crushed tile. The site director (from top of trench) told me this was render off the wall which didn't seem right to me, especially as I'd already found fallen painted wall plaster above this. Having dug a bit more, I then suggested that the floor level might be raised in that area - after Albert had got in and dug around a bit he went with that one. The odd thing is that this degraded op sig floor, if that's what it is (frankly I still have my doubts) seems to be above the level of the rendering on the wall, so it looks like an alteration - the raising of the floor level and insertion of the burial into it. But even so, the burial's ever so superficial. Perhaps it was a termination deposit, placed there when the building was abandoned. Otherwise, one can imagine practical problems.
I'm not there for two weeks now. Perhaps all will be clear when I get back!
That corner's problematic, though. When I first found the skull, it seem too high up - above the floor level I was working down towards. I then found an adjacent area of crushed tile. The site director (from top of trench) told me this was render off the wall which didn't seem right to me, especially as I'd already found fallen painted wall plaster above this. Having dug a bit more, I then suggested that the floor level might be raised in that area - after Albert had got in and dug around a bit he went with that one. The odd thing is that this degraded op sig floor, if that's what it is (frankly I still have my doubts) seems to be above the level of the rendering on the wall, so it looks like an alteration - the raising of the floor level and insertion of the burial into it. But even so, the burial's ever so superficial. Perhaps it was a termination deposit, placed there when the building was abandoned. Otherwise, one can imagine practical problems.
I'm not there for two weeks now. Perhaps all will be clear when I get back!