In general, the week was cold and wet, although all excavations moved forward.

In the Via Group, Amy continued excavating in the front tomb of Structure 118, which by week’s end had produced at least 5 individuals and 9 vessels.

In C195F, Angelica supervised a deeper excavation in the front of the buried earlier structure and revealed the northern edge of an even earlier building pad. A deeper cut in the western edge of this trench revealed a set of capstones running into the northern wall; the dirt around these capstones was associated with shell debris and, under the capstones, a young child was recovered associated with a single jadeite bead.

In C195G, the central tomb was excavated by Saul. This chamber was long and narrow and had two Late Classic vessels at its northern end. The long bones of what may be a single individual were exposed to the south of this pottery and the south end of the chamber has a possible step. A deep cut in the western edge of this investigation found bedrock and a burial that had been intruded into bedrock. This burial has at least 4 ceramic vessels dating to the Late Classic Period.

In C195H, the southern edge of the earlier shrine building was fully exposed in the eastern part of the trench and a deep cut was made into the plaza before the stair for Structure B118. Two different burials were recovered. One was a bundled individual set in front of the steps on the southern side of the excavation. The other was set to the west of this burial beneath a set of capstones. A single inverted Early Classic basal-flanged vessel was set on these capstone. Under the capstones were bundled legs.

In C195I, Texana and her crew removed the three steps for the latest building to the level of the second plaza floor, finding a potential cut through this lower floor.

The section of Excavation C117G in the Northeast Acropolis was drawn by Adrian this week and is now ready to be backfilled.

In C206B in the Central Acropolis Cheryl completed the excavation down to bedrock at a depth of 3.5 m below the ground surface. She hit a hard floor just above bedrock. Removal of the floor found a dark brown lens above the tan bedrock and recovered the articulated skeleton of a small coati, dog, or raccoon (according to Wendy Teeter who looked at the photo).

Eric and Ben finished digging the excavation looking for the eastern edge of an early building in the B36 Platform. In fact, they did find a single course of large soft limestone masonry on top of the plaza floor at the bottom of Excavation C207G. Adrian began a new trench (Excavation of the trench C207H) through the Preclassic building on the western side of the B36 Platform and immediately uncovered a second set of stairs in the core of this building. Another floor ran under this earlier step and both steps had odd perpendicular stones set in the middle of their stairways, plastered over on the earlier stair but forming a slight niche on the later stair.

Jackie, Danielle, and Troy also continued in the two areal excavations into the interior of Structure B37 (Excavations C207G and C207H). Both investigations produced constructions walls, although C207H also included potential surfaces that were not encountered in C207G to its north. No caches or burials have been encountered here.

C95E and C95H showing side of original east building

C95E Shell carved as a Deer

C95H Early Classic basal-flanged bowl inverted above capstone

C95G and C95I with Amy, Texana, and Max

C95G small tomb with two vessels

C95G bedrock burial

Central Acropolis Bone_

C207G trench through summit of early building

C208G rear excavation

C208H excavation with Troy, Jackie, and Danielle