This week saw the cessation of all excavation and the beginning of serious laboratory work. Both Adrian and Gabriela were also gone from Belize from Wednesday through Sunday, which slowed some things down. Gabriela went to a wedding of an old friend in Oaxaca and Adrian flew up to the Tulane Symposium to give a lecture on Saturday. Both were back at Caracol by the evening of March 8.

Mo and Jacob finished off Fresco (C244B) with a few other finds. There was a burial in the fill of the second step level that was set directly on bedrock – and there were crevices in the bedrock that indicated a cavity, but there was no way to get into the cavity. Also found in the western side of the buried rear platform (that the infilled tomb cut into) was a cache lid of a type dating to the Late Preclassic Period (just the lid, but nothing else). Bedrock was reached in both ends of the trench through the eastern building.

Rumari and Gabriela finished excavations in Brie (C245B) and the two of them also finished all the drawings. The find of the week was a  figurine head that does not really appear to be Maya in shape, but rather shows the deity Tlaloc (goggles around the eyes); it may be an Early Classic import from central Mexico. It was in fill, but the fill from Brie contains Preclassic, Early Classic, and Late Classic materials (like Fresco and Havarti).

Havarti (C245) was also completely excavated and drawn by Adrian, Alex, and Andrew. Most excavation took place in the reservoir (C245F), which constitutes a fascinating architectural construction. The cross-trenches revealed that the reservoir was excavated to bedrock, had a line of built stone walls placed around a deep central pool of water, and then had an upper bedrock level further back on three sides for times of high water (only the south did not have bedrock). Sherds from the reservoir represeneted mostly small ollas. The reservoir also had structures and floors on its eastern and western sides with evidence of three floors to the south of the southern building in Havarti.

All field recording was finished by Friday in the field and everyone went into the lab where Egor supervised cleaning the screens and bagging things. All sherds were completely washed by Satuday and lab work was progressing nicely.