This week was much like the calm before the storm.  All of the excavations are progressing on schedule and a host of deposits and recording are on the horizon.

Excavations continued in the eastern building of Vista Alto and the trench reached a depth of some 5 meters, cutting through a series of earlier floors.  The burial in the western part of this trench was finished and an extension was placed to the south of the trench over the capstones in order to expose the full interment that would be beneath these lajas.  A finger cache was found within this extension, S.D. C185B-14.

In Vista Bajo, the burial beneath the frontal balk of the northern building (C184D) was finished and the section was recorded in anticipation of cutting deeper.  Excavation and recording also continued in the axial trench into the southern building (C184C).  A new areal excavation (C184F) was placed over the low western building and immediately exposed a line-of-stone structure with a smashed in situ water jar on its front surface.  The eastern building in Vista Bajo was almost completed.  The central core was lowered to bedrock and the frontal stairs were removed, again following bedrock.  A single globular cache vessel was recovered in front of a bedrock shelf and was found to contain a series of obsidian cores and large chips.  What was initially thought to have been a re-entered tomb was found to have been an earlier frontal shrine room for this structure; its floor surface was full of partial cache vessels and censerware.  Capstones for interments were found both within the shrine room (below the floor surface) and over a bedrock cut in front of the shrine room.

In the Northeast Acropolis, excavations continued on Structure B33 and the base of the building was followed all the way to the stairway, which in turn was followed to last year’s axial trench.  On the summit of Structure B33, the front terrace was fully exposed.  A new extension was made to the south on the western side of Structure B31 to find the southwest corner of the building.  Not only did it locate the southwest corner, but it also found a stairway leading down to the south.  This stairway confirms the fact that entry to the Northeast Acropolis was not axial, but instead from its sides.  In the excavation in the center of the plaza, an offset extension, measuring 2 m from either side of the previously found floor cut, was excavated down to the floor capping the pit by the week’s end.  On Saturday it was determined that the deeply buried pit measured 1.2 m by 1.2 m.  It is ready for excavation on Monday.

Section being drawn in C184D

Excavations in C185B

Obsidian cores SDC184B-5

C185B trench

C184C

C184F

Base of Str. B33

Floor of C184B lower shrine

Capstones below C184B shrine