This week of the project was rather complicated as Arlen went to New Orleans on Thursday to deliver the keynote address for the 14^th Annual Tulane Maya Symposium. He left the site at 5:20 in the morning on Thursday with Melissa (who would drive her own car back to Caracol so that there was a vehicle on site) and Ben (as support for Melissa), driving straight to the airport to fly to first Miami and then on to New Orleans, arriving at his hotel in that city around 10:30 that night. The keynote was on Friday evening to a standing room-only crowd in the New Orleans Museum of Art and was followed by a reception in their Precolumbian gallery. Then the venue moved to the Tulane campus for Saturday and Sunday presentations. The whole affair was sponsored by the Alphawood Foundation and featured projects that they had funded; it was hosted by Marcello Canuto and his students. Will Andrews also hosted a dinner at his house for the speakers on Saturday night. All-in-all this was an excellent meeting with top-notch presentations by all the researchers.

In terms of the field at Caracol, all excavations were completed during this week and all of the sections and plans were also finished. By week’s end the residential groups were backfilled. Laboratory work also proceeded apace with all sherds being washed and numbering started. Processing all of the artifacts and deposits was also readied for a final push.