Week 6 (March 8-14, 2010):

All excavation was finished on Saturday, the same day that the backfilling was completed in Vista.

Excavations in Vista continued into Friday, when all of the burials were finally recorded and removed -and all of the sections and plans were also completed. The deep trench into the eastern building in Vista Alta took a full 3 days of 7 individuals in order to backfill. The other excavations were much easier to infill. A surprise came out of the eastern Alta Vista trench on Thursday, when the backfilling crew knocked loose a stone in the section wall and exposed the fifteenth special deposit in the trench – a large barrel cache that contained a few shells, beads, and “Charlie Chaplins;” this is the earliest deposit found in Structure F33 and probably dates to the early part of the Early Classic Period.

Excavation in the Northeast Acropolis also continued through Saturday. The full stairway at the southwestern corner of Structure B31 was exposed; a portion of the northern facing of Structure B30 was exposed for the consolidators (at their request after a Tuesday meeting); and, finally, the eastern basal terrace outset was also exposed and recorded by week’s end. Backfilling of the deep central investigation (over 4.2 m in depth) will be undertaken next week.

Laboratory work was carried out in earnest throughout the week. Cataloguing of all excavated artifactual materials was largely completed. Reconstructable vessels and artifacts were pieced together and glued throughout the week; they were then channeled to illustrators, who worked both during the days and through the evenings to churn out the technical drawings. Sherd numbering and basic processing was also carried out by the majority of the staff. Given the volume of the material excavated this field season, we will need next week to finish all of the recording and photography.