The heat has set in at Caracol during the day, but the nights are still cool. This week saw us wrapping up excavations in the field and moving into the lab. Our work in the Northeast Acropolis finished last week and the investigations of the two residential groups were done by the end of the week with both Hannah and Gabriela transitioning into drawing the final sections of the two excavations. In the laboratory, Mo and Egor spearheaded getting everything washed and ready for analysis and cataloguing. This week also had a guest staying at Caracol for six days, an inspection visit from members of the Institute of Archaeology, and then ended with the bulk of the Chase clan coming down to the field for a week of drawing and bone analysis.

  In C241B (Canta), excavation continued with the exposure and recovery of the Early Classic burial in the western part of the trench. All of the cross-sections were also done on the various chambers and crypts. While bedrock was exposed on the western side of the excavation, it was not reached in the eastern, rear part of the structure – in spite of the depth of the investigation. Instead, Preclassic fill materials were recovered under the Early Classic burial crypt in the eastern part of the structure; this interment also predated all of the others recovered in C2241B based on its associated ceramic vessel. Excavation in C241B was closed down by mid-week so that the section could be drawn.

  In C242B (Ayayayay), investigations also continued through mid-week. The front cist in the northwest corner of the excavation was partially excavated and produced large fragments of broken and scattered pottery vessels. A child burial was found in the fill east of the cist (and east of the cache deposit along the north section excavated earlier in the field season) with the skull adjacent to the north section and the body laid out to the south. Digging under the child burial produced smashed vessels and obsidian eccentrics, which may indicate an extensive ritual deposit over bedrock in front of the building. The front lower chamber (tomb) that had been re-entered in the Late Classic Perido was excavated and produced a single adult body associated with two ceramic vessels. The vessels with this individual are the earliest recovered so far in the eastern structure (dating to the late part of the Early Classic Period). In the eastern part of the trench along the south excavation limit, a lower open air cist with capstone was found directly beneath the cache cist that was excavated previously in the field season (a fill layer separated the two deposits). Excavation of the cist revealed a face cache set on a plaster floor as well as a limestone bar. Excavation within the face cache produced obsidian eccentrics and rounded piece of jadeite. The cache is quite early, stylistically dating to approximately 570-590 CE.

  Other than closing down the excavations, we were quite active in the lab, washing artifactual materials, organizing the materials for processing, and gluing together the broken ceramic vessels recovered in deposits during the field season for further processing.