We hit the site at about 8:15 this morning and stayed there until 2:00 when it hit at least 31 degrees C. During that time we moved a lot of rock and dirt that had collected against the two corners of the main wall, taking each of them down about a third in height, and perhaps a fifth in volume.

The western side contained two small pottery sherds, a cow hip bone and a fair amount of modern trash, such as glass and metal, amongst the stone and brick and tile fragments. The eastern pile contained nothing of interest, just stone and brick / tile although yesterday some modern metal came out near the top.

In both cases, the mounds contained numerous small voids, indicating that the debris had fallen in to the room (or had been dumped there) in one event, otherwise dirt should have slowly filled in around the stones and they would have been embedded into it.

Now that we have six people on the team, two car trips are necessary to get everyone to and from the site. The minibus we were supposed to have available apparently is still not back from the shop.


Addendum, 7:20 pm

After returning from the field, naps were the order of the day, with nothing much else happening for at least a few hours. I watched a DVD and went outside and admired the view (during which I saw nine gliders fly down our valley), then played with my QTVR authoring environment and invented a way to show a dynamic compass bearing read-out along with the panorama that changes heading as the panorama turns and its field of view changes.

Also, I discovered that the default settings for looking straight up and down in panoramas aren't program limitations, so instead of setting them to -90 and 90, they can be set much higher, and you get the effect of being in a plane performing a loop or doing a somersault or bending over and looking through your legs -- the panoramas are upside down that way!




Here's our little compound -- all three of our rented buildings surround it.




These two wander around the place constantly eating; the filly sometimes rears up and gallops off in a fit of playfulness. One night they came over to our picnic table and started to help themselves, which was a bit startling.





I don't know what plant this is, but I like the shot.





Some of the brush and rock and dirt we've moved; it's bigger than it looks in the picture!