Digging Week Three

Obsidian tool

Week two of excavation had left everyone slightly disappointed as we were finding medieval, bronze age, and chalcolithic materials side by side, making it clear we were not working with insitu materials. As week three commenced we began to reach richer cultural layers as we entered into unit seven (units are measured by each identifiable sediment layer) and we began to uncover more and more ceramic artifacts. We began excavating in five centimetre spits (meaning we take each square down five centimetres at a time, levelling off the trench floor) but by the end of the week moved the spits to ten centimetres to help progress the pace of the excavation. We also traced out lines for a step, making the trench even smaller but allowing for easier access into the trench and also showing the stratigraphy more visibly.

Between charcoal layers we found organic materials such as grape seeds and barley, and we stopped finding traces of medieval cultures, which is why we think we may have reach a level of primary context. Along the walls of the cave is where the majority of the ceramic is found, but the site is rich in pottery shards throughout. Strangely, despite being abundant in pottery shards there have not been any unbroken or even partially whole pots or vessels. The majority of the ceramics found have been undecorated or have only small incised geometric patterns, although many have been rubbed or burnished smooth and black. We are continuing to find faunal (animal) bone, primarily what we believe to be sheep or goat. We also have been finding a notable number of smoothed river rocks and pebbles not geologically natural to the karstic cave. Another strange observation to mention is that we are finding many holes in the ground which we cannot figure out how they were made, they are all the perfect size that we have been using them as trowel and brush holders.

The most exciting discoveries of the week however have been a rock which was burnished smooth and black and had been pierced at the top, which could have been worn as an amulet. The other exciting discoveries have been the obsidian objects found. Flakes of obsidian, raw obsidian, and most exciting: clearly worked obsidian blades. Obsidian, a glasslike volcanic rock is abundant in Armenia but there are no sources directly near the cave. Our lithics expert expects more obsidian tools to be found in our trench, as the current belief is that we are working on a midden site, or a garbage disposal area. This would account for the broken vessel fragments, the flaked and broken obsidian pieces, and the large number of faunal bones.

I also had the opportunity to work with Dina, one of the Armenian PhD students in trench three which is just outside of the cave. The ground here is so dusty that we just used brushes. I found an abundance of walnuts, and grape seeds as well as pottery and a piece of medieval glass.