James Vorus, Mr. F. N. Davis, John, Jr., and myself arrived at the site early this A.M. We had discussed moving to the edge of the site on the south end, which we did. We established square 7R13 and set up for work. The plowzone produced little material. The potsherds were scarce at the bottom of the plowzone. There was no pattern of pits, or other features to be found.
The next level, DD 6.2 to DD 6.5 produced several possible postmolds, but when cross-sectioned, they were either tree roots or just shallow black areas—not postmolds.
This level produced little material, only a few potsherds and debris. From Datum depth 6.5 to 7.0 there was just a handful of potsherds. This is a marked difference over the rest of the site that had been excavated to date. As a rule, the sherds are plentiful. At DD 7.0 when the surface was scraped off, the outline of a fireplace appeared and in the fireplace was a small flat stone, under which was a considerable amount of charred root. Readily identifiable were nut shells and hulls.
At DD 7.5 there was the outline of two pits in the subsoil (subsoil first showed at DD 7.2), one small pit, the other three feet in diameter. The pits were cross-sectioned with a two-foot trench. The two pits were then photographed. The north wall was then scraped and marked with lines at each running foot, the profile sketched in the wall, then photographed, and drawn on the graph paper, using datum depths at each line on each running foot of the profile. The square was filled shortly before dark.
31R17, March 15, 1958
The crew on the site early this A.M., and we decided to work on the east side of the ditch and in the vicinity of the burials that had been found previously. We staked out square 31R17, and began work; we removed the plow zone. We scraped off the new surface in search of any possible pattern of pit outline, or postmold, and there was none to be found. Potsherds, and other items, were collected for that level F. S. 185 which was the plow zone.
With no visible pattern in the horizontal profile at DD 5.0 we began the next level collecting potsherds, which were designated F. S. 187. At DD 5.0 to DD 5.5, and at two-tenths of a foot in the level there appeared the top of a skull (See burial form 34). Burial 34 had a skull at its feet, possibly a trophy skull, and was a positive association with burial 34. At the completion of the square, the following information was recorded:
There were four burials directly beneath Burial 34, and in a very compact arrangement; two of the burials were adults, and two of them infants. They were in a very disturbed condition, at the time they were discovered. The problem arose as to what took place. They were in an east-west direction, and in very compact arrangement. It seems as though each burial was disturbed when each succeeding burial was placed in the pit. The question arose, due to the placement of one atop each other in such an exact arrangement, could there have been some sort of mark to denote the location (That is, if each one had a time space between them.) But the search produced nothing to indicate such a marker; no postmolds could be found.
These burials began atop the subsoil, and continued upward to datum depth 5.2. If there was a pit outline in the square it was not visible to us, and that is one of the items we are so careful about. In spite of the fact that the burials were disturbed and in a very poor state of preservation, one assuring condition was the position of the remaining vertebrae which indicated the four burials were under burial 34. There was a broken bottle associated with these burials, and in all probability belonged to burial 34 F. S. 191; DD 5.7 to the bottom of the vessel.
The soil changed to a lighter brown at DD 5.5 and continued about the same to subsoil which was listed as DD 6.0. The DD was based on the average depth of subsoil.