The 2005 season
Archaeological survey - introduction
During this season, which went from July 15 to August 15, we continued work in
all three areas following the basic division into tracts and squares. As we were
exposed to new areas, we had to readjust and expand our methodology in order to
deal with the challenges at hand. Thus, every fifth square we started collecting
all artifacts either from the entire square or on a cross-sampling basis in order
to wash and process them in the storeroom, rather than sort them in the field as
we did last year. This has allowed us to begin a full-scale fabric analysis of
all sherds (instead of limiting it to the "diagnostic" pieces) and start inventorying
selected featured sherds from each fabric category according to the Ceramic Inventory
Form. This year we first came upon an area with no
ground visibility because of pines and undershrub, and we decided to walk it as
a "special tract" (see Survey Structure), without dividing it into squares,
in order to record and map possible architectural or other obvious remains.
We also introduced Slope Interface Tracts (see Survey Structure), to deal with the moderate slopes between the upper and lower plateaus.
Digitized map of the plateau with the squares covered during the 2004 and 2005 seasons.
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Digitized map of the plateau with the ceramic distribution of the 2004 and 2005 seasons.
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Overall we covered 541 squares,
174 in the Upper,
230 in the Southern and
133 in the Northern Plateau,
as well as four SIT squares. We also walked one special tract in the Upper Plateau area.
