We received a good bit of rain and hail last night. Our system of covering up the excavations with plywood and waterproof sheeting worked well for the most part, but the units still required some bailing.
Teamwork is key here, as is making sure that the water is throw downhill away from the test units—a task that Matthew easily mastered.
Once the units had been bailed, we began excavating. The Unit B10 crew quickly reached 70 cm (2.3 ft.) below the ground surface. Despite being located on the high ground, it appears that the crew is just barely above the water table. As a result, we had to temporarily halt digging in this unit. To make matters more interesting, in the early afternoon, the temperature cooled and the skies darkened. We reviewed our “what to do in case of a storm” procedure, but luckily, the rain missed the site by a few miles.
The crew in our westernmost unit is below the stone feature. This feature ends around 50 cm (1.6 ft.) below the ground surface along the northern edge of the unit and at about 40 cm (1.3 ft.) in the southern part of the unit. Beneath the feature, the crew is finding only a handful of broken pebbles. These are most likely natural, but just to be sure they are not missing anything, Amanda, Fiona, Hannah, and Constants will be excavating at least one more level before they move on to a new unit.
There is a decent chance of rain throughout the day tomorrow; so it’s a good thing we got to practice our “what to do in case of a storm” procedure today.