Thursday, August 16, 2012

Another structure at the Amak Site

Leslie digging the edge of the charred surface


Ashleigh excavating the charred surface

A chunk of charred grass
We did find part of a small structure in a corner of our excavation this year that might possibly be a house or something of the sort. When the structure was build, people dug a hole for it that extended about 10cm into the glacial till. It had stacked sod walls and possibly a sod roof. We found a surface full of charred vegetation at the bottom - the remains of what we think was the roof. Basically, the sod that covered the structure burned and collapsed, so charred grass was left sitting right on the floor.

We took samples of the charcoal and will send it off for radiocarbon dating. I'm excited to find out how old this structure is because I think it's older than the majority of the site - older than 5500 years old.

In the rest of our excavation we have not found evidence of houses per se, more just evidence of temporary camps. This structure however, might actually be a house. We definitely still think this was primarily a seal hunting camp, but it's possible that at some point people actually lived here for a while and built a little house.

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