Pop it (the dirt), lock it (the screen), bag it ( the artifacts), tag it (the bags)

Hi all, I'm stepping up to the plate for round two, and quite a bit has happened in the intervening time. Since we last saw each other I've completed my forty years wandering in the clay desert of the Western Palisades, and arrived in the land of milk and honey known as the Gravel Knoll. Not to say that the time spent on the Western Palisades pit was wasted, far from it. Still, the change from clay to soft, easily screened
soil is a welcome change of pace. On top of that, my gravel knoll pit has shown remarkably better results almost immediatly. My first level turned up a comparable quantity of items to the entirety of my Palisade pit, and of a better quality. The pottery sherds at minimum match and frequently exceed by several times the size of Western Palisade sherds. The introduction of shell was a development I hadn't anticipated, but having a new category to bench mark is exciting. Interestingly, flakes are less frequent on the Knoll in our pit, though we found a few flakes and excitingly a pair of chert cores. Our biggest find to date was a Late Woodland projectile point I found in my pit's first level. Apart from artifacts the variations in soil texture, color,and consistency have been interesting ( If at times aggravating) to observe. I never thought I'd encounter white soil. If not exactly archaeology, digging this far in the ground has given me a new appreciation of the natural world. These are the chronicals of the test pit Gravel Knoll Unit 5. It's mission to discover new soil feature and uncover new artifacts. Captain Neill Goltz signing out.