Pap. No!' 3^4]''' DEMERY SITE — ^WOOLWORTH AND WOOD 75 



EXCAVATIONS 



Six excavation units in different parts of the site were stripped to 

 the approximate base of the plow zone by means of a bulldozer and a 

 road patrol. At this depth the houses, pits, and other features became 

 clearly visible as mixed earth in otherwise sterile soil. Features were 

 marked by stakes while the soil was still moist and their outlines dis- 

 tinct, and later excavated by hand tools. Two other units, excavations 

 3 and 4, were excavated wholly by hand methods. 



Houses appeared as large circular areas of mixed earth which some- 

 times contained charred timbers. Four of the houses found were fully 

 excavated and a fifth house was cross sectioned. The presence of two 

 additional houses, designated as Houses 6 and 7 on the site map (maps 

 7, 8), is postulated on the basis of charred timbers noted on the floor 

 of the road patrol cuts, but time did not allow the investigation of 

 these features. In view of the large areas stripped by the road pa- 

 trol, houses were infrequent and widely separated. It is not probable 

 that many houses were missed by the excavators, since soil disturbance 

 was rather clearly defined in the dense, buff soil below the plow line. 



The site maps were prepared by West with the use of a plane table 

 and alidade, and distances were chained. The individual houses were 

 mapped using a stake in the center of the primary fireplace as a datum. 



Excavation 1 {ma'p 7) . — This unit, in the northwest part of the site, 

 was originally a series of test pits laid out on a 5-foot grid. Features 

 40, 41, 42, and 43 were recorded here, respectively : an irregular trash- 

 filled pit, two basin-shaped pits, and a bell-shaped pit. This area was 

 later stripped with a bulldozer and subsequently smoothed by a 

 road patrol. Numerous postholes and fireplaces were found, but no 

 definite dwelling units were detected. The area apparently lay on the 

 periphery of the village. The unit was 275 feet long and about 75 

 feet wide. 



Excavation 2 {maps 7 and 9) . — This excavation was designed to 

 explore a circular depression in the northwest part of the site, which 

 appeared from surface observations to be about 10 feet in diameter. 

 It was heavily overgrown with weeds and buckbrush and superficially 

 resembled an earth lodge depression. A test trench was dug from the 

 north edge into the pit, and the bulldozer was then used to strip the 

 overburden from an area 80 feet long and 55 feet wide. Feature 1, 

 a large irregular pit nearly 20 feet in diameter, is interpreted as a 

 borrow pit. The floor of the feature was littered with broken animal 

 bones, pottery, and stone fragments. Features 48 and 49, both of 

 them bell-shaped pits, were outside of this feature. 



Excavation 3 {ma'p 7). — ^This excavation was made in the north 

 part of the village area, and consisted of a test trench 28 feet long 

 and 5 feet wide. A single basin-shaped pit. Feature 50, was re- 



