Archaeological Material

During the excavation of monument B3 in 1999 and 2000, a total number of 179 artifacts were collected and mapped in 122 groups of objects. Some of them have already been described in details in our preliminary report for 1999 (Blumer and Vial 1999: 246-248). Compared to the first campaign, during which we found only 6 artifacts, we sampled 116 groups of objects in 2000.

Artifact Distribution

By observing the horizontal sample scatter map for all excavated area (Fig. 43) and the associated table featuring the distribution of artifact number by grid square (Tab. 5), we notice that a vast majority of the artifacts were found within the chamber fill. A second, much lighter concentration level, is located between the central platform and the peripheral wall, especially east and west of the platform. The number of artifact found outside of the peripheral wall seems generally very low, but a marked increase is visible in squares M-N/2-5. By plotting the total artifact number by grid rows and columns, we see that the East-West variation is indeed much larger than the North-South variation (Fig. 44).

Fig. 43

Tab. 5

Fig. 44

The vertical analysis of the distribution of artifacts should be made for two specific areas: (1) inside the chamber and (2) in the remaining excavated areas. We already described the vertical distribution of artifacts within the chamber fill. In the areas surrounding the central platform, the distribution was partly biased by the fact that the original mound extent had been cut off during terracing works. It is thus impossible to state what kind of artifacts could have been found at elevations higher than the platform top.

Our investigation showed a scarce presence of artifacts near the platform edges, but none were located in the sediment covering the platform itself. For the area around the platform, the highest objects were pottery fragments found between 8 and 14 cm below the northwestern platform corner top. Near the southwestern corner, pottery shards were sampled about mid-height of the platform flank. In the southeastern platform corner, we found the highest bits of pottery at 13 cm above the platform base, thus almost 70 cm below the platform top. The fragmented stone bead spotted in 1999 near the northeastern platform corner was located 7 cm above the base of the stone construction. All these examples show that almost no artifacts were located at elevations similar to the platform top surface – excepting 8 pieces – but rather near the base of the stone monument. Within the sediment packed between the platform and the peripheral wall, some scarce pottery bits were found from mid platform height and deeper. This indicates that those elements were simply brought to their final location with the sediment itself; they are thus not giving much insight about other human activities than the construction of the monument itself.

To illustrate the above observations and inferences, we plotted the projected altitudes of artifacts (N=102) found in the grid rows 3-5 running ultimately parallel to the monument longest axis and following the natural altitude contour of the slope (Fig. 45). We kept the minimal, maximal and average altitudes for the graph. We clearly see the large altitude variation within the chamber (rows E-G). The large variation in row M/3-5 is partly explained by the strong natural slope and partly by the fact that some artifacts were lying as well over and under the collapsed stones of the peripheral wall.