Digging the Oval Ditch, Again

Late this week, work began on the cross-section of Feature 11-01, the oval enclosure ditch. The southwest half of the feature was subdivided into four sections for better control of artifact provenience and to track stratigraphy. As layers of fill were removed, the soil darkened, making it much easier to distinguish the ditch from the subsoil matrix.

Like the other sections of this ditch we have tested, the contents includes moderate amounts of FCR, flint flakes, and pottery sherds. Marcia R. uncovered a relatively large sherd of an Early Woodland, Leimbach cordmarked vessel of the kind dated to 350 BC in 2009. In the image below, the sherd looks rather eroded, as does most of the pottery found in the ditch. So, how well would you preserve after 2,300 years underground?