Old Kiyyangan Village Baguilat Property Site Brgy. Munggayang Kiangan, Ifugao The 2013 Field Season of the Ifugao Archaeological Project officially started yesterday, June 4, 2013, in the Baguilat Property Site, Brgy. Munggayang, Kiangan, Ifugao -- the 2012 IAP field site and the location of the first Ifugao Village, based on the Tuwali-Ifugao origin myth, now referred to as the Old Kiyyangan Village by the Ikiangan. The IAP returns to the Old Kiyyangan Village to establish the extent of this early Ifugao settlement. Last year's excavations indicated that the area was settled as early as 1000 years ago and that there were several abandonment and reoccupation episodes. A Spanish account in the mid-1800s described the village as a large one -- with 180 houses. There are a number of stories about the village in Ifugao oral history, but the exact date of the final abandonment had been lost in the memory of the Ikiangans. Trench 6 activities (by Ollie Lim) The day started with our track to the Old Kiangan Village. It took about 10 minutes. My team and I, consisting of Alea and Gera opened up a trench about 6m South East from out rest hut. The trench was named Trench 6. Our objective was to dig down to the old river bed level but instructions were given to take out the top agricultural area first before arbitrary levels of 10cm were to be dug. The grid was set up as a 2m by 2m square. The team spent the first 30 minutes of the day removing the rice plants and rocks on the top layer. After that, we started digging downwards. We used trowels to excavate the site at first due to a lack of shovels. Hence it took a long time to dig downwards. However, we did find artifacts strewn throughout the grid. Any artifacts we found were recorded as part of level 1 or surface/ agricultural layer. The most common artifacts found were earthenware pottery sherds. We found a few stoneware ones found as well. Some pottery shards had decorations on them. An occasional porcelain piece was found. One plastic saucer and a small, thin metal piece were also found. A few ecofacts in snail shells were found strewn across level 1 of the trench. Animal remains, mainly bone and teeth bits of some sort were found across the site. Level 1 was also extremely rocky and we pulled out many pebbles and stones of various sizes. As it was getting hard to dig by midday, we enlisted the help of our local hosts who brought shovels and other digging equipment to help our dig out the agricultural layer. They also helped to erect a tarpaulin sheet about our trench to shade us from the sun. We soon took a break for lunch. After lunch, the shoveling continued as we dug downwards. We reached an approximate depth of 30cm before we stopped to trowel the trench. All through the trowelling and shoveling, we pulled out similar artifacts to the ones described above. We levelled the ground and sides before measuring the depth of the site. The depth measured 30cm. We also found rocks partially protruding from the South East corner of the trench that will be investigated tomorrow. We decided to call it a day as the time reached 330pm. We were instructed to dig in 10cm arbitrary levels tomorrow. We closed off the agricultural layer and took a photo of the site before we stopped for the day. Shovel test probe. There was no change in the soil profile of the trench. It was extremely clayey and very moist. We believe that the agricultural layer will continue to extend downwards. The digging was slightly slow today as we did not have enough shovels to move the dirt out but was solved with the help of our local friends. We aim to go at least 30 to 50cm deeper tomorrow as we excavate in 10cm levels. We aim to check out the rocky South East corner of the trench and collect any interesting pieces of artifacts from the site. Transect Shovel Test (Jacy Moore) 4-June-2013 A series of Shovel Test Probes, along a North-South Transect, 20 meters apart, was established to determine the extent of cultural deposits. Information from these STPs will also help locate areas for establishing Trench units. Shovel test pits 1, 2, 3, and 4 are approximately 40cm x 40cm in diameter and 80 centimeters below surface (BS). Shovel test pit 1 (STP1) is located south of the central granary in the Baguilat Property. STP1 had sterile levels with two layers. Layer 1 is 0 to 17cm BS with well sorted and very dark grey sediment. The sediment type for STP1 is silty sand. Layer 2 is 17 to 83 cm BS with well sorted and very dark brown sediment. The sediment type for STP1 is silty sand with clay inclusion. Small artifacts were found at 18 to 35 cm BS. Shovel test pit 2 (STP2) is 20 meters north of STP1 with two layers. Layer 1 is 0 to 60 cm BS with well sorted and very dark brown sediment. The sediment type for STP2 is clayey silt. Earthenware sherds were present until 50 to 60 cm BS in Layer 1. Layer 2 is 60 cm to 78 cm BS with dark brown and very poorly sediment. The sediment type is medium sand. One thick earthenware sherd was found between 60 to 70 cm BS. Larger rocks and pebbles were gradually becoming present between 60 to 80 cm BS. Shovel test pit 3 (STP3) was not fully excavated due to a mistake made by the unit supervisor. Shovel test pit 4 (STP4) had abundance in artifacts for the day. STP4 consisted of two layers. Layer 1 was from 0 to 50 cm BS and Layer 2 was from 50 to 80 cm BS. Earthenware sherds were present in Layer 1 from 0 to 20 cm BS. Within 20 to 30 cm large charcoal fragments were found. Following this in 30 to 40 cm, bone fragments, possibly from a chicken were retrieved during dry-sieving. Within 34 cm BS, a large rock was found on wall and was marked as Feature 1. The rock was approximately the same depth of a bone. Faunal remains a dog, deer and pig were also recovered between 30 to 80 cm BS. In addition, earthenware sherds were retrieved within the 30 to 80 cm BS context. A possible trench or unit will be established on STP4 because of abundance of cultural materials in the probe.
2 Comments
notjordan salinas
6/6/2013 01:30:05 pm
hahaha. @jawfree
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Stephen AcabadoI am an anthropological archaeologist interested in human-environment interactions ArchivesCategories
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