Beneath the massive stone rubble, the brown, sandy clay containing charcoal and a few Anglo-American artifacts continued to a depth of 50-55 inches below the surface of the north courtyard. This component had no massive stone, but had a large quantity of cobbles and chips of limestone and numerous rocks about 3-5 inches in diameter. Beneath this was a soft, light tan clay with a great deal of fine sand content. Few artifacts were found in this layer, but numerous animal bones were collected. The few artifacts were entirely Spanish-Mexican in origin. This soft, sandy clay filled a trough-like depression into the dark brown, sterile clay which underlies the area. As work continued, it became obvious this depression was a smoothly rounded ditch about 6.5 ft wide running roughly north-south, and the various layers of clay and rock described above had filled it. Reexamination of the drawings of Unit E showed the ditch-like feature found along its west side was actually the eastern edge of the round-bottomed ditch found in Unit EII.

The southernmost portions of Unit EII flanking this ditch showed a complex and confusing stratigraphy. The dark brown basal clay itself sloped down towards the south. In fact, Unit EII exhibited characteristics in its southwest corner very similar to the characteristics found in the southeast corner of Unit E, including several patches of white, sandy mortar on the surface of basal clay and multiple thin strata of gray clays, charcoal, and ash above it and below a hard- packed adobe surface.

As these layers were removed, we realized we had the remains of two ditches, one dug through the other. The rubble-filled ditch excavated first cut across a lower ditch dug at a much earlier time, and this ditch ran in a northeast-southwest direction.

The lower ditch was broad and shallow and extended into the dark brown clay, which was the original ground surface. The small section uncovered in Units E and EII is about seven feet wide and approximately 18 inches deep as it survives in the ground. This ditch, which ran about S 74deg. W, was filled by a series of widely varied lenses of material, none of which appeared to be water deposited; therefore the fill is assumed intentional. On the surface of the brown, basal clay in the bottom of this lowest ditch we found a copper alloy spoon with a pewter plating; part of a green-decorated majolica bowl; and a large fragment of a majolica bowl decorated in the style called Puebla Polychrome, dating to ca. 1675-1700. These and other artifacts from the various lenses indicate the ditch was probably filled in the early 1700s.

In the southwestern corner of Unit EII, we recognized a row of adobe blocks set into a hard-packed adobe surface which capped the multiple strata filling the lower ditch at 21 inches below ground surface. Following the hard-packed surface (apparently a puddled adobe floor) to the west, we found it ended against one of the stone walls found in the stockade trench, about 10 ft from the row of adobe blocks. Both walls ran at an angle about 15deg. off the general plan of the entire church and convento complex. The adobe floor was found throughout Units E and EII at this level, on both sides of the row of adobe blocks.

In the north half of Unit EII, we found that the cinder bed and hard-packed layer of white caliche, found in most of the rest of the north courtyard, formed the surface beneath the yellow sand bedding of the sidewalk. The caliche, however, was very thin and patchy and the cinders were about six inches lower than the cinder surface within the north courtyard. Below these two layers was a bed of brown clay, cobbles, and caliche. Beneath this and east of the round-bottomed upper ditch was a series of undisturbed strata which finally gave us a chance to work out the relative dating between the various features.

Running east-west along the lines of the 1926 wall were two other wall trenches at a lower level. These were accompanied by two lines of postholes, each apparently associated with one of the wall trenches. One of these two trenches

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