SAN ANTONIO – Workers continued to dig at the archaeological site downtown at the Alamo under the watchful eye of Commissioner George P. Bush, of the Texas Land Office.
Bush said he has been keeping up with the progress online, but this was his first trip to get a personal look at the progress.
"I want to thank our archaeological team for the painstaking methodical approach that they are taking to make sure that we are precise and that we are doing this right," Bush said.
The two-part dig is just the beginning of the overall makeover of Alamo Plaza.
"When I visit with folks throughout the state, the country and the world, they tell me we need to do a better job. So this is one step, an important step, in a long process," Bush said.
After finding adobe bricks at the site of the west wall, Nesta Anderson, who is the lead archaeologist for Pape Dawson Engineering, moved her crews to the south wall. So far, it has been a revealing dig in that location.
They have unearthed a trench that was filled with limestone rocks.
"Stones would have been dumped in on top of that trench, then there would have been an adobe slurry that would have been poured in on top of that stone," Anderson said. “I am not saying we have something Spanish colonial just yet. We have a little more exploration to do, but things are looking very interesting for us.”
Crews are working where the main gate could have possibly stood.
"We are certainly in the right location for the main gate," Anderson said. “As we often know, our archival records are guidelines so it is possible that we have something that is associated with the gate."
One of the things the archaeologists are looking at is the relationship between the west wall and south wall. The discoveries at the south wall seem to be deeper than that of the bricks at the west wall by about a foot.
They will be digging around the south wall for about another week to see if what they see on the surface goes any deeper.
"Every day it changes. That is what is so exciting,” Anderson said. “What we expose today could be completely different than what we find tomorrow. Every day adds a little more information to that puzzle."