Could you be looking at a midden area instead of a living space? Michael's right, a second sweep is key. That kind of density might mean you've hit a concentrated trash deposit, which would totally change how you see the site's activity. You might want to look for soil color changes or bone fragments to confirm. Finding where that material thins out will tell you its real size.

Yeah, I'm totally with john_fisher on this... water can work if you're really careful. But I had the exact same patchy mess happen to me last month, and it was such a pain to fix. The conditioner just makes it foolproof for me now, especially on bigger walls where a smooth finish really matters. I keep a bottle of the Floetrol stuff around for any project bigger than a tiny spot.

Wait, they kept you in that loop for eight months? That's not just a mix-up, that's a full-on system failure. I got stuck for six weeks once and nearly lost a job offer. The automated emails just kept saying "under review" while my real deadline ticked down. It feels like shouting into a void.