Today we started excavations. We were given a brief talking to about safety and procedure, but those of us who read our excavation manual as we were instructed to, had some idea of what we were doing... but not much.
We worked from 9-5, with a 15 minute break in the morning, a 30 minute break for lunch, and another 15 minute tea break in the afternoon.
I was put on excavation of the midden, which we might sophisticatedly call a "trash pile" But that's a great place to be. The most commonly found items that were found in the midden today were pieces of burnt bone, chunks of pottery, and a few pieces of flint. Personally I found several pieces of pottery, or to be more precise, ceramic material. To call them pottery is assuming that the ceramic was used to make vessels such as pots.
I also found two pieces of flint, and many small pieces of bone. When we find something significant such as those, we put them in a bag and carefully mark it. We put a matching tag and nail in the ground exactly where it was found and at the same level. The bag is put in a tray that is filled up with bags containing artifacts. When it is full, it is taken to the "Finds hut" where it is sorted or something important like that. I will get to work and learn there later :)
The day was long and hard work, because we are on our knees all the time except when we have to empty our bucket of "spoil" which is the dirt we remove from around artifacts.
We work slowly, scraping the dirt and keeping it level, while we slowly go deeper and deeper. I probably moved an area of about 2x3 feet, down about 3-4 inches. Everyone else from my group (who was new) did about te same.
Tomorrow might be rough, because knees are bruised and muscles are sore, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. It was beautiful all day- overcast, cool and breezy. Perfect for me. :) This job is already the coolest thing ever. I love the careful work and how organized everything is. One of the site supervisors mentioned how well archaeology works for obsessibe people.
Goodnight. I'm exhausted.
P.S. My luggage finally arrived at the closest airport and my professor picked it up for me while we were working. It's nice to have a clean shirt!
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The work sounds fascinating. I have always dreamed of doing something like this. Also, It's great that your luggage caught up with you.
ReplyDeletesuper interesting...do you think you can give a slide show when you get back? what are the dates for the neolithic time period? ... p.s. i had to laugh when your luggage didn't show up...glad you got it now though! just think, now you have some souvenir "pants" & p.j.'s! ...you might need to have your dad go over there so he can find a few arrow-heads for everyone! cheers -eric :)
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. :) Just finished the second day and since all the showers are full, I'm going to write my next entry.
ReplyDeleteWhat history classes did you take before you came here? What got you interested in archaeology?
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