Photos of the Ness of Brodgar

Hello all.
Today my professor sent us a link to a YouTube video that shows a bunch of pictures from last summer's excavations at the Ness of Brodgar, as well as several of the archaeological sites that we had the opportunity to visit. The photos were taken and put together by Adam Stanford, with the help of his jeep, and a really, really long extending pole with a camera on top. I am in a few of these, as are my fellow students, and fellow volunteers. The music gets a little monotonous, so I would mute this. This video makes me miss that place and the work we did there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtijUd8aU2k

Followup

I know I said I was done, but I guess I have a few things to add--maybe only one thing for tonight.
Since I'm finally 100% awake, I was reading the site blog for the last three days that I had to miss and learned that the rim of the pot from the midden that I found on my second or third day, is attached to a large base and came out in one piece on Tuesday! There is a good picture of it on the site as well. Granted, I'm a little annoyed that I missed the extraction, but I'm glad the pot was so well preserved and I'm glad I got to feel the finger impressions in the sides.
Also, now that I have access to a real computer, I will try to add some of my pictures soon.

Salt Lake City, USA

My trip is coming to a close, and consequently, my blog will also, but I will fill you in on the last few days.

As I mentioned in my last post, I hurt my back on Wednesday morning. Thursday morning it took me a good 10 minutes of painful struggling to be able to move enough to turn off my alarm clock. It was ridiculous. After than I managed to hobble out to the room next to me and tell my neighbors to inform my professor that I wouldn't be able to make it to site. That was very bothersome, but since it was truly impossible for me, I tried not to be too annoyed by it.(The season of excavation goes another week still, but apparently there is more cleaning up and preping the site for the winter, than there is actual excavations.)
Usually we would have had excavations on Friday as well, but the site director had planned a party for Thursday night, and didn't want to make everyone get up and work with hang-overs.
So, I missed our last day and the party. A few of my friends and my professor came by the hostel between the end of the work day and the party to see if I was well enough to come, but I wasn't mobile enough. The real problem by that time was that after being verticle for about 10-20 minutes, my back would start spasming and I would have to lay down and quickly. I thought about going and laying down on the floor when I needed to, but first of all, I would feel really dumb doing that every 10 minutes, and second, it would take me another 10 minutes to try to get off the floor.
Unfortunately I really don't have many more archaeology-related things to say about my trip, since I missed the last day and party.
Friday I spent the day packing for about 10 minutes and then laying down for about 20. Needless to say, that took the majority of the day. I went out to dinner with a friend that night, and then my professor drove me to Kirkwall where I boarded the ferry, and departed at 11:45pm. I was able to sleep most of the ride, and when we arrived in Aberdeen at 7:00am on Saturday, I took a taxi to my hotel. Since I had not arranged for an early check in, and apparently 7 am was early, (crazy, I know) I couldn't access my suite yet, so I left my luggage in the reception lounge and wandered around Aberdeen, taking frequent rests. I hope to be able to spend more time in that city again. It seemed to be a really neat place. Most of the archetecture I saw on my trip was old and made of stone, but the buildings in Aberdeen were also very large. They were like miniature castles lining the streets. I really enjoyed just sight-seeing.
I ate lunch at a cute little bakery, and then headed back to my hotel where I could get into my "room" finally. It was not what I was expecting... The concierge had me follow him, out of the reception room, out onto the street, then down a side alley, where the hotel key-card gave him access to what seemed to be an apartment building. He led me up several flights of stairs, and then used the key again to go through a door marked with a 32, to what I thought would be my room. Instead this door opened into a small room with 5 other doors, then he gave me a tour of my lodgings. One of the doors opened to a lounge area with two tables, a few easy chairs, a love seat, and a flat screen TV. One opened to a nice bathroom complete with shower, bath-tub, and towel warmer. One opened to a kitchenette that had dishes, cuttlery, a sink, dish-rack, microwave, dish-washer, and refridgerator with a 0.5L of milk. The last door was to the bed-room, which had a king-sized bed with a big fluffy comforter, a vanity, closet, and another flat-screen TV. (The last door was locked and he didn't know what it went to. I suspect it was to connect my lodgings to the one next to me.) The concierge left me gawking at my hotel "room" and he brought my luggage up.
Anyway, that's not what I was expecting. All I really needed was a bed and a toilet, hopefully with a shower, and tht's what I thought I was going to get. I'm not complaining about my suite--it was wonderful--but I felt almost like I was wasting all of that room by just being one person, only there for an evenng.
So I took a long bath. It was the first bath I'd had in a month, and while showers are enough, now and then a good soak is needed to really get all the dirt off, and believe me, I had a lot of dirt.
I went to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant where I ordered some kind of ravioli. The description had several words I hadn't heard before, but it sounded good, and mentioned several kinds of cheeses (oh, the cheeses in the UK are so much better than our cheeses... It's sad) so I ordered it. I think it had bits of egg-plant in it. Whatever it was, it was good and I was happy with it.
This morning I woke up at 3 to be ready for my previously booked taxi to pick me up at 4. The concierge brought my luggage down again and waited with me for my taxi, which didn't show up. Finally he decided to call the company and they said that as soon as they had one available, it would be here, but currently all of their cars were busy. Apparently people stay our REALLY late on Saturday nights/Sunday mornings there. Also there was a football (soccer) game going on Saturday nght and people were probably out celebrating from that. While I waited for my taxi, several drunken people stumbled past me.  At least they seemed to be friendly drunks. One wished me a happy stay in Aberdeen.
So my Taxi finally came and gave me a ride to the air-port, then when we got there, he ddn't accept credit cards. That was frustrating because I had specifically asked the receptionist to get me a company that would accept credit, and also frustrating because I was several pounds short of the cost of the trip. I had to go into the air-port where there was an ATM to get cash. The lowest ammount it would let me withdraw was 200pounds! all of the other ATMs had increments increasing from 20 but of course not this one.
Oh well. I got him paid and got on all my planes and now I'm in Salt Lake City with a bunch of Scotish pounds which of course I can't exchange because none of the currency exchanges in the airports are open on Sunday... I guess I'll figure that out later. Nothing I can do about it today.

I hope you've all enjoyed hearing about my trip and if all goes according to plan, I'll be returning to the Ness of Brodgar next summer to learn more. I'll probably be coerced into writing a blog next summer as well.

*'Looney Tunes' music and in big, swirly cursive, THE END*

Hostel Plague

Yesterday I didn't write, but I had good cause. We made it to the site, and were rained out within the first hour. Needless to say, not a lot of terribly exciting things happened. When we all got back to the hostel, most of us went back to bed because most of us have a chest cold that won't give up. I was one of the "most".
Yesterday evening we had a trip to Kirkwall where we got to listen to a lecture from a Japanese pottery expert. (He was both Japanese, and an expert of Japanese pottery). He had a difficult time speaking publically and he was difficult to understand at times, but his slides were very detailed and were more like sub-titles rather than bullet points.
He spoke to us primarily on Jomon pottery which was created around 14,000 BC! "Jomon" means "rope-patterns" and it is called this because ropes were used to create extremely detailed designs on the vessels. While the patterns look as though weeks were spent on creating each little groove, it was actually done by rolling rope onto the surface of the clay before it was fired. Sometimes the rope was left straight and then rolled. This resulted in a series of parallel, diagonal lines. Other times it was tied into knots before being impressed upon the clay. This resulted in a kind of celtic-knot looking pattern. The professor even gave each of the viewers a piece of tissue paper and taught us how the ropes were made from fine strips of bark or grass. (I think that was the material he said was used. Some things were unclear because of his accent and translation problems.)
Another thing that was characteristic of this pottery was elaborate coils of clay shaped around the vessels to create even more elaborate works. I suggest looking up pictures of Jomon pottery to get an idea.
I had a very good time at this lecture and was fascinated by some of the examples of restored Jomon and other pottery he showed to us. I kept thinking how interesting it was that the indigenous people of Japan were making these complex works of art 16 thousand years ago, and at the Ness, we are excited over bits of pottery that have had grooves scratched into them 5 thouand years ago.
Today the weather was nice. It was overcast but not terribly windy. The ground was moist and made trowelling much easier than it had been on Monday after our weekend of sun. That was good for me, because I was working in Structure 22 where I was going through a pale yellowish clayey material that may have been used to help waterproof the roof tiles. On Monday, this stuff might as well have been concrete.
Before lunch, I uncovered the bottom of a sturdy, early neolithic wall that we were hoping was still in tact. Right next to me, Jo, the same girl who found the large, fancy piece of pottery in the midden on our second day on site, uncovered the first comlete stone ax head found at the Ness. The stone it is made from is very beautiful and I suggest you check out the NoB site to see a picture of it.
Another good reason to look at the site's site today is that I was the one forced to write the "View from the Trenches" today. I was hoping that I had gone unnoticed by the blog poliece, but apparently they had a check list in the supervisor's hut of which of the Willamette students had blogged, and which ones hadn't. I was the last one. I almost made it.
Writing that was not so fun. I had no idea what to say that would interest the followers of that blog. Everything that happened that day would already be written about. I ended up giving a brief explanation of how I came to be at the Ness this year, and how great I think it is. I also said I hadn't found a task I didn't like, but that was a lie. I wanted to add to the end of that sentence, "except for writing the blog". My professor said I should have, but I think the site director, Nick would have cut it when he edited my entry. As it is, I can't see that he changed a single word. He didn't even change my American way of spelling "favorite".
Tonight our professor got a story teller to come and tell us folk tales of Orkney. It was very neat. Unfortunately I injured my back this morning somehow, and had a lot of trouble sitting while listening to the stories he told. I ended up on my side on the floor, which was fine, until he was leaving and I couldn't get off the floor. I'm going to be so incredibly annoyed if I can't move tomorrow. I'll go and lay in the floor of the house on site if I have to. I'm not missing the last day. (This afternoon I helped in the house where I could sit on the flor with my back up against a wall. I would have been physically unable to trowel anymore.)
I know I said this already, but I woul like to reiterate that the story teller was wonderful. His stories were fun, his voice was deep and animated, and his accent was beautiful. I never caught his name, but I will ask my professor for it, because I believe the story-teller is fairly well known. He travels all around the world telling folk-tales, and I think he has a few books. I asked him for suggestions of other works of literature about folk-lore of this area and of surrounding areas such as Norway. I have a few suggestions to investigate now.

Wind, Wind, Go Away

This morning the sun was shining through our window and I was excited for the nice weather. When we got out in the open, we found out that you could parasail without a boat in this wind. Right now I can hear it gusting around outside.
The section drawing wasn't too terrible in the wind. I finished that up by the first tea break, but after that I was assigned to clean a large area of rubble for a photograph. That's difficult in the first place, but with the wind blowing gusts of dust into your eyes, out of the bucket, and all over the stones, it's really awful. Cleaning has officially become my least favorite job... but I can't complain too much. I found a nice piece of flint while I was cleaning. It wa sitting right on top, so I bagged and tagged it. Usually in cleaning if there is a small find, you leave it in until it can be excavated, but this was too small and loose to leave.
We got the cleaning done, but it wasn't fun, and my eyes were tearing dirt for the next... well, they're still tearing dirt.
After lunch my Willamette group got to learn to do Geophysical Survey. I'm still a little fuzzyon how this specific technique works. Hopefully I will learn more about it tomorrow.
To perform the survey, we charted out a grid on a clear field of 20x40m, and used a large, but apparently fairly simple machine to conduct electricity through the ground and back to the machine. It then maps what and how effectively the stuff under the ground conducts electricity. This is how they figure out what might be down there. I know this is all so scientific that it's difficult to understand. Hopefully I'll be able to describe this process better tomorrow after I've seen the results and had them explained without howling wind obscuring all noise.
We might not be able to work tomorrow though, as the forecast says Thunderstorms with 98% chance for precipitation. I gues we'll see. :)

County Fair and USCB (Unidentified Sea Creature Bits)

Saturday I went to the Kirkwall county fair. It was simply called the "show" but it was surprisingly like the county fairs where I live, except much larger. There were a lot of tourists there, and I get the feeling that is pretty common, so the locals prepare.
We went through looking at chicken, ducks, cows, and ponies. Apparently a Highland cow won best in show, but we didn't see it.
We watched some of the horse competitions and it was really fun to see the riders in their fancy riding gear on little English saddles. I guess I've never seen that in pereson before.
We had heard rumors that there were going to be sheep races and sheep-shearing contests, but we didn't see them if there were. We didn't get there until about noon either.
There were vendors of all sorts. They were selling wool textiles, paintings, bags, clothing, wood-burned art, jewelry, haggis, burgers, alcohol of all shapes and sizes, chips (which we call fries), sweets, candy floss (cotton candy), and so much more.
I bought a pattern to use for either counted-cross-stitch or counted-tapestry, which is a design of Skara Brae. (Hopefully I can finish it before I'm 90 years old. That means I'll have to finish the dragon at least by 80.) The friend I was with found a painting that she really wanted, but she didn't have enough money so we pooled our money and checked to make sure we had enough for the bus tickets home. We did, but just barely.
Most of the people from the fair went to a soccer game after which was between the teams from Ham and Sandwick. We thought that was really funny. Anyway, we were out of money and pretty tired so we didn't go to the game. Instead we went to eat dinner in the same Chinese place that has the best fish-n chips around. While we were standing in line to order, we saw our professor in there waiting for his food. He came and talked to us for a while and we happened to ask him if the restaurant took credit cards. He said no, and we looked at eachother in a kind of "uh-oh" way. He saw it and gave us a 20 pound bill. We would have had to find another place to eat, or gone hungry. It's a good thing that place has good fish'n chips because the Chinese food was iffy at best.
We went to Tesco which is basically the Wal-Mart of Orkney, and bought some groceries for the week, then saw that the next bus back to Stromness and our hostel, wasn't for another two hours, so we went into a Bistro and ordered drinks while we waited. The Bistro was decorated with American things, which was really amusing. They had lisence plates from at least 30 states up on the walls. There was an 8B from Idaho! Somehow it seemed so out of place to see the lisence plates there. I took a picture of the one from Idaho. I felt weird doing it, but I just had to. There was a wooden Indian on the wall with a feather sticking out of his hair, and an old leather base-ball glove next to a wooden bat, under a picture of a taxi.
Today we were going to have a field trip, but it ended up not happening, so my friend and I went to the beach at low tide and combed. We found lots of cool stuff, some of which we brought back to the hostel. We will need to high-grade before we try to pack it though, unless we want to buy an extra suitcase for all of it. We have sea glass, several different kinds of shells, some chips of pottery worn by sand, and two oddities. One is, or at least was, clearly a table knife, but now it is a rusted... thing. We've decided it's from some famous ship wreck. We're not sure what the other thing is.  It's about two inches long, and the shape of a tusk. It's hollow, and white on th inside, but a dark greyish purple on the outside. It might be some kind of really large crab's claw... we're just really not sure. If only I could upload pictures, maybe some of you would know. Anyway, we like it and it's really sturdy so it's coming home with us.
We went to lunch at a pub/restaurant and had fish'n chips. (The fish'n chips are just so good here that we eat them all the time.) It was about four in the afternoon but there was one very drunk older guy at the bar who started singing "Black Velvet Band". The scene was so steriotypical of a Scotish pub, that it felt like an excerpt from a movie.
We only have four more days on site. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The Wall and the Wait

Today was overcast as usual, and sprinkled occasionally, but not enough to even need a rain-coat. Most of the workers always wear their rain pants, or some form of water-proof trousers because we're up and down, in and out of the dirt/mud all the time. That's fine, as long as you can strip off the muddy layer when you're done for the day.
First thing in the morning, I was instructed to clean a layer near structure 14. (Cleaning is taking the trowel and scraping down a very thin layer of soil, to re-expose the different colors and layers in the ground. It's a tedious process and probably my least favorite, because you're supposed to get all the miniscule clods of dirt off of the surface so that the soil in the ground can be viewed without the crumbs.) The cleaning didn't take very long, and when it was done, my supervisor examined and analyzed the results, then had me take a cut out of some of the newly cleaned space. He was expecting us to find a "robber cut" which is a section of wall where the stones have been removed to construct later structures. Usually the robber cuts are full of random rubble. I found random rubble for about 8cm down, then I found a section of wall that had not been distroyed by neolithic thieves! It was pretty neat. My little section was about 1.2m square, with nice flat stones at the bottom (which are the top of what is left of a wall.) One of these stones is about a 40cm wide by 50 or 60cm long, and only one side of it is exposed.
By lunch time I had cleaned up my section, and made a nice vertical cut in the soil, up from the wall level. This cut had other bits of rock or rubble protruding from it, but if those stones are in between the two sections, you leave them poking out and just square up the soil all around them. So basicly there is a miniature climbing wall on the edge of my section.
After lunch, I was waiting for one of the supervisors to help me, and just before he got to me, they discovered a cache of flint and at least one tool among the cache. Anyway, I couldn't get help until almost the second tea time and even then I didn't get much. I decided while I waited, that today ws probably my least favorite day, just because I wasn't doing anything. That's ok. The day was still good.
About 30 minutes before it was time to leave, I got instructions on how to do a section drawing, which is drawing the climbing wall part of my section, from a horizontal view, looking straight at the face of the wall. The shapes of stones isn't so iportant but the slant and the width is. The section drawing is done by first stringing some twine above the top of the section to be drawn, then making sure that the twine is level. Then a tape measurer is strung up above that. My job was to measure from the taught line to the tops, edges, and bottoms of every rock/surface, so that I could accurately portray them on graph paper at a scale of 1:20. (This would be so much easier if I could just put a picture in here. A picture is worth more than a thousand words in this case. If you go to ingleborougharchaeologygroup.org.uk/masongill.htm and scroll down about 2/3 of the page, there is a simplified version of what I am talking about. It is black and white and under "INTERPRETATION".) I got the basic idea of it before we had to leave, but I'm looking forward to working on it more on Monday.
Well, my work clothes should be clean and dry by now, so I'm going to take care of those, then go to bed and sleep in tomorrow morning. :)

D&D and Counted-Cross Stitch=USEFUL

This morning I finally got to go digging again, and it was amazingly eventful. By the first tea time at 10:30, I had already made 5 small finds, several of which were pretty cool. Two were just small bits of pottery but the third was a large basal sherd, which is what the pottery experts like to examine. I wouldn't have known what it was when I found it if I hadn't taken my sick day in the house cleaning and learning about pottery. Even with that I was a little surprised. It was about the size of a fist, but I could see it was pottery. I asked my supervisor anyway because I had never seen such a thick chunk. He confirmed that it was a basal sherd, "basal" meaning that it had part of the base on it, and "sherd" meaning a piece of pottery. This particular piece had a concave interior with an 'L' shaped exterior, where the base was attached to the wall of the vessel.
The other two pre-tea-time finds were worked stones, which were rounded. Anything we find on site that is round was at least brought to the site, and often worked and used for smoothing, or polishing. All of the natural stone flakes into very flat shapes. That was confusing at first because every sneaky rock looked like a man-made brick or tool. (Gee, I'm such an expert now that I've been at it for a total of three weeks.)
Between tea time and lunch, I found another five small finds, but they were all small pieces of pottery. That was a lot to find in 3.75 hours. It was much better than finding nothing, but there's definately a happy medium of not enough and too many. I was bordering on too many, because I wasn't making much progress into my context (layer of soil).
After lunch, one of my fellow "Willamettes" who had been planning, was moved on to work in the finds hut, and another of them was sent to write the site blog, so I got to take over their planning job.
Planning is drawing the outline of every stone and significant slant or other topography in a particular area. First I had to find the propper E-W line and then put a string taught along the edge of here I needed to plan. Next, I strung a tape measurer along the string, so I could line up with the last drawn square meter of planning.
There is a pre-made planning grid, that is made ofa square wooden frame, and the measurements along the interior of the frame are 1mx1m. Within the frame, there are strings making a grid pattern with squares of 20cmx20cm.
I lined the planning grid up and drew in the stones, and everything onto graphing paper, on a much cmaller scale obviously. I think the 20cm squares from the planning frame were shrunk down into 1cm on the paper. I used a plumb bob to locate where the edges of rocks were, and then counted the grid squares to draw the stone in the correct place. Using the plumb bob prevents visual distrotions because you know where in the square the point is, rather than where you think it is. You can't get directly over the grid to see straight down into the frame.
There were a lot of symbols to use to represent slopes, small finds in-situ, trench edges, and all kinds of things. The only difference between this and making a map for a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons was that here you were recording something real, where as for a D&D camaign, you record what is in your head. There were a few different sybols, since hopefully the trench doesn't contain triggers, traps, or monsters, but other than that, it was the same. Which worked out great for me because my favorite part of creating a D&D campaign is drawing the map.
So far planning is my favorite job. I know that what ever job I have most recntly learned seems to be my favorite, but I think this one will keep first place for a while. I hope I get to do more of it tomorrow, or next week.

Floatation and Field Trips

Today my migraine is 95% gone, so I feel fine, but can't think straight or remember what I'm trying to do.
I got to do floatation today with another girl from our group. We were the last two to go. Our professor drove us to the University in Kirkwall where all of the soil samples go. The purpose of floatation is to determine what the soil samples consist of. The procedure is pretty simple, but time consuming if done carefully, which is very important so that there is no cross-contamination. We dumped each sample into a large, watery box, and then mixed the water and soil all around. The bits that float were collected by a small sieve that collects bits >1mm and the bits that float but are smaller than 1 mm, pass through that sieve and are collected by a second, smaller sieve that catches everything that is >300 microns.
When the sample was thoroughly stirred so that all the floating materials were out, and so that the plain dirt had a chance to wash out of the gause under the sample, we drained the water and examined the "residue", which is what's left. It usually consisted of gravel, some larger rocks, non-floating charcoal, burnt and 'cremated' bone, and occasionally chips of flint, or pieces of pottery that were missed during the initial excavation. We took out any small finds, (which were flint and pottery for us today), and then carefully described what and how much of each material was in the residue, the >1mm sieve, and the >300 microns sieve. The >1mm sieve usually had bits of plant mater, rootlets, and cramp in charcoal. The particles from the >300microns sieve are too small to describe with the naked eye, exceppt for the ratios of charcoal to grit.
There was a comment section on the information sheet where we needed to include any other relevant pieces of information, such as if the sample contained clay that was washed away. If so, we recorded what color the clay was, (usually yellow or grey for us today.) We needed to include the fact that a live spider was removed from the >1mm sieve once, because pollen or residue of the sample could have been taken with him, or he could have introdced something modern that would contaminate the sample. Another time we needed to include that a hair was caught in the >1mm sieve. This gives you an idea of how specific we needed to be for this job.
After all of this was recorded, along with all the information about where a sample came from, we collected each section of the sample (small finds, residue, >1mm, >300microns) and stored them where they could dry and be examined later through dry sorting and microscopic examination. We're not going to get to do any of that, unfortunately.
When the sample was cared for, we got to carefully clean every bit of equipment. Even that was fun, because we got to do it with hoses squirting preasurized water. There was  a lot of mud and water in today's job, but I liked it every bit as much as the other jobs I've learned so far.
At the end of the work day, we went back to the site, where we set off on a field trip with the entire American group. Nick, the site director was our guide, which was really neat. He knows a lot of stuff about this, which makes sense, but still... a LOT of stuff.
First we went to the Ring of Brodgar which is in sight of the Ness of Brodgar. The Ring of Brodgar is made up of about 20 standing stones, but it used to have 60, if my memory serves. It is the third largest standing stone circle in the UK. I was surprised at how large it really was. I had thought it was smaller, but I had only seen in on post cards. There was a large circular trench around it which was apparently carved right into the bed rock. That had to be a huge task back in the day. It's not exactly a piece of cake now. We didn't have much time there because we had an apointment for a tour at Maeshowe.
Maeshowe is also within view of the NoB. (All of theseelaborate monuments are right there and it's interesting to think about the implications of their arrangement.) It was originally a Neolithic burrial chamber, but it was used by Vikings, then by the Scottish and various groups. From the outside it looks like a strange hill, surrounded by a grassy trench. The trench here was not as predigious as the one at the Ring of Brodgar, but I still wouldn't have wanted to be the one digging it. It was also carved into the bed rock. The hill had a stone-framed hole in the side, that was about 3'x4' square and that door continued on as a hall-way for about 40' or so. It was akward to maneuver through into the cavern, but it was worth it. (Someone with claustrophobia would nevr have made it.) Inside was very neat. It was... like being on the inside of a hill, but the walls and ceiling were corbelled with large rock. There were four large standing stones in the corners and burrial recesses in the three walls that didn't have the tunnel. There were also neolithic and viking era grafiti on the walls. One of the runed insriptions that was half-way up the wall said something like "I, ----- carved this up so very high" I bet our graffiti will never be treasured as much as this stuff was.
Well, I'm really tired and was hoping to be aslep about 2 hours ago.

Cleaning Clumps of Dirt

I felt pretty rough when I woke up this morning, but there was no way I was going to miss two days of excavaton in a row. I went to the site but wasn't doing very well... when I got there I wondered if maybe I was more in the way than useful, but I think I ended up doing alright. I worked in the house on site, with one of the girls from my group who has come for three years now. She is doing specialized work on pottery from structure 12. She let me help her clean bits of pottery that had been drying for days, and then she described them with all sorts of fancy codes and entered them in a database on her computer. Really all I learned how to do today was clean pottery, but it was fun and it didn't make me any more sick. (Apparently several people at another excavation were sick with migraines Sunday and Monday, so we must be experiencing the weather changes. I wish we could just get joint aches or something.)
So, with a small but stiff brush, I brushed dirt off of all of the pottery bits. The pottery sizes were anywhere from 5mm to 8 or 9cm today. I learned how firm I needed to be to get the dirt off, but how careful I needed to be so I didn't break more than was necessary. Some of the stuff we worked on today was completely abraided and it was awful to try to clean. When you would pic up a piece, it would fall into several bits before the brush even touched it. Sometimes the "pottery" that someone had tagged as a small find, was actually just a big clod of dirt. It's surprisingly difficult to tell the difference sometimes, even when dry.
The dust flies everywhere when doing this job. It's so fine that you see whisps while brushing the pottery, and you inhale a lot. The room has to be cleaned every day after this task because a thin film of dust coveres everyting.
It was fun to clear away caked dirt from a piece and reveal the pretty designs around the rim, or identify rims of vessels, or sometimes the base, or base of the wall of a vessel. Sometimes there were no pretty designs and the darn pottery would crumble in bits, but sometimes we were rewarded with cool stuff.
There were three finds trays full of crumbs of varying sizes, that were all part of the same pot, or at least part of the same small find, (theoretically the same pot.) It looked horrible to try to work with, but towards the end of the day, we had to omve on to it because we had finished all of the other dry pieces. After a few minutes of working on some of the larger bits of that pottery, we found white paint on the surface of some of the pieces! It was very exciting. (They call it white slip, although they really don't know what it was made of yet. I was under the impression that "slip" refered specifically to pottery mixed with water to change the color, but I guess that's not how slip is defined at this site.) Anyway, even while feeling pretty crappy and not digging in the dirt, I got to help find someting exciting. We found several pieces with substantial white slip.
I'm feeling much better tonight, although  have what my mother calls my "migraine hang-over." It doesn't hurt so badly, but I'm disoriented and can't remember what I'm doing. That's why it has taken me so long to get ready for bed and type this, so I'm going to sleep. Sorry that the pictures still aren't working. I'm not sure if it is because the internet connection is so poor, or becuse blogspot doesn't cooperate well with my tablet.

Goodnight

Abandon Site!

The weekend, or at leat Saturday, was great. We all slept in, then I rode the bus to Kirkwall with some of my friends. We walked all aroud, went in shops, bought a few things, tried Orkney ice cream, and got fish'n chips from a Chinese restaurant that supposedly has the best fish'n chips in Orkney. (Yeah, I thought that was funny too, but after trying that meal, I don't dispute that claim. They were wonderful!) The Orkney ice cream was served in double cones, which have a normal cone-shaped bottom and then there are two tops on it. It looks like a upside down pyramid with a super 8 placed horizontally on top. It was awesome.
We also saw a blackening, which is kind of their version of a bachelor party. Traditionally a few days before the wedding, the bride's and groom's friends would cover them in treacle and soot (which made them black) and then cover them in feathers and parade them around the town. Then tie them up to the cross in the middle of the town and leave them there for I don't know how long. It was supposed to be a lesson in humility and show that those two could take on difficult times together as a couple. Today they cover the bride or groom is what looked like mud and cardboard. All sorts of rubbish, drive around town banging on the truck with the victim in the back, then cling wrap them to the cross outside of St. Magnus Cathedral. We saw several trucks go by making lots of noise, but when we passed the cathedral, a girl was wrapped up there with her friends watching. It was neat.
A field trip was scheduled for Sunday so I couldn't make it to church. I got up and made my lunch, and got in the van with everyone else but by the time we made it to Kirkwall, I was extremely sick with a migraine. It hit me so quickly. I was able to get out of the van without being sick in it, but it was very close. Our professor was meeting us there. I told him I was sick and he took me to the house where he and his colleagues are staying. I was there alone all day, which is exactly what I needed. I was sad about missing all the sites they got to see, but I would have been a lot sadder if I had gone. Well, there was just no way. I would have thrown up in the bus if I had been in it another 30 seconds. Around 9 last night my professor drove me back to our hostel in Stromness and I went to bed, but I was a bit better than I had been that morning. This morning I was still pretty sick, so I didn't go to work, but around noon all the kids showed up here and said they were told to go home because it was so rainy. The rain ruins the striations,, not to mention many of the artifacts that have been protected from it for thousands of years.
I'm feeling ok now, but honestly I'm hoping that the site is too wet to work on tomorrow because while I think I'm on the up hill slope now, migraines are evil and cunning. A day more of calmness would be safest.
Well, I don't have much to say that might interest anyone now, so I'll quit.

Point Clouds and Rain

Today looked like it was going to be rainy and awful. This morning as we were all waiting for our van driver (who is one of the real archaeologists on site) to arrive and drive us in to the site, the sky was dark and there was pretty good rain. It looked like the weather was going to be awful, but the weather here changes 180 degrees in about ten minutes. This evening we came into the Hostel from the store and the sky was completely clear and sunny, then ten minutes later the fog was so thick we could see to the other side of the street, but not much farther. (The fog is really neat here and since we're right next to the small ferry terminal, we get to hear the fog horns.)
When we got to site this morning, the rain had already stopped and while the sun was not out, it was light. It was cool and slightly breezy, which is perfect for the manual labor jobs that the majority of the grunts (including me) get to do. I checked in the finds hut to see if I was urgently needed but today the two professionals in charge of the finds hut were trying to consolidate the finds, and really needed to do it themselves. They were still very appreciative of the work I did yesterday. If I was a labrador, I would have been wagging my tail when I left their hut and headed for the trench.
I worked with the same supervisor that I called evil a few days ago. He's growing on me quickly. Maybe he had jet-lag or something that first day, because he has improved every day since. He is still not especially patient though, and so we were using Maddocks and shovels for a good part of the day. He can afford to be less careful in his area of supervision because what we think is there, is late Neolithic rubble covering parts of walls and paving of early Neolithic construction. There isn't much pottery or anything else there, except for burnt bones and now and then a clay deposit.
When we reached the paving with the maddocks, we cleaned up our loose soil (our "loose") and continued with more delicate tools, mainly trowels, but occasionally brushes for clearing up the rocks, or rather "stones". (I have never heard a person here use the word "rock". Even when the American kids ask, "Is this something or just a rock?" the response is usually "Oh, yeh, it's just a stoon.")
Around late morning, my supervisor called me over and asked me for help using the GPS which he has no idea how to use. I learned that most of the supervisors don't know how to use it, because it is expensive (17,000 Pounds or about 26,000 dollars) and because most of them have more important things to do that take small finds locations. Back when they were grunts, they used different systems.
I learned how to do a survey line with the GPS machine today, because when I didn't know how to help my supervisor do that, we called over the tech-savvy one (who is also our van driver and probably about 35 years old) and he taught us how, or more taught me how and then I taught my supervisor.
While I was doing his survey line, people saw that I had the machine up and working, and because I had gone all over site doing it a few days ago, they all knew that I could take their small-finds points. They get pretty anxious to have those points put in because people need that done before they can continue digging underneath where the finds were.
Knowing how to work the GPS surveying machine has caused about half of the workers on site to know my name, and easily most of the supervisors who want points taken from their designated areas. They all seem to think that whoever acts the most urgent will get his or her points done first. I just walk around the different structures in a circle, doing all that i find. When the lunch break happened, I put down the GPS and found a trowel again so people would stop bugging me, but I was soon called away from the dirt again.
A guy came with a laser surveying machine today and kind of taught the Willamette kids how to work it. It was absolutely amazing technology. It seemed like something from a sci-fi film. It shoots out lasers to a targeted area, for instance 180 degrees in front of it, and measures the distance from the base machine to millions of points around it that might be formed by rocks or dirt, or people. He called this a "point cloud". Using those measurements, it creates a picture of the site and can tell all of the spacial relationships between different obects. It was really neat. That machine cost 45,000 pounds. We asked about both of those machines today because we were all curious. It made me nervous to carry around the GPS machine, knowing that it was so expensive.
I got to dig some more after that, then I was needed to work with another of the former Willamette students who actually graduated a year ago. She is working on a large project with pottery from structure 12. She taught me how to wrap bits of pottery so that they can be preserved for years and used at a later date, then we packaged them and recorded exactly what was in each box.
It was a long day, and has been a long two weeks for that matter, but I haven't found a job here that I don't like. Hopefully I won't.

A-mace-ing

Today I went to the finds hut to ask if they needed any assistance before I even headed out to dig. The person in charge said I was a god-send and better than the angel Gabriel to her and her assistant because they were in such need of help. Apparently the small finds registry that I worked on yesterday was three days worth of finds, behind! So all day I organized and recorded small finds. It was long, but i enjoyed watching the blank spaces fill as misplaced finds surfaced and were entered. It is very organized and I like it.
I was relieved at the beginning of the day when I learned that there was at least a day's worth of work for me with the small finds, but as the day wore on and I saw all of the finds pass by, I wanted to be out finding some. That's alright though. For my class credit I need to be proficient in the finds hut, and so I would need to work there for a while anyway. I consoled myself by saying there was lots of back-breaking digging to do and I would certainly have to do much more before the next two weeks are up.
This evening we had a lecture given by one of the archaeologists who arrived on site today.His name is Mark Edmonds and he is an expert in stone tools, which is ironic because shortly after he started excavating, he found one of the nicest stone tools that has come from the Ness so far. It is a mace head and very neat. There is more about it on today's site blog.
Anyway, the lecture was fascinating. It was about how stone tools were made and why. Mark believes that they were not only for practical use, but for status symbols and showing off one's skill to make them. Apparently much of the stone used for ax heads of Neolithic Britan came from the most difficult places to reach, such as the very top of mountains and cliffs. There were many other more convenient places to get the same stone, but they chose to risk many dangers instead.
After the lecture I went to  pub with three of the other Willamette students and one of the workers on site who is from London. We played pool and some electric quiz version of battle ship. We had a good time. Unfortunately our new friend is leaving after tomorrow's excavations so we won't have more time to socialize.
Since I went out, it is later than I would usually be writing, so I need to get to sleep.

Addition...

In the finds hut as I orgnized items, I was encouraged to take out and view any that I wanted to, as long as I made sure they went back in the propper bag. Today our excavation blog (orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar) mentions two halves of a smll stone chisel and a small flint ax head. I got to work with both of these finds, (technically all three because the two sides of the stone chisel are clssified as different small finds) as well as several pieces of groove-wear pottery, (pottery with intentional grooves put into the surface for decoration and design,) and a small ball of fired clay that may have been a game piece or a something else unknown to us. I also worked with more pieces of flint chips, a flint scraping tool, several worked stones, and a plethora of less unique items like crumbling or undecorated pottery, daub, and cramp.
Yesterday I didn't mention that the guy I was digging next to uncovered a really neat large stone, about the size of a bread box, that had a concave scoop carefully chipped into the middle of it. It was very neat to see. Since the entire rock it isn't fully exposed yet, it is not tagged as a small finds yet. I hope that when they do give it a small finds number that they put a picture of it up on the website.
One more thing--there is a picture on the excavation blog that was taken today and shows me in the background surveying with my GPS. The picture is next to the "View from the Trenches" and I'm the one standing up in the back, dressed all in green, holding up a pole with a dish on the top.

Surveying and Finds Hut

It was supposed to be pouring rain today. It was quite windy and sprinkled on and off. It was unpleasant but I wasn't digging today. They started me right off on the GPS surveying the finds. There were so many today that I didn't have a minute to breathe. I went around and around the entire trench doing all of the tags, and by the time I had made it around, there were more finds to do.
After lunch they asked for a volunteer to help in the finds hut and I offered to assist. I was tired of the surveying and the weather so being in the finds hut was great. My job was to take boxes full of unorganized small finds and put them in numerical order based on the number of the find, written on the bag. I did that for the first half of the afternoon and I enjoyed it very much. Organizing is fun for me, but my next job was even better.
After the sorting, I entered all of the finds in the log book.
The wind outside of the trailer was so loud that it sounded like I was in a blizzard, but outside of the small window was the fresh-water loch and it had white-caps on it. The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, which means I'll be too hot. Oh well. :) I'm still enjoying the work.

Bluegrass in Orkney...

As I suspected, my back was pretty sore today, but I could move still, so I went and worked hard as usual. I was working with the same supervisor today but he seemed to be a little more relaxed about the whole process. My task today was to dig down into what we assume to be a circular wall, that is about 2 yards in diameter. It is probably a later addition to the site, built sometime in the late Neolithic period, and the craftmanship of the wall is much less exact that that of the earlier structures. At some point in time, the small area I was working was filled in with rubble as the people probably deconstructed it to use the stones for a new purpose.
My supervisor told me how I didn't need to be so delicate because the only thing I was likely to find there was rubble, so he took his trowel and really tore into it. I did my best to do the same when he was gone, and I guess I succeeded somewhat because he actually came by later and gave me a compliment. In that area I found several small pieces of broken pottery, lots of burnt animal bone, and rubble. He was right that there was nothing incredibly valuable.
After lunch I was taught how to survey with a GPS thing on a stick. My job was to go around to all of the areas that were actively being excavated, survey exactly where each tag from small finds was located, and then remove the tag. Somehow the surveying machine connects to a sattelite to pinpoint the area within 2cm. Often the surveying on site is done in a less technological way, when two people are needed in two seperate places on site, to compare distances and measure with a laser. The sattelite GPS thing was very interesting.
That was my job for the rest of the day. About two hours before quitting time, a man sat down on one of our rubble heaps, hooked up an acoustic guitar to a mobile amplifier, and started singing and playing blue-grass. That was a very odd combination of music and scenery. They just didn't go together, but he was quite good and no one seemed to mind him. Later I found out that he is a friend of the site director, Nick and that he is from Salem, Oregon like the kids from my school. I also learned that Nick's favorite music is apparently blue-grass. That is not at all what I would have guessed.

Week 2 and the Evil Supervisor

The weekend was fun. Since most of you are probably more interested in the dig, I'll be brief about it. Saturday I slept in until about 10 in the morning and it felt so good! After that I went on a walk with one of my friends, and we explored Stromness, or at least one street of it, (which is really a fairly large percentage in this case.)
We bought a few souvenirs for family and friends at home, and we ate out for the first time since being here. We had a very nice day. When we got back to the hostel around 3, I fought with my "international phone" which is neither successful at being international, or a phone since it won't receive calls. I also tried to find out about church, and how to get there. I found the last name of the man I needed to contact for that information, but when I looked in the phone book, there were six different numbers for that name. I started at the top of the list. Luckily that was his brother, so eventually things worked out there.
Sunday, as you might have assumed, I went to church. They do not have a building for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here, so they meet in a small room, down an alley. There were 5 other people there besides myself and four of them were on the program. Their hymns were acompanied by a CD player, and I was younger than all of them by at least 25 years. All of that was really neat and I had a great time. I don't think I will be able to go this Sunday because we may be taking a field trip, but I do not know where we are going yet.
On to the dig today... Now that I have been moved to structure 14, I have a new supervisor. I was working right next to a student who goes to the Orkney college here, who has been on 2 dig this sumer already and working on this one since the season started. He moved much faster than me, and the supervisor always complimented him on how well he was doing and how level and clean his surface was, then the supervisor would tell me that I was going too slowly and that it was expedient that we work quicky here (as if the stones hadn't been fine for the last 5 thousand years). Anyway, he said I should be clearing a square meter in about 10 minutes which is completely impossible! My professor said to me that he must have been joking, but he wasn't.
After that, I worked extremely fast and hard, trying to move along. I'm now excavating on what may be a wall, or stone paving. The supervisor is excited about that and I think that's why he is rushing us. Anyway, my back is extremely sore this evening and I truly hope that I can move in the morning. I'm literally concerned that I might not be able to. I hurt my back earlier this spring and was bed-ridden for several days. Now would be a bad time for that.
I didn't find much besides a few pieces of pottery and a lot of stones today. Today made me question my plan to be an archaeologist but I'll get over it.
Hoping that tomorrow will be a better day! Goodnight.

One Week Down (pics update)

Today I got to excavate the pottery that I discovered yesterday on the edge of the midden. It was in three rather large pieces, and after I had it fully cleaned and as much dirt away from it as possible, I got to lift it.
To lift pieces as large as these (about 4x4'') we work away dirt underneat it so it is on a thinpedistal, then try to cut through the pedistal without any of the pottery cracking or crumbling. Martin said not to worry about it if they cracked, because it would be very difficult to get them up without it, but I did it. He was pleased. (Martin is the site supervisor of the midden. He is the one who gave us the lecture on the Iron age Brochs in Scotland. An AMAZINGLY cool lecture.)
When my pot was free and the ground under it had been leveled and cleaned, I had nothing more to do in the midden so I was moved to work in structure 14 which is newly excavated this year. Last year it was just a bunch of grass. The level of structure 14 is only down about a foot from the surface. Since I was moved, I'm now working with people who are notin my group from Willamette. Most of them are nice, but some of them are a little stand-offish because we are foreign. At least 70-80% of the workers on site are foreign, so they should lighten up, but I understand their feeling. They couldn't do it without outside help, but they wish they could.
Today was the first day that it actively rained on us. It rained fairly hard for a while,, but not enough to "abandon site" as the site director calls it. If the dirt gets muddy, then the previously visible striations in the ground become smeared together and we cannot see how the site has shifted since the Ness was built. The striations are a big part of making sense of what we uncover.
All the others are watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics but I'm tired and would rather sleep than watch them. I can always find the best bits online later. I don't know what I will do tomorrow during the day, but most of us are going to go out to dinner and to a pub tomorrow night. I don't drink, but it would just be wrong to be in Scotland and not go to the pubs. They are social centers more than somewhere to just get alcohol. We can do that at the grocery store.

Also, I have uploaded my pictures on my computer and found out how to upload onto my blog posts, but for some reason they are not actually loading. I suspect it is because the internet is extremely stressed tonight because it is a Friday night.

Less sore?

Hello all. :) Today when I woke up I was a little less sore. I couldd get out of bed in 5 minutes instead of 15! It seems to be the general consesus of my group that our muscles are getting a little better. This is like Archaeology Boot Camp!
Today I didn't find much. A few pieces of pottery and a few pieces of "cramp" which is a "vitreous slag-like material" which is probably the remains of burned sea-weed and fat, human or otherwise. (For other information on this, visit the following website:  sasaa.co.uk/oja_cramp.pdf  There is a really neat article here.)
I did find several large pieces of pottery which I haven't uncovered yet. Tomorrow I will borrow a leaf trowel and get to see how well those are preserved and if they will stay in tact as I remove them.
The scenery here is beautiful. My hostel looks out over a small bay where we can see seals and swans in the water. Either yesterday or the day before two swans floated by in the fresh -water loch next to the Ness. They had three ducklings which were, indeed, ugly. They were cute though. It's barely 8 oclock but I want to sleep. This is surprisingly difficult manual labor. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to tell you all tomorrow. Maybe I will even have enough sleep to upload some pictures.

Goodnight

Decorated Pot and Worked Flint

The weather was back to cool, breezy, and overcast today. (Yesterday it was sunny and almost too hot for me, but luckily I didn't get a sunburn.) It is now sunny which is apparently rare.
I was working in the same place today. I didn't find anything too exciting today except for a piece of decorated pot, and a piece of flint that was obviously a chip from some tool. The piece of pottery I got was about 3x2 inches. It's back was up, so it was the first thing I uncovered. after I realized it was more than just a little chip, I switched to using a small "leaf trowel" and excavated a little more carefully until I was able to lift it out and brush the dirt off of the back side. Then I found the ridge of decoration. It was pretty neat because I discovered, and excavated the entire thing all alone, unlike the large piece I was working on yesterday.
Toward the end of the day I was moved to another section of the midden and on my second trowel full, I found a nice chip of flint that our supervisor said was very nice.
I'm good at recognizing worked pieces of stone, thanks to my background of arrow-head hunting, but distinguishing pottery from stone from burnt stone, is more difficult for me. I'm starting to figure it out though.
We are attending a lecture this evening given by one of the professional archaeologists who works on site with us. I'm not sure what the lecture will be on, but possibly iron-age brocks. That is apparently this guy's expertise.

P.S. Pics on Other Blog

I forgot to mention that there is a daily site blog also, if anyone is interested. I mentioned it in my preface. Willamette students were featured on the page from yesterday and I'm in the picture on the post. Of course my eyes were closed. On today's page both my piece of pottery and the horizontal decorated piece are featured as "finds-of-the-day" but not the best one. Apparently someone found a flint knife. He had to upstage us :p
The website is orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar On today's post there is a picture of the decorated pottery, but it is mostly a picture of Jo, the girl who is working on it. The pottery is difficult to see. There is no picture of my find on their blog, but I took a few and will try to add them later.

Big pot!

Hello all! I just finished with the second day of our excavations. Most of us, including me, were working in the same place we were yesterday, but moving backward on a level to reveal more stuff. Yesterday the tip of some pottery was poking out from my area, but it was sturdy and attached to something still in the ground. Today I got to work on it, as I finished leveling in front of it. I went down several more inches and it is a very large clay vessel of indefinate size. At it's tallest point so far, it is about 2 inches from the ground! If it were an entire piece, (which is very unlikely, especially since it is in the midden,) its diameter would be about 1.5feet. It appears to be standing nearly up-right, at about an 80-85 degree angle. The inside of the vessel is painted black with slip, which was a mixture of clay and water that turns different colors when fired. The outside is the orange color, that i think is natural of this clay, or at least after this clay has been fired.
All that is neat, but what I found to be the coolest thing about it is that it is preserved so well in most places, that you can feel the finger indentations from where the people made it. They are shallow, presumably because the artist didn't want them to be visible, but I'm very glad that they are.
The site supervisors and important people on site are all excited about it. Throughout the day as I cleared bits of it, supervisors came by and made sure I was doing everything alright. They were all pleased with how careful I as with it, although I don't know why they would expect anyone to NOT be careful with a 5,000 year old pot. Anyway, it was great because I love that careful, little work.
Unfortunately when we make the next pass at that strech of land, we are going to excavate down around the pot while keeping it encased in a square of soil. This way it can be "lifted" from the site and extracted in a more careful environment. That means I probably won't get to work on it again, but that's OK. I'm glad I got to work on it so much today.
Another really neat find today was made by another girl from our group, also working in the midden. She found a large piece of pottery laying horizontally on the ground. I didn't get as close a look at it as I did with mine, but it seemed to be about 1 foot square. While the size is neat in itself, the piece was even more special--it had sculped decorations made in clay. From what I saw, there was a pattern that looked like a piece of twine that is twisted together to make it bind. There were several other raised decorations, but I didn't get much time to examine them.
I'm very sore. This morning as we were walking out to the site, a friend of mine mentioned that she was sore, and when I said I was too, she was relieved that she wasn't the only one. She had been thinking that maybe she was just a wimp, which is crazy since she is a college swimmer. I was also relieved, because I didn't seem like such a wimp because she was sore too.My knees, elbows, and palms are bruised and excavating was painful today, but it was still really neat.
I took pictures today,, both of the pot I was working on, and the setting. Again, I'm not going to upload them yet. By the time we get back from the dig, we are all exhausted. We have time to all take showers, all eat dinner, and then about an hour or two left if we want to get a decent amount of sleep. After work today I walked to the small co-op here and picked up more food for lunches and dinners. We are all in charge of our own food.

Goodnight. :)

Excavations today!

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!

Orkney!

Hello all! I reached the Orkney mainland last night at 11pm. My flights took me from Boise to Minniapolis, to Paris, then I found out that my flight from Paris to Aberdeen, Scotlad was canceled because of strike! So I was re-routed to Dublin, then to Aberdeen. Because of the flight changes, I had very little time to make it to my ferry, so I was wworried about that when I finally got to Aberdeen. I went to collect my luggage and it didn't come. Neither did the luggage of any of the other people who were re-routed through Dublin. I gave the Airline my email, since it is my only form of communication, then I set out for the ferry. I made it in time and rode it for 6 hours to Kirkwall, Orkney. I met two young men, one from Wales and one from Manchester and we talked the entire time about differences in our languages and I learned lots of British sayings. I had a goo time but was exhausted. My professor picked me up, along with another student who was apparently on the ferry with me. Luckily there was still a store open at 11pm so we went by for me to buy some underwear--or "pants" as they are called in the UK-- shampoo, and some pjs. Thankfully I brought all of the absolutely necessary things in my carry on. (retainer, pills, tooth brush and paste) (Good to think ahead, Eric ;) Got to sleep 56 hours after leaving Boise. I was so tired. Definitely not enough sleep. Today me and the 12 other college students got to take a tour of this island. We went to Skara Brae which is a Neolithic settlement very similar to the one that we will be excavating at the Ness of Brodgar. It was amazing. Their houses were inside of hills, kind of like the Hobbits' homes, except there were tunnels all over. Also, they had a rather complex indoor drainage system for a toilet. They had jewelry and made art work. We got to see a lot of that at the museum there. We viewed several other neolithic sites and ruins. We also got to go to a cathedral called St Magnus' Cathedral. It dates back to the 12th century! It is still in use today. It was breath taking. I took lots of pictures, but you can probably find better ones online. I'm tired and I need to catch up on some sleep I'll try to upload pictures later. :) I'm so excited. If the weather cooperates, tomorrow we will go to the site and start our excavtions. Our professor says we will be dirty by lunch time, so we're going to get right to it!

Adventures in Orkney- Preface

Hello everyone! I'm working out some kinks with this old blog so that I can keep a public record of my upcoming trip to Scotland. I'll be excavating at the Ness of Brodgar site in the Orkney islands. (Visit this website for more information: orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar/ I leave on a big steel bird on Friday, the 20th and return to the States a month later, then it's off to school, so I will be unable to share my experienes in person with everyone. I hope to post here every day, or at least every other day. I also hope to be able to upload pictures, but since I haven't tried to do that from my tablet yet, I'm not sure I will have the time to figure it out. I wish you all well. Be sure to tell me if you can't see this post so that I can address the problem immediately. ;)