The Accidental Archaeologist

Marooned

We’re reaching the end of our dig now, and the last couple of days have been one helluva ride. Wednesday afternoon was a wash, as I mentioned, and TS Ida blew in Wednesday night with tons of rain and wind. We thought Thursday would be a write-off, too, but we were fortunate to only catch the outer bands of the weather, which meant some downpours, but by mid-morning Thursday we marched back into the field.

Since time was running short, we decided a change of strategy was in order, so we skipped to a place we were the most interested in. I so wish I could tell y’all the details of the unit we dug there, but I can’t post such things online. Let me just say, we found enough to warrant a further look. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that this will be my PhD project. I can’t wait until we reach a point that I can tell y’all more.

So, since I can’t talk about the trench, I guess I’ll just tell y’all what’s going on right now. Yesterday (Friday) was the last full day of digging, when we finished up our good unit with the water table rising by the second. I ended up at one point in the bottom of a 1m deep trench, up to my ankles in muddy water, with the mayor of Bideford next to me covered in mud. It was a bit surreal. We had to employ a sump pump just to keep the water at bay enough to finish excavation. The flooding’s been pretty bad down here. We’re a little worried about getting Mark back to the airport today, since we may be cut off by the flooding.

Despite the circumstances, though, we have to make a valiant effort at getting him to his flight. In about half an hour, I’ll be climbing in the 4WD for the long trip to the airport, and we’ll have to hope the state DOT will let us try to plow through. Keep your fingers crossed. Then I come back tonight to do some more wrapping up. Our crew will be finishing another unit in my absence today, and I’ll come back to help them wrap that up. Then it’s a long night of recording the rest of our finds, drawing a few of the better pieces, photos galore, and making sure everything’s stored properly here in town.

One cool thing that’s come out of this project is the potential for community involvement. This is a small town, and, unfortunately, because of the potential for archaeology here, the locals in the past have been burned by outsiders coming in to do so-called “archeaology” which amounts to no more than a treasure hunt. Whatever goods are found are taken away for “analysis” and are never seen again. We find this kind of conduct unethical and just plain wrong. Because of past events, though, it’s been tough to win the trust of the locals and landowners we’ve been dealing with. In order to legitimize our presence and gain support for our approach, we’re taking things very carefully. For one thing, none of the artifacts are leaving the local area unless they need special conservation or testing. Also, we’re leaving behind the beginnings of a local committee to whom we can give regular reports of our progress and through whom we can get approval for plans and decisions. We’ve been very careful to ensure absolute transparency and accountability for everything we’ve done so far, and this seems to have gone a long way in winning their trust. We’ve also used a little common sense. When we got to a new property, we take some time to talk to the landowner, joke around a bit, make sure they come out and see work in progress and explain every step of the work. It’s really done the trick. And best of all, we’re leaving a group who have now seen how professional archaeologists are really supposed to operate, and are more determined than ever to keep the other “archaeologists” out of the area.

UPDATE: Just got news that we are completely stranded for the next 24 hrs or so. The road here is completely cut off and no ferries are running. We’re well and truly stuck. Gotta run now. Will update more later.

Hurricane? What hurricane?

Let me just say, y’all, that I did a lot of thinking about when would be the best time to travel to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and the one thing I was concerned about was hurricane season. We talked about traveling over in September, but I said, “No, that’s a risky time of year…plus, it’s HOT.” We couldn’t do October, so November was the only option. I said, “Great. That’s the end of hurricane season…we shouldn’t have a problem.” THAT statement has come back to haunt me.

We found ourselves yesterday evening huddled on the porch of the hotel watching horizontal sheets of apocalyptic rain roar past. We were told this chaos had been named Tropical Storm Ida. Hmmm. We had managed to work a bit until about lunch time, but the last couple of days had become increasingly more demoralizing, with test pits yielding almost nothing diagnostic, and the dawning realization that each one was a futile attempt to dig through meters and meters of sand dune. At lunchtime, we downed tools to head back to the hotel, but there was no going back to the field for the rest of the day. It was water, water everywhere. We sat in my room glued to the Weather Channel and becoming more and more glum. One of our party had to pack up in a hurry and get off the island because the threat of flooding meant she would be cut off when she wanted to leave. In fact, the road did get washed out last night, and we were officially cut off.

I did have one particularly horrifying experience yesterday afternoon during the beginning of the storm. Mark had convinced me to drive out to Cape Hatteras to take a look at the surf, which was building ahead of the storm. We have a little 4WD Rav4 as our rental car, so he was keen to go drive on the beach. I was dead-set against it, but I said I would go down to the foot of the ramp just to humour him. Unfortunately, getting the bottom of the ramp put me in deep, wet sand, and I was terrified that stopping to turn around would guarantee I got stuck. So, I had no choice but to keep driving along the beach until I could find a spot to turn around. It was white-knuckle time. I was cursing and praying with my hands glued to the wheel as we madly swerved and bucked through the sand, Mark giggling madly and saying wasn’t this great? I was shaking by the time we topped the ramp once more and got back on terra firma. Never again.

OK, gotta get out of here now. Don’t have time to say much about today, but I’ll fill y’all in more tomorrow. Let’s just say we had the best day of digging yet, and we may have found enough for me to justify my continued presence on this project. But, more of that later…

Sandy glory

It’s now the end of Day Two of digging. We’ve made some good progress. Haven’t found anything earth-shattering, but a few smatterings of stuff here and there. Day One was still a small crew of just four of us, but we moved pretty quickly through one 2m X 2m trench. We’ve been trying to keep a pretty low profile since we’d rather this effort not become too public too quickly, but we’d barely set foot out of the truck Monday morning when one of the neighbors drives up and asks what we’re doing there. We explained the best we could, and he seemed mollified when we told him we had been asked to come in by a local. Small towns being as they are, though, I’m pretty sure word’s going to get around pretty quickly now.

I did a hard day’s work on Monday, and it was with a big sense of relief that I downed tools at the end of the day and packed up the truck to head back to the hotel. As soon as I’d washed up, I flopped in an armchair with wet hair, clean clothes, and a cold Yuengling and declared I was going to quietly expire. It was only 6:30. Since I had cooked on Sunday night, Mark very generously offered to head out for more provisions to make spaghetti carbonera. I handed over the car keys without a whimper, and sipped my beer in the hum of the air conditioner in absolute bliss (with the occasional swat to a mosquito).

By this morning, things had become routine. Get up at 6:30, head across the street to do some internet at 7:00, breakfast at 8:00, wheels rolling at 8:30. We returned to the same site and dug two more trenches, with very little coming out of them. Tropical Storm Ida has had us pretty worried, what with all the wind and rain that’s supposed to hit the coast in the next couple of days. Nothing we can do about it, though, but wait and see. Our reinforcements showed up in the late morning in the form of three more people, including the mayor of Bideford (Andy). Everyone was extremely excited and jumped right in to dig. That was a relief to me, since I’m already sore and blistered from such a long period not working in the field.

We moved to another location after lunch and started a more promising trench there. The two little kids of property owner came down at one point with their grandmother to see what was going on in their back yard. They were very excited, of course, to find out there was some real archaeology going on, so I couldn’t resist letting them get down in the trench with little trowels to dig a little. It made for good PR anyway, since their dad showed up from work not long after, and was very pleased to see that his kids were getting involved. We didn’t finish that trench before dark, so we left it open to come back to another day.

This evening we all went out for some local seafood. It’s been awhile since I’ve had such food, so I got a heaping plate of shrimp and oysters and hush puppies. It was all wonderful. We talked about family histories most of the evening, and it was kinda fun to find out who was related to what famous people and whose relatives may have crossed paths with each other. Now I’m back at the hotel, though, and absolutely knackered, so I think it will be lights out at 9:00 or so. Tomorrow will be more work, probably in the rain. We can’t afford to miss a single day, even if it’s pouring out. Can’t wait.

Touchdown

Just a brief post to say Howdy. We landed in the US yesterday afternoon, and, by some miracle, made it through US immigration without Mark being detained, despite his passport full of visa stamps in Arabic from places like Iran and the UAE. It was a long drive down the Outer Banks, but we got a sporty little Rav4 4WD (just like my trusty old Queequeg!), and I drove quite happily on the right side of the road, for once. When we arrived at our little motel, our host Scott was really eager to greet us and start showing us a little museum of a collection he has on display. It was all interesting, but we were a little shell-shocked and jet-lagged, so we begged off after a few minutes and retired to our rooms.

I’m in a little one room efficiency with a kitchen and small living room in half of it, and a bed and TV in the other half. Sadly, no internet there, but I’m in a little restaurant across the street now having a morning coffee & wifi. To sum up yesterday: mainly just a tour of the island, our possible sites, and an in-depth idea of local politics. This is gonna be a tricky one, y’all. Can’t go into much detail there, but let’s just say it’s very fortunate that we have a combination of a British professor, who has absolutely no agenda with any governmental agency or American university, and myself, who can somewhat fit in with the coastal Carolina environment and not appear to be too much of an outsider.

Today we start digging! We’re looking at possibly opening up a 2meter X 2meter test pit on each of four different sites around the island. Right now, we have one other member of our little group here, a DNA researcher named Roberta. She’s quite keen (as is Scott) to get started, so between the four of us, we should make a good start today. The rest of the gang arrive early tomorrow morning, and we should be digging through Friday.

The weather is (as always) gorgeous here. I had forgotten how nice it is to walk around in a T-shirt in late fall. The only problem right now is the incessant onslaught of the mosquito, but I’m sure I’ll stop noticing them soon. It’s good to be back in such a familiar environment, though, and everyone’s been so friendly, I’m feeling right at home already. It’s been fun introducing Mark (my tutor) to some of the more specifically Southern things like grits. He insisted on getting some Budweiser at the grocery store last night, so I’m thinking I might have to started calling him “Bubba.” He finds that very amusing.

OK, I think I’m outstaying my welcome here. Must post this and get ready for the field. I’ve put a few photos up on my Flickr stream. The links are posted on Twitter & Plurk. Will try to send y’all some more tomorrow!

Westward to Glory

I’ve gotten a request by a loyal and extremely persistent friend (yes, John, that would be you) to post an explanation of what the next week has in store for me, so that y’all will be up to speed on the random tweets and status messages you may be seeing in the upcoming days. It has been tough to keep folks updated lately with the podcast temporarily derailed. Oh yeah, guess I should explain that, too…

Y’all may recall mention last month (or was it earlier?) of a burglary in my flat which resulted in the loss of my computer. Unfortunately, though it was my older laptop, all of my website data was stored on it via iWeb. That has meant that I can’t resume podcasting until I completely redo the website on my current computer and re-upload all of the contents. This may take awhile. In the meantime, I hope to be able to use this simpler medium of Tumblr to keep updating as often as I can. Luckily, I can post photos, video, and even audio here, so this may will probably be the spot for updates during my trip.

So what’s all this about a trip, you may ask?

Well, y’all are probably aware at this point that my continued presence in the UK is due to my having been picked up for a PhD at my current university, Bristol. I officially started at the beginning of October, but my topic has been a little up in the air. I was originally going to expand upon my masters thesis topic of rigging and sails, but my tutor proposed a slightly different plan a couple of months ago. He was offered the opportunity to investigate a few sites on an island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina which may be related to the Lost Colony of Roanoke. He had agreed to make a short trip to do a little survey and see if it was a viable site for excavation, but he suggested I come along as “the grad student,” and, if there was a big project to be had, I could take that on for my PhD. Essentially, a dissertation on Elizabethan New World colonization. I was game, but a little skeptical of the outcome of this survey. Still am. I agreed when I was told that we had enough funding to get us to the States and back and pay for everything while we’re there.

Here, though, I should pause and explain the Lost Colony for any non-Americans, or those who just fell asleep during that particular history class. Most folks are familiar with Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the current USA, with a founding date of 1607 and the colony name of Virginia. Virginia was actually founded more than twenty years before that, though, in the present day North Carolina and started at a place called Roanoke Island. Sir Walter Raleigh famously backed a handful of expeditions to this area, the most significant being a group of over 100 English settlers who set up a fortified village on Roanoke Island in 1587 under the governership of John White. It was only a few months later that they started encountering hardships with unfriendly tribes and supply shortages. John White decided to head back to England with many of the settlers for more supplies and people. Unfortunately, before his ships could make it out of England for the return voyage, the Spanish Armada attacked in 1588, and Raleigh’s ships were probably conscripted. As a result, White didn’t make it back until 1590, and, when he did, he found the settlement deserted with no sign of violence but also not much of a clue as to what happened to the settlers. It has remained one of the biggest mysteries in America to this day.

One of the problems for archaeologists in solving this mystery is that we don’t even know the exact site of the original settlement. We know it was on Roanoake Island near the present-day town of Manteo, and it has long been thought that the earthworks named Fort Raleigh were made by these settlers. Current thinking, though, suggests that these earthworks are more likely from the French and Indian War 150 years later. The original settlement could very well be underwater at this point. The other problem is that there are several possible scenarios for what happened to the colonists. Some think they moved inland, possibly toward the Great Dismal Swamp. Some think they moved but were then wiped out by the unfriendly tribes. Others think they may have moved to another island to live with a friendly tribe, the Croatoans. This last theory is the one we are looking at.

The Croatoan indians had a few villages on Croatan island (just west of the present-day Cape Hatteras). The settlers had been left with a small ship called a “pinnace” for use while the others were gone, so they could have relocated to another island. Surprisingly, only one excavation has ever been carried out on this island, and the results were not totally conclusive. One of the most important finds was a signet ring, but it wasn’t totally diagnostic. Since then, some landowners have occasionally picked up artifacts on their property, and one has become convinced that some of these artifacts may be Elizabethan. This is where we come in.

Cut to southwest England for a minute. There is evidence that several of Raleigh’s voyages left from the port town of Bideford in North Devon. The current mayor of Bideford started researching the Lost Colony thirty years ago as a young man curious about his family history. He found out that he may be a descendant of one of the 1587 colonists. When he became mayor of Bideford last year, he started to look for ways to promote his town and thought looking into its connection to the Lost Colony might be the key. He was in touch with a group of in the States, and the possibility of investigating this new evidence on Croatan island came up, at which point he contacted my tutor to see if he might be interested in coming in as the archaeological expert to see if the sites were viable. Since that first mention, things started to move pretty quickly. A local benefactor was found to fund a week’s survey, and I suddenly found myself up to my ears in books about Raleigh and Roanoke and the Lost Colony.

So here’s the plan…

My tutor and I board a plane tomorrow morning, which will touch down in Norfolk, Virginia that evening. From there, we pick up a rental car and drive the 3 1/2 or so hours to just past Hatteras. We’ll spend Sunday and Monday doing a little recce of the possible sites and formulating a plan of attack. By Monday night or Tuesday morning, the troops arrive in the form of a half dozen or so enthusiastic volunteers with varying levels of expertise on the subject. Among our eager team will be the mayor of Bideford himself, who has been warned that he shouldn’t bring his business suit, ‘cause he’ll be shoveling dirt like the rest of us! We should spend Tuesday through Friday doing the actual survey work, which could include, for example, a couple of 2 meter X 2 meter test pits or collection of artifacts scattered on the surface or something along those lines. My tutor returns to England Saturday, but the others will stay on until Sunday, so I may get one more day of work of them. After that’s done, it’s just a matter of analyzing what we find. If we come across some convincing piece of evidence, I’ll more than likely take over further work as my PhD project, and that may mean several more visits back to the States in the future. We’ll just have to see.

Unfortunately, I have no assurance that we’ll have regular internet access where we’re staying this week. If I can manage it, I will certainly try to send out regular updates of the project. If not, then I’ll be home in Charleston, South Carolina the following week, and will have to work my way through a bunch of uploads after-the-fact. One warning: for reasons that may be apparent, I will have to be a little bit guarded about specific details about this project. For instance, I will probably not generally publish information that specifies exactly where we’re working or the details of individual artifacts. This is mostly to protect the landowners and the sites. That being said, I’ll do my best to give y’all as much detail as I am reasonably able.

So the adventure begins tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll be back online soon and will have lots to tell y’all!