The Accidental Archaeologist
The official on-the-go adventure blog
Yes, I know…I’m not keeping up with this the way I should. The last few days of archaeology are easy to sum up, though: dig the sand, dig the sand, dig the sand. There you go. From Saturday to Tuesday weren’t very productive in terms of archaeology…actually quite disappointing. Tuesday to yesterday were a bit better, but most of what we found confirmed our findings from last year, so nothing earth-shattering. I’ve had some really aggravating “mum and dad fighting” moments with Mark on the edge of the trench. We’re still having a tug-of-war over doing it the American way vs. doing it the British way. I keep trying to explain to him that just because he thinks the American way is stupid doesn’t make it any less necessary in order to produce a comprehensible American site report! The last couple of days, though, we’ve managed to compromise on most things and peace and tranquility rules the trench edge now.
Other than the archaeology, we’ve been having a splendid time. The return UK students (who dug with us last year) are staying up the road and quite happy with a pool table and hot tub (Jo [one of this gang and who is reading over my shoulder] says “hey y’all”). Plus, they’re all old enough to legally buy their own alcohol. The gang in my house (basically “headquarters”) have been having just as much fun with a big, comfortable space to spread out in and a beach just down the road. The noise level most evenings is unbelievable…it’s like being perpetually immersed in a big slumber party…but everyone’s getting along famously. I think I shall just have to resign myself to the intense level of chatty excitement for the whole of the two weeks, and then just spend three days lying very still in a quiet, dark room when I get back to England.
I’m really enjoying being a Southerner again for awhile. My accent has changed dramatically since I got back here and I find myself saying things like “puppy DAWG” (of the giant, fat yellow Lab next door) and “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.” Those of you back in England would be highly amused if you could hear me. I’ve been amusing myself by playing country music for the gang on the way to and from the site and singing along enthusiastically. There have been introductions to new types of food like hush puppies, grits, and American biscuits (if you’re British and have no idea what I’m talking about, maybe I’ll make some for you some time). We haven’t yet rounded out our Southern experience with a snake sighting yet, but there have already been a couple of brown recluses (poisonous spiders) and quite a few ticks. I think all of the students will go back to England with a whole new appreciation for the mild, harmless countryside there.
Despite the new stuff, the students have been adapting surprisingly well. Many of them can already do a passable “Hi, y’all” and they’ve learned that a forecast for rain doesn’t mean a light English sprinkling. We had some storms pass through a few days ago, but it was the typical southeast storms with sudden squalls, gale-force winds, and apocalyptic downpours. As usual, Mark and I argued about going out and working until it hit. Obviously, I was against the idea, but Mark won and we managed about 20 mins of work before the first few heavy drops saw him running for the car yelling “Pull stumps!” I just gave my best “I told you so” eye roll and joined the general rush in the sudden downpour to get everyone to safety before the lightning started up. Needless to say, we stayed safe and dry in the house after that until the skies cleared.
The one continuing surprise is that Mark has managed to remain a perfectly law-abiding citizen…going the speed limit through town, even though it’s 25mph on a main road where it’s easy to unintentionally go faster. We haven’t had a single brush with the law this week, which I can only say has me absolutely baffled. Now, if only we can all manage to make it off the island at our intended time next week without a hurricane, volcano, or other natural disaster trapping us here, we will have pulled off a startlingly normal bit of fieldwork. I know, shocking. However, our American portion of the team have already taken bets on what strange circumstance will trap us here this time, and I’m guessing their predictions range from freak blizzard to plague of locusts.
Right, that’s all the time I’ve got for this post. My parents are making a brief visit tomorrow to see their daughter in action. I’m really looking forward to this, since they rarely get to see either of us twins at work. My mum has promised not to tell any embarrassing stories from my childhood and has even gone as far as to check that her intended wardrobe is appropriately field-savvy. I will be sure to send along an update after their visit to let y’all know how it goes. For now, though, there is a lovely breakfast waiting downstairs and I need another cup of coffee to get me jump-started for the day.
I’m sure there were a few concerns when a new blog post hadn’t appeared in the last couple of days. I’m afraid it’s because there just wasn’t really anything to report. I woke up bright and early Wednesday morning ready to get started talking to landowners and surveying different areas and then looked out the window to see pouring rain and skies like lead. It was also FREEZING cold. I didn’t mind too much for one day, because I just thought I’d take advantage of a rainy day to get my paperwork out of the way. Unfortunately, the rainy day stretched into three days of pouring rain, thunderstorms and wind. Good news: got a LOT of paperwork out of the way; bad news: didn’t get any survey done.
That brings me to Friday when all of my fellow Brits were flying in to Norfolk. I took off at around 13.30 with one other crew member in two vehicles for the 3.5 hr drive to Norfolk. This is when things started to fall apart. I had received a text message at about 03.00 that morning saying that a few of the students were delayed getting out of Heathrow, and wouldn’t arrive until about 19.30. That was OK, since there was one other coming in at the same time. As I was driving to Norfolk, though, both my UK and US phones started going nuts with text messages and calls from various students stuck in various airports all over the eastern US. It was grim. I’m not sure why air traffic decided to have a meltdown on Friday, but flights were being delayed and cancelled all over the place, and many of my crew were stuck in the madness. When I got to the airport, one large gang arrived only half an hour late, and this included Mark. I told them the bad news about the delays of the rest, but then we realised that everybody could go in one vehicle back to Hatteras while Mark and I waited behind for the rest. One bright spot in the whole mess: a five-hour uninterrupted meeting with my supervisor…quite a handy thing these days.
By this time, we’d received enough details to realise that most of the delayed crew weren’t actually coming in until after 22.00. I was starving, so Mark managed to talk the rental car guys into letting him pick up his car later, and we jumped into my shiny black car (which I have decided to call Shadow) to head to downtown Norfolk in search of dinner. I haven’t been to that part of town in about five years, so my memory of geography is a little hazy. That coupled with my negative sense of direction on land and a stunningly unhelpful road map made for a rather aggravating drive into town, but we eventually found the waterfront and chucked the car into a parking garage. As it was still light, we took a stroll down to the Nauticus centre to take a look at the USS Wisconsin. Of course, as soon as we got to the dock, I noticed some shiny wooden masts with a very distinct rake to them poking up from behind Wisconsin’s bow. “That,” I informed Mark, “can only be one of two ships: Amistad or Pride of Baltimore II. Those are the only ones with masts raked back so far, you wonder how they’re still standing.” Sure enough, we rounded the corner of the dock and saw the smart black hull of Pride of Baltimore II. Mark was quite keen to take a ton of photos of Wisconsin and Pride in the light of the setting sun, but eventually we strolled over to the other side of the dock to see what was going on onboard Pride. As we were standing there, Capt Jan Miles came up on dock, but he wasn’t inclined to chat and I couldn’t expect him to remember a potential deckhand he interviewed 15 years ago. There was a very friendly crewmember named Andrew on deck, though, and I chatted with him for quite awhile. We have a mutual friend now working on Lynx which is currently in Wilmington, NC, and we had a lively talk about tall ship work and archaeology while Mark wandered off to take more photos.
Eventually, though, we had to tear ourselves away and go in search of some food. After a bit of wandering past lots of dark windows, we found an Irish pub to stop at. It was a bit run-down and fairly empty, but the food was cheap and they gave us unlimited coffee refills. We chowed down, drank about a gallon of coffee, and strategised about my thesis, this dig, and the upcoming teaching year. Mark has a plan for an undergrad class next fall that I’m keen to help out on, but more details on that once I know if it’ll happen or not.
We got back to Norfolk airport around 22.00 to the news that the delayed flight was only just boarding in Newark, and it’d be at least an hour before they made it to us. Two of our missing crew made it in before that, and I eventually found myself stretched out on the floor next to the wall of baggage claim with my arm slung wearily over my eyes trying to get “a bit of a kip” (as Mark put it). Our final four stumbled off the plane at around 23.00, beyond tired and walking like zombies. Mark & I practically threw them in the cars (Mark managed to snag a silver Chevy HHR) and took off for Hatteras. And then a miracle happened. Many of you will remember Mark’s brushes with law enforcement last year due to his inability to do anything less than twice the speed limit. I’ve lectured, threatened, and cajoled him numerous times in the lead-up to this trip about the dangers of getting pulled over one more time, but I didn’t really hold out any hope that he would actually pay any attention and slow down. Here’s the thing…he actually followed the speed limit. I know this because he left ahead of me and I went the speed limit, but he only arrived a minute or two ahead of me. I was stunned. We may have converted the guy (finally!). I just hope it’ll stick.
Yesterday was the first day of work. Not much to say there. Spent the morning freaking the new students out with a talk on all of the things that are out to kill you on this island. Their eyes were HUGE by the end of this talk. We didn’t get into the field until lunchtime, and most of the rest of the afternoon was spent stringing out a trench and setting up a couple of test pits. Everyone swung into action quite quickly, and things went fairly smoothly. It’s now early morning of Dig Day 2, and I’m pretty sure a hearty Southern breakfast is about to be served up down in our camp kitchen under the house, so I’ll finish off this long post and get ready for another work day. It’s sunny and warming up, so things are looking brighter for this upcoming week.
I’ve finally made it to Cape Hatteras and the beginning of this year’s field project. I’ve spent the last hour or so settling into the rental house I’ll be sharing with ten other people, and, since I was the first to arrive, I got first choice of rooms. I’m happy to report that this place has wifi, so no more early mornings at the diner rushing through writing a blog so that I can post before we head out to the field. The house is quite big and comfortable, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a huge kitchen. We’ve even got a washer/dryer and a big porch out back. I think I shall like this place. I have set up command central at a big desk in a corner of the hall, at which I am now sitting to write this blog. A couple of other crewmembers are arriving shortly so we can have a chat and figure out what’s going on in the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, I suppose I should update y’all on the last couple of days. When I last posted, I had just made it to Charleston to visit my folks. It was a lovely visit, but all too brief. My mom’s birthday was on Sunday, so I pretty much hung around the house chatting and playing with the pets. We did the traditional cake & presents bit and spent the evening watching a Netflix video. Yes, the Pittmans really know how to party. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating this weekend, so my visions of a sunny Charleston were dashed. Instead, it was unusually cold and rainy. Just as well I didn’t need to spend much time outside.
Both of my parents had to go out to work on Monday, so I had a lazy morning of answering emails and planning for the weeks ahead. My dad had dropped off our dog, Topper, at the groomer in the morning, so he asked if I would go pick her up at mid-day. When I went in to fetch her, there was another customer at the counter, and, it being the South, we exchanged pleasantries and got to chatting. This is when I realised what a different environment I live in now that I’m overseas. At one point in the conversation, it came up that I live in England now. She brightened a bit and commented on what a great country and how I must love living there. I agreed. Then she looked very grave and said in a low voice, “And how’s the Muslim situation over there?”
*sigh* (head in hands)
The rest of the afternoon was spent doing the rounds downtown saying Hi to folks. I stopped by the Charleston Museum to see my undergrad field school instructors, Ron and Martha, who are archaeologists for the museum. After that, I was bound for the stables to see my “boys” at the carriage company. A lot of the horses I knew and worked with aren’t working anymore, but I did see a handful of old favourites like Buck, Ralph, and the adorable George along with a few new faces like Ike and Luke. It was good to stand in the stable again and get slobbered on by George. Brought back quite a few memories. Of course, no visit to the carriage company could be concluded without a visit ‘round the corner to Big Johns for a pint with the drivers. I ended up spending way longer than I intended, but I had such a good time catching up with them, I stopped watching the clock. As a result, I came home to parents already in their PJs and sitting in the living room reading and waiting up for me. I felt a bit like a guilty teenager who stayed out past my curfew. Luckily, they didn’t give me too hard a time, and they even fed me before heading off to bed.
My trip to Hatteras today was pretty uneventful. I got a late start from Charleston, so I tried not to linger along the way. It was a long, boring drive, but I’ve never minded solo road trips if I have an iPod to scream along with. It was finally sunny and gorgeous (yeah, AFTER I leave Charleston), and I actually enjoyed the drive. When I got to Hatteras, I found I was the first one here, so I picked up the key to our house and started to settle in. I’m starting to feel fairly optimistic about this dig. We’ve got a comfortable place to stay and lots more locals interested in what we’re doing. Let’s just hope I can keep Mark from getting arrested. It may be an uphill battle.
It may come as a surprise to some of y’all to see a new series of blog posts after such a long silence from the Accidental Archaeologist. It came as a surprise to me, too, when I looked up how long it had been since my last post. This is obviously a situation that needs fixing, and I have the perfect excuse…my next adventure has begun in the form of a three-week expedition back to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Yesterday, I dragged my weary self out of bed in my little English flat at 03.15 to get ready for an unbelievably long day of traveling. An hour later, braced with multiple cups of coffee and lugging a heavy duffel bag, I climbed into a taxi driven by an ancient and remarkably unintelligible driver to head for my 04.45 train to London. When I got to London Paddington, I found myself swept up in the tidal wave of morning commuters with suits and coffee cups and briefcases. Since I had plenty of time before my flight out of Heathrow, I decided to go cheap and take the Underground out there instead of spending the staggering sum of £18 for the luxury of the Heathrow Express (comfy train with free wifi). The first leg was fine on the District Line, but the Piccadilly Line out to Heathrow was absolutely packed with morning commuters, and I found myself for most of the ride standing over a young teacher, who was carefully ignoring the fact that I was practically in her lap and grimly marking a shockingly poorly-written essay on JFK. It was a relief to fight my way out of car at Heathrow and join the stream of folks heading for check-in.
My flight wasn’t until 11.30, so I found myself at the Virgin Atlantic check-in desk about four hours early. They didn’t seem to mind, though, and very cheerfully pointed me towards a self-service kiosk. Of course, my passport wouldn’t read in the scanner (it never does), so I was eventually helped by a ticket agent at a nearby computer station. I could see the screen, and I was amused to see that they still have to work in endless meaningless streams of code exactly the same as the “Deltamatic” system we used fifteen years ago when I worked (briefly) for Comair. She asked what kind of seat I wanted, and, when I asked for a window seat, she shook her head and looked grim. I looked over her shoulder and realised the only seats open were the dreaded middle seats in between the aisles. “But,” she said, “there are plenty of window seats still open in the extra legroom section. It’s an extra £30.” Having been briefed a couple of weeks ago by my twin on exactly how much legroom they’ve shaved out of the ordinary seats (essentially, it’s comfortable if you’re under 4’5”), I opted to splash out the extra money on not having my knees around my ears for 8+ hours.
Boy, was I glad I did that! I made it to the plane just in time after playing the usual Heathrow game of guess-the-gate. The screen didn’t announce which gate to go to until the flight was ready to start boarding, so we all did a mad dash down the terminal, went through another passport and boarding pass check, and arrived sweaty and panting on board. I was in the “purple seats,” and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had no seatmate. What a difference that makes on a transatlantic flight. I could stretch out across the seats with two blankets and two pillows. I could get up four times to go to the toilet without having to clamber over people. And best of all, I didn’t have to hold up my end of an inevitably wearing conversation with an overly chatty seatmate. The only downside to the flight was that it appeared to be Babypalooza. I counted no less than eight infants just in my part of the plane, and the two screamers were right across the aisle from me. But, if there’s one thing I’ve taken away from this trip across the Atlantic, if you’re flying Virgin Atlantic…pay for the purple seat!
Arriving in Dulles meant the now familiar series of lurching shuttles and shuffling lines. I got a friendly immigration officer (shock!) who was curious about what archaeology I was doing. I waited a small eternity at the bag belt for my duffel, and then finally dragged myself down to the shuttle bus for the rental car lot. Luckily, I’m a frequent customer with the car company, so I got to go straight to my car, a shiny black Chevy Malibu, and found the keys and paperwork waiting on the dashboard. I carefully and slowly made my way from the parking lot and came to the realisation that driving a US car with an automatic transmission is a dangerous move after weeks of driving lessons and test prep in the UK. I had a constant monologue going as I made my way from the airport into DC rush hour: “OK, stay on the right…no, that’s not the clutch, that’s the brake…the mirror’s on the other side…the fact that that guy is two inches from your bumper means he’s happy to see you…” It was a scary drive, but I finally made it to Alexandria, and gladly abandoned the car on the curb. IronT and I had a great dinner at a pub down the street called Bilbo Baggins and she amused me after we got back with episodes of a series I hadn’t yet started watching called Raising Hope. That lasted until about 21.30, when I suddenly hit the wall of jet lag and passed out on the living room sofa. She was kind enough to tiptoe away and let me have a long night’s sleep.
This morning, I hit the road for Charleston, South Carolina. It was a very boring and uneventful drive. The one highlight was a quick stop for lunch at a Waffle House in North Carolina. I haven’t been to a Waffle House since I moved to England, and it was good to see that nothing’s changed. I arrived at my parents’ house in Charleston well before dinner and ran up the steps to encounter a locked door and no response to my insistent banging. Too bad the dog is mostly deaf and didn’t rouse them with her barking. With a heavy sigh and some dark grumbling, I left my bags on the steps, trudged around the side yard, let myself in the back gate, and almost gave my mum a heart attack by bursting in the kitchen door complaining loudly about being locked out. It’s good to be back. Sadly, I’m only here for the briefest of stopovers to observe my mum’s birthday tomorrow, but then it’s off to the Outer Banks once more for another round of digging in this season’s major excavations. That will be the majority of this blog for the rest of this trip. I have a bunch of students from Bristol and, yes, my supervisor Mark Horton all joining me next weekend for two weeks of sandy glory. I will do my best to keep y’all updated via this blog. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy a small breather and a (hopefully) sunny stay in Charleston.
I’m afraid this trip has not been as blog-tastic as my last couple. I can only sincerely apologize for this and assure y’all that this has not been due to overwork, merely over-socializing. Let me see if I can sum up the boring parts of the last week-and-a-bit as briefly as possible…drawing. Lots and lots of drawing. I’ve drawn potsherds, I’ve drawn rusty bits of metal, I’ve drawn unidentifiable bits of crap. I can’t begin to describe how much fun this is (notice the sarcasm dripping from the screen at this point). The thing that has made the long eye-crossing days bearable has been the much more enjoyable evenings of hanging out with the rest of the crew. The crew this time around being much smaller has not in any way hindered our ability to be quite silly, giggly, and generally like a typical field crew after a long day of work. The French have provided us with a seemingly never-ending supply of beer for post-work downtime, and one crewmember with a guitar and a particularly good voice has made for pleasant spells in between the almost ceaseless stream of field stories we have been swapping for days now. That being said, I suppose I can mention a couple of events and such which have stood out in the last eight or nine days as particularly memorable:
Saturday was the first day the prof and I were in Delme, so we spent a lot of time running around meeting & greeting and generally getting settled. We also picked up the other three that evening when we went to Nancy with Monsieur K and his wife. The evening included an excellent dinner (actually, all of our dinners here have been excellent!) including raw oysters in town and then a sightseeing stroll around the old part of the city. Sunday through Friday were all pretty much just work days with most of our time spent inside the school. The weather has been gorgeous but extremely hot (for this part of Europe, at least) with temperatures nudging up towards 40C (100+F) and not a cloud in the sky. Thursday saw a good opportunity for us to have a barbeque up on the hill near the dig site, which was great, but pushed our combined fire-making and grilling skills to the extreme. Let’s just say tools were limited and obstacles to successfully cooking meat were numerous. We succeeded in the end, but darkness had already fallen by the time we got anything to eat. It must be noted, though, that looking out over the landscape toward Germany under a clear sky packed with stars is not one of the worst ways to spend an evening.
Friday was a big day, as that evening’s event was a lecture given by the prof to the local bigwigs and friends about the project so far. Naturally, the lecture was entirely in French, but skipping it would have been rude, so, when the time came, we set up our little “English-speaking” row in the very back corner and tried not to whisper too loud when we started getting restless. The lecture itself was about 45 min., but then there was a lengthy question time afterwards that seemed to stretch on for ages. When it was finally over, we dashed headlong out of the hot, stuffy lecture hall to the welcome breeze and sunshine outside and hoped it wouldn’t be too long before we headed across the street to our usual restaurant. It was already way past our usual dinner time. In the end, we made it there along with four extra French locals, including the loveable but absolutely insane digger driver from last year, Monsieur C and his wife. Sadly, my French had not progressed much more than the last time he saw me, so I was stuck with mainly smiling, nodding, and reminding him that not only was he a pilot but also “je suis une pilot.” He gets a kick out of this. Maybe someday I’ll actually make it up in his plane, but, given the way he drives a digger, that might be a frightening prospect.
On the subject of the restaurant, I should explain this post’s title. We eat at a great local restaurant every night. Every night we get a four-course meal. Every night it’s a different variety of excellent food…and every night we listen to the same horrifying soundtrack of easy-listening pan-pipe music. I could probably recite the whole song list for y’all at this point, but I’ll stick with a sample selection: The Sound of Silence, Hey Jude, Let It Be, and that Titanic song that’s been played so often it makes you want to jump off a bridge. All played in a slow, sappy way. All done on pan-pipes. It’s nightmare-inducing. In fact, we’ve heard this playlist so often, we now know that when “Shalom” comes on we must leave the restaurant. Our time is up. On Friday night, we were so long sitting chatting after dessert that we stayed past “Shalom,” and I was actually really worried about this. I was actually frightened to hear what might come next. As it was, there was an endless supply of more teeth-grinding songs to follow. It appears the torture is limitless.
One of our crew left on Saturday, which has reduced us to four, and Saturday also meant my second excursion to the grocery store in nearby Chateau Salins. Grocery store trips have been interesting, but not nearly as frightening as I imagined they would be. I go in armed with cash and our one crewmember who is fluent in French (always a handy combination for this trip). I considered myself a master of this errand, though, when I managed to get through the checkout process without the additional translation help. This is how I did it: I start with the usual “Bonjour” which is responded to. I then stand quietly and try to look like I know what the hell is going on. The cashier scans my items and then proceeds to babble something in French which includes a number. I sneak a quick glance at the till to figure out the amount and then confidently hand over roughly the right amount. She hands me change, I give a smile and a “Merci beaucoup!” and march out the door. I am a French-speaking ace at this point. I have also found driving here to be a cinch because all the little French cars dive out of the way on the narrow roads as I come growling along with “la bête de Anglais” (the English beast AKA Landrover).
Speaking of la bête, that brings me to the adventures of the last couple of days…unfortunately, it is getting late and I should try to be a little social while it’s cool and gorgeous outside and I can watch the sunset with a German beer in hand. I will finish my tale soon…tomorrow if I can possibly manage it. Until then, I’m afraid this remains to be continued…
