The Accidental Archaeologist

…And We Dig

Day Two of the dig and work has slowed a little. We started this morning with a new schedule in place. Up just as the sun was rising, off to the site at 7:30 for a light coffee-and-toast breakfast. Shovels were flying by 8:00, which meant we got a couple good hours of work in before the sun really got overhead. By 10:00, we had taken out another level in the first trench and had broken sod on the second 3m x 6m trench. Unfortunately, the second trench was chock-full of huge nasty roots, so there was a considerable amount of axe-wielding and cursing coming from that quarter. We broke at 10:00 for “second breakfast,” which was a proper hot meal including the obligatory big pot of grits. Some of the Brits are actually getting a taste for grits, which is satisfying to see. The rest of the morning was more of the same. Digs become a bit repetitive after awhile, so I won’t bore y’all with too many of the details of level after level, but so far, things are turning up about as expected. We’re getting loads of good artifacts, and the point of this particular survey is just to amass a big body of data which will give us a better picture of the layering and type of occupation over time.

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven’t been spending a whole lot of time with shovel in hand. I’m afraid to get down in the trench most of the time, because the second I do, someone is yelling out, “Louisa, Louisa, is this a…?” I do get the fun of wandering from screen to screen and identifying (or attempting to identify) the cooler bits and pieces. Today those included a few 18th century odds and ends like pipe stems and buttons. I always like to try to guess types of teeth (we find a lot of animal teeth). Horses, cows, and the like are pretty easy because the surface of their molars are a series of compact squiggles of enamel with the softer dentin in the middle. The sharp ridges of enamel act like a shredder when they’re chewing on grasses. Carnivores, on the other hand, have teeth a little more like ours, but not so square and they’re pointier on the crowns of the molars. It’s also fun to try to see if similar pieces of ceramics fit back together, but I have to make myself stop doing that, because I get so obsessed with the puzzle, I forget about the rest of the work going on.

The interesting addition to our work this time around is the film crew, who have been recording all sorts of bits and pieces for future reference. One of them is an MA student, and she is using the filming for her dissertation…but all of this footage could also be used for documentary work if a major media company gets involved later on. In fact, one of them is filming me as I type these words, and it’s a bit unnerving, since I’m supposed to act natural and explain what I’m doing while I’m typing. Luckily, Mark gets most of the camera time when we’re in the field so that I can get on with work. They’ve loved the little arguments Mark and I are constantly having over artifact interpretation and dig strategy. We actually balance each other out on most decisions, which is a good check. Since we’re co-site directors, I get some say in what’s going on, though I often defer to Mark when it comes to experience. I’m also the cautious one who is constantly discouraging him from doing risky things, which means I sound a lot like “mom” all the time. Today, for instance, we had cleaned off a shell midden in the first trench, and Mark wanted to get a picture of the whole trench. Most archaeologists would climb on top of the backfill dirt pile and content themselves with an overview photo at a slightly shallow angle. Not Mark. He started eyeing a large overhanging oak tree, and, before I knew it, he had three undergrads propping up a very long ladder so that he could climb up in the tree and hang out precariously to get an overhead photo. I could only shake my head.

More digging tomorrow…and the next day…and the next day. As always, I’ll do my best to keep y’all updated.