The Accidental Archaeologist
The official on-the-go adventure blog
It’s the morning of Day Four, and I’m writing this at 06:30 as I sit on the porch of the hotel and stare out at the pouring rain. We’ve had three gloriously sunny days, so it can’t be too surprising that the rain eventually found us…but still. Damn. Ordinarly, I’d be waking the campers up at 07:00 and we’d be hitting the road to the site by 07:30, but this isn’t a nice light English drizzle, this is a proper Southern drenching complete with the ominous rumble of thunder in the distance, so we’re letting them have a lie-in.
Day Three of the dig was not very exciting. Both trenches had slowed to a crawl because both had uncovered shell middens, which take forever to excavate. For the non-archys in the readership, the term “midden” usually means a kind of trash pit or pile. Since our ancestors didn’t have a handy weekly garbage pick-up, they tended to dump their discards (like broken dishes, worn-out hardware, and empty shells) in a pit or pile nearby, and this compacts into a dense treasure trove of artifacts. Unfortunately, the shell midden in the trench I was supervising (second trench) was disappointingly empty of interesting stuff. It was bucket after bucket of clam shells, whelks, small animal bones, and tiny burnt sherds of native pottery. Digging shells is torture, because they’re so densely packed that it’s like hitting concrete with your shovel. But we slogged on and spent the whole day getting through it. Still haven’t found anything amazing and history-changing, but give us time…
Meanwhile, the crew’s still in good spirits. To finish writing this post, I’ve moved over to the restaurant across the street, where the wifi is, and the place is now jumping with a vast majority of our crew. The waitresses here are quite friendly and know all about our project, and they keep us filled up with coffee and chatter. The few locals that have wandered in are looking around quite bemused by the surge of English accents. We’re currently having an argument about “biscuits” vs “scones,” and I’m losing. Guess I should get back to being social, though. We’re hoping the thunderstorms will pass in the next hour or so and we can go see what the damage is in our trenches. Let’s hope they’re no collapsed walls!
