The Accidental Archaeologist
The official on-the-go adventure blog
Day Nine started grey and stormy, but the rain had finished by the time I stepped out the door. What was left of the storm was an unbelievable wind. When we got to the site for first breakfast, we were greeted by a bitterly cold windstorm blowing from the north. Thank goodness our site is behind a big sand dune and in the woods, or we would have been miserable all day. I had a particularly important VIP visiting for a couple of days in the form of my former field school instructor, Ron, so I was eager to get in some good work on the site. The students found it kinda amusing that I was back to being a bumbling undergrad trying to impress my prof, but Ron was happy to just muck in with the rest of us and do some digging. He even gave a few lessons on efficient American archaeology practices, like tossing shovelsful straight up into the screen and troweling a sandy floor so that it’s smooth as glass. I’ve tried to teach them this, but I just can’t seem to explain it in a way that people get. Ron’s had much more practice at explaining than I have.
The day’s work was crucial, since time is quickly running out, and we are trying to get the last couple of levels and shell middens out of the tetris trench. We threw everybody we had at it, and managed it by about 6:00pm. It was very satisfying to stand on the yellow sand of the uninhabited ground at the bottom of the trench, and to know that all of the archaeology had been neatly and completely removed and was all sitting in a zillion little baggies in the hotel. Now, all that’s left is to wash, sort, and record thousands of potsherds and animal bones and the like. I’ll probably be spending time next week finishing that up. Since we finished the digging, we now have a whole day to backfill the giant trench so as not to leave that for our hosts to do after we leave. The students aren’t looking forward to the backfilling, but the atmosphere is quite festive now that our project’s successfully completed, so I don’t expect a lot of whining.
At the end of the dig day, I had to do one last interview for my film student in which she interviewed me as I stood in the completed trench and asked me how it felt to be done, what I thought of the project, etc. I felt a little stiff and awkward like I was being interviewed for a TV news report, but they keep reassuring me that I come across as perfectly natural on the camera. Once everyone was back at the hotel, there was a mad dash for the showers, as we had arranged for everyone to have a meal in the restaurant across the street as a thank-you to Anne and George for doing all the cooking for us the last couple of weeks. The party raged on at the restaurant until they closed at 9:00pm, by which time we’d laughed ourselves silly and toasted numerous times to the many wonderful folks who have made this dig possible. I walked back across the street at 9:30, expecting to turn in early, but the party was still going in one of the student rooms, where Mark was holding court amidst a gang of students who were draped over various pieces of furniture. Despite being absolutely exhausted both physically and mentally, I couldn’t resist stopping in for a beer and story-swapping session. The next thing I knew, it was 01:00am, and I was quietly falling asleep in the chair as Mark told a series of stories of digs all over the world.
Needless to say, I’m a little groggy this morning, but the sun is creeping over the horizon once more, and work must continue. We shall tromp back into the woods once more with shovels over shoulders and throw about 200 tons of dirt back into a gigantic hole in the ground. It’s been a good dig with good results. I look forward to when I can tell y’all more about the finds, but I’m afraid we must be patient for a little while longer until everything’s been processed and ready to make public. Until then, I shall have to amuse y’all with the peripheral ins and outs of a typical Carolina dig.
