Posted on 1 Comment on End of Penultimate Week and Friday I-Spy

End of Penultimate Week and Friday I-Spy

The time is slipping away, we can’t believe we are almost to the last week! Lots of split groups today, as we tackle the to-do list of things to wrap up before the end of field school.

Anthony and Joel were conscripted to help with Jolyane’s crew, and at the Arch Centre we broke into washing groups and cataloguing groups. It was mayhem for a bit as we discovered and fixed some procedural errors, but we got everything sorted out and are on track to finish everything by the end of next week.

The dedicated washers Caedda, Brooke, Sarah, Dan, and Danny--even to the little bitty bits of glass!
The dedicated washers Caedda, Jodie, Katie, Sarah, Dan, and Danny–even to the little bitty bits of glass!
Charlotte and Emma working on cataloguing a context.
Charlotte and Emma working on cataloguing a context.
Mary and Stephanie work on bagging material from a context.
Mary and Stephanie work on bagging material from a context.
Wayne and Collette working on their context.
Wayne and Collette working on their context. Brooke is in the background entering our mapping data into a GIS program so we can see how it looks overlaid on a Google Earth satellite image.
Nic's head in process of exploding.
Nic’s head in process of exploding.

 

 

Here’s a super-size I-Spy to take us into the last week of this year’s field school.

Can you find: 1. A wrench; 2. A jaw harp; 3. Part of a metal door handle; 4. Three slate pencils; 5. A single-tongue buckle; 6. Part of a comb; 7. A tobacco tag.
Can you find: 1. A wrench; 2. A jaw harp; 3. Part of a metal door handle; 4. Three slate pencils; 5. A single-tongue buckle; 6. Part of a comb; 7. A tobacco tag.
Can you find: 1. A small piece of Rockinghamware pottery; 2. A fragment of mirror glass; 3. A Blue Willow plate; 4. A coral-pattern transfer print sherd; 5. Part of a stoneware ink bottle; 6. A pressed glass dish.
Can you find: 1. A small piece of Rockinghamware pottery; 2. A fragment of mirror glass; 3. A Blue Willow plate; 4. A coral-pattern transfer print sherd; 5. Part of a stoneware ink bottle; 6. A pressed glass dish.
Can you find: 1. Part of a scissor-style candle snuffer; 2. A bone button; 3. A coin (our 1854 penny token); 4. Fence staples.
Can you find: 1. Part of a scissor-style candle snuffer; 2. A bone button; 3. A coin (our 1854 penny token); 4. Fence staples.
Can you find: 1. A light bulb; 2. Three ketchup bottles; 3. A kidney-shaped bottle base; 4. Straw-tint glass.
Can you find: 1. A light bulb; 2. Three ketchup bottles; 3. A kidney-shaped bottle base; 4. Straw-tint glass.
Can you find: 1. An inkwell, 2. Medecine bottle; 3. Chicken bone; 4. Part of the strainer from a teapot; 5. Parts of the lid from a pressed-glass dish; 6. Part of a teacup where the handle attaches; 7. A pig tusk.
Can you find: 1. An inkwell, 2. Medecine bottle; 3. Chicken bone; 4. Part of the strainer from a teapot; 5. Parts of the lid from a pressed-glass dish; 6. Part of a teacup where the handle attaches; 7. A pig tusk.
Can you find: 1. A barrel ring; 2. A fuse; 3. Two slate pencils.
Can you find: 1. A barrel ring; 2. A fuse; 3. Two slate pencils.
Posted on No Comments on Student Blog — Archaeology is Hard Work

Student Blog — Archaeology is Hard Work

This blog post from Charlotte gives some good insight into the experience of doing archaeology, and how persistence and care pays off! — Kate

Archaeology is hard work. I realized this within the first few days at the site, when we began shovelling piles of dirt, scraping rocks out of units, and carrying buckets of that dirt and rock around the site. There have been days when the shovel seems to be continually bouncing off rocks and getting stuck on roots, and sometimes the unit being excavated does not seem to be getting any deeper no matter how many buckets of dirt we take out of it. This is not to mention all the work of mapping the site and locations within the site (which is a breeze for people with good math skills but can be a nightmare for those, like myself, who don’t like math and haven’t practiced it since high school). All in all, it is exhausting work.

However, the rewards for this work are great. For me, it was an extraordinary experience when my group was able to find several pieces of a ceramic maker’s mark and fit them back together into one piece. It was so exciting to be able to find those pieces scattered in the dirt and put them back together in their original form. It made me feel like I was piecing history back together, a history that no one else knew about because we were uncovering it for the first time.

Though the work is not always that exciting and we can spend all day digging and by the end find that we did not uncover anything new, when we process the artifacts in the lab we are able to see all the interesting bits and pieces others have uncovered throughout the week. Seeing the artifacts displayed in the lab shows how much we really are uncovering from the site, even when it does not feel like it or when I don’t personally find the artifacts. For me, this makes the work exciting. Being able to help uncover, even in a small way, the history of this site is a great experience, and I am excited to be a part of it.

— Charlotte Clemens