Here are some thoughts from Michelle on the field school experience so far. — Kate
Today is day two of the final week in the field school run by Trent. Unlike a few of the students in the field school, I had no experience in the archaeological field. This experience has been amazing, and I got to learn things I couldn’t wait to do. The whole field school the weather was amazing, so we were outside as often as possible to excavate different units. We found in one of the units what appears to be either a wall or a drain, but we have yet to determine what it actually is.
When we were excavating we were usually working in teams on the BcGn-17 site. 6 students were sent over to BcGn-31 site to work on 1x1s. Me and Abigail partnered up to work on the unit together. It was a fun experience to be able to work on our own units. We unfortunately never found any artifacts in our unit, but we did find a feature. However, because it was an assessment we just excavated and then back filled.
I got to work with two different instruments when we were working on mapping artifacts on the field as well. It was very fun getting to look through the tools and try them out during my second and third week on the field. We got to use a Total Station and a Theodolite.
One of my favourite parts of the field school was today working in the lab. We were all split into two groups, and we swapped at break. I was a part of the first group to be in the lab and working with the artifacts. We bagged already washed artifacts; I did two trays worth of artifacts. One of the trays ended up being artifacts that me, Kyla, and Kelsey excavated. After bagging them our group was divided once again. One group washed artifacts and the other looking through a tray full rocks and artifacts that needed to be sorted. I got to sort the artifacts out from the tray.
Overall, it has been an amazing experience and a joy to be able to be a part of this field school. I cannot wait to find work with CRM companies to be able to gain more experience and memories within archeological work. Thank you James and Kate for this amazing time.
— Michelle Rubin
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