Enya Schroeder
After almost an entire month of learning the principles and applied skills of field archaeology, there are a million things that I could write about. Some examples include but are not limited to the importance of dressing appropriately for the weather, knowing when to use a trowel instead of a shovel, and how no pocket is big enough to fit all of the cool-looking rocks that you’ll find in the sifting process (and get to keep assuming they are non-anthropogenic).
With that said, I would like to expand on an instance that highlights one of my favourite themes throughout this course.
Drum roll please……
The art of inventiveness during excavation without explicitly breaking any rules.
The book of standards and guidelines that is set for Ontario consultant archaeologists and followed by us is exactly 168 pages long with detailed information on how to know when and what to excavate from the instance of surveying to final stage 4 excavation. These guidelines and rules are in place for a reason. Due to their particularness, there are known techniques and methods that we should abide by and ultimately adopt to become more efficient and thorough archaeologists. On the flip side of this coin, there are some instances where these very guidelines have inexplicitly called for some unconventional and hilarious techniques when paired with the experience (or lack thereof) of some first-time-fieldworkers such as ourselves.
Many questionable physical arrangements have been worked throughout the last few weeks, including the one that I’ll be telling you about today: the one and only wheelbarrow!
While working at site BcGn-17 in the 2m x 2m OA2 – OA3 midden unit, the rat team (the best team – go rats go) was forced into a sticky situation when we were tasked with troweling the unit back in order to get a better view of the context’s matrix and stratigraphy.
Now, the first rule of troweling back is do not talk about troweling back. The second rule is that when the soil that has been troweled, do not step on it before the visual analysis of the soil / context is complete.
In order to do this, we are meant to work backwards, with one person finishing the job in one of the corners of the unit where they can easily step out. However, the rats got a little excited and decided that three of us were going to trowel back with two people working on either side, and one person working in the middle. While this would have otherwise been no problem, the rats at either end finished their job before the one in the middle, stepping out of their respective corners. With that, we neglected to consider that our middle man was now going to have to eventually exit the unit from the center of the south end. Unfortunately for us, the south wall of the unit was directly adjacent to an extremely large heap of soil that was virtually impossible to cross without a hostile meeting between one’s face and the ground below (and likely pushing some of that soil into the unit).
So, the executive decision was made for the middle man to simply step on the freshly troweled south-east corner and safely exit from the east side. You can likely guess how we decided to tackle this based on my previous description, but here is a visual for you in case your imagination is not vivid enough:
Alas, my fellow rats and I were under no impression that our professors wouldn’t notice the remarkably evident boot track outlined in the soil, so we did what we had to do. Haley was brave as she lowered herself onto the ground while I held onto her ankles for dear life. We then performed what is commonly known as the “wheelbarrow” maneuver, typically practiced in elementary schoolyards and minute-to-win it themed parties. Within no time, Haley managed to trowel back the entire print! Mission impossible had proven to be possible and Haley was immediately offered a residency in cardiac surgery due to her impressive precision and balance while troweling back the final clumps of soil. She ended up turning this opportunity down because she wanted to stay and finish what we had started here at BcGn-17- in true rat spirit!
Of course the latter section of Haley being offered residency is not true, but the humour in this moment absolutely warranted some dramatic effect, and the rest of it is indeed real!
All to say, while there is no direct recommendation of the use of this technique in the standards and guidelines, we had to be creative in order to adhere to them. Luckily, Kate gave us the thumbs up after performing this maneuver which was a relief to us as first time field archaeologists. That said, I’m sure it isn’t the first time that this has happened, and I’m sure it won’t be the last!
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