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Good-bye for now, BcGn-15!

We convened at the trailer this morning for the strategy session as we are winding down the 2026 field school. Excavation of a site means a controlled destruction as we convert a physical record into many papers, digital files, GIS, databases, illustrations, and eventually, a report.

Even though archaeology by its nature is destructive, that doesn’t mean that once excavations are done, we just drop our tools and walk away. Since we might return to this site to conduct future research, our goal was to geotextile the walls and foundations we have discovered this season, to both protect them, and make it easier to uncover them again. Then all the rocks and earth painstakingly shovelled, trowelled, screened, and deposited in backdirt piles needed to get back in the excavation units.

Everyone is so much better at digging than they were when we started, four short weeks ago!

We started with the Ladybug’s first unit, which as it was a single context excavation with no features, did not require geotextile, just a lot of rocks and dirt shovelled back in and tamped down.
And done!
The cesspit beside the Foxes unit was filled back in with some textile and some bracing across to make it more safe in case people are walking in that area in future. Bears and Foxes units had a double wrap approach, where we wrapped the walls, and then put the large rocks and stones in, then a second textile layer, followed by the dirt. That way the dirt layer can be shovelled out, and the rocks can be removed easily as they won’t be re-encased in dirt.
In the background you can see the Bears working on their second textile layer, while the Snakes unit in the foreground is ready for dirt.
It is pretty amazing how quickly weeks of painstaking excavation disappear!
By lunch we were finished! A bittersweet moment to see. BcGn-15 is all tucked in, ready to slumber until our next visit…

Tomorrow we have some last classroom lectures, info about the field days each student has earned, a guest lecture by one of James’s MA students, and then we will break at lunch for one last pizza and cake celebration!