Field schools are quite an intense experience, very different from university courses you take during the fall and winter terms of the year. You are thrown in amongst people you maybe recognize on campus, but don’t really know, and then spend hours on hours and days upon days in close proximity with them, often doing physically or mentally taxing tasks.
If you are lucky a bond forms, and then suddenly you have a new group of friends, and maybe clarity about your next steps. I assume for some of our students, taking this field school was a real life-changing experience!
The sad part about field school is that it is suddenly over, and then you are thrown out of the bubble and back into your old life. We have reached that day for the 2026 season, I am sad to say. It was an excellent month, and an excellent crew. We accomplished more than we thought we would be able to do, and learned some interesting things about this site that we didn’t uncover in our previous two excavations here.
We had a morning of last minute mini-lectures from James, a guest lecture by one of James’s grad students Ana Henao, who works in CRM. I talked a little about the report writing process, and some of the ways you can find historical documentation to help with writing a report. Finally, each group presented the results of their research while we feasted on pizza courtesy of James, and I brought in two snacking cakes, one with rhubarb picked from my garden and the second chocolate peanut butter.
All too soon the final goodbyes were said! That doesn’t mean that posts will stop for a while yet, however. Stay tuned for student blog posts for the next couple of weeks. I might also pop in during the summer as I work on analysing artifacts and preparing the reports.
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