Sorry it is over…

Hailey Dearling

I enrolled in this field course with two goals in mind: to gain experience actually working in the field, and to ensure that archaeology really is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Luckily, I had a complete blast the minute we started! Even though math is not my strong suit, I found the challenge of outlining units welcomed, and the strain my muscles felt after digging something easy to brush off at the thought of excavating the next day.

At the beginning of the month, my group, the Ladybugs, were assigned the unit OA-2. It was a shallow unit, not going further than one context, but we found lots of material.

There was plenty of plastic on the top (what we believe may have been a plastic bucket), but the further we dug down the more unique artifacts we found. We found ceramics, metals, glass, and lots of animal bones!

Personally, my favourite artifact we found was a fully intact horseshoe!

Even though this horseshoe is intact, it has stumped us since it is lacking the usual holes for nailing it onto a horse’s hoof. Our group has made a couple of suggestions about why that may be. Maybe it was decoration? Or even used for a game of horseshoes?

Our group was also very lucky this month since we got to excavate not just one unit, but two! After the first context, OA-2 had no more artifacts to collect. Because of this, my group and I were moved to a new unit, OA-11B.

We originally thought that the hole in the centre was a well; however, after we began excavating we believe it may actually be a cesspit.

There weren’t many artifacts located in OA-11B, only a couple small pieces of glass and metal, but uncovering the cesspit in the centre was a nice change considering OA-2 didn’t have any structures. It was also a bigger challenge since the unit size was smaller, so there was not as much space to fit six people (the entire Ladybug group).

This month is one I will not forget. I met lots of unique and fun people and I have learnt so much– not just about archaeology, but also about the history of the area I grew up around! Now that the season is coming to an end, I find myself wishing that the month had dragged out longer so I would not have to leave the site. I’m so incredibly grateful I have been given the opportunity to partake in this field school, and I find myself looking forward to the future and my career in archaeology.