Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Patience is a virtue in archaeology

Archaeology can often be long days of finding very little, and the field school students are learning this first hand. We did make some more progress today, finding one piece of alkaline glazed stoneware in one of our shovel tests. Even with unproductive shovel tests, however, we're gradually gathering the data we need to put together a picture of where people lived and discarded their trash at many different times in the past alongside the river, and with a little luck, we'll find evidence for the Escambe mission site among all the other occupation periods.

Mostly the crew battled intense heat, humidity, and sun today, and one of the crews worked their way towards the river, while having to brave thick vegetation, spiders and bugs, and high water since the river is still up.

While most of our site is relatively open, as you move towards the river-bottom, the brush gets quite a bit thicker as you can see in this video!

We are also very grateful today for the portable restroom generously provided by Boyett's for our field school...from the students and staff, thanks very much!

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