Wayne, NE I've been thinking about the dig and the volunteers for the past three days. Remembering the jet-lag. Remembering the new sights, sounds, smells, activities. Remembering the heat and humidity! But most of all remembering the excitement of the "what is to come."
I laughed (and shuddered) when I read Kristina's blog about the beetle crawling up her pant leg. It reminded me of a similar experience in 2005--ask Andrea about the cockroach episode! Kristina, just wear your knee-pads; not only will they keep the critters out of your pants, they'll also keep your tender knees from becoming yucky scaley old things!
I was interested to read in another one of the blogs that all of the work in the squares was outside the actual walls of the Northeast Church. (For those who don't know, the excavation site is divided into squares by the superimposition of a "grid" on the area; one axis of the grid is labeled with letters, the other with numbers. The name of the square denotes it's location: E-8 or whatever.) I'll be very interested to see what is discovered under the areas that in the previous years were just the ground over which we walked and on which we piled rocks and buckets of dirt. Who knows what we were covering up!
Breaking open a square is probably the most tedious and labor-intensive of jobs. As noted in another blog, there are many, MANY large rocks to move, each one of which must be carefully cleaned around to determine if it's anything of importance--Dr. Schuler's call. Removing the top level of the soil is pretty slow going. Until my first day on the dig, I thought that archaeological excavations were accomplished mainly with dental picks and toothbrushes and other such small instruments. Not so. Pick-axes and turreahs (I hope I spelled that correctly) are used to loosen the soil, and then buckets filled with the loose soil, and then dumped. Repeat umpteen times. Stop for a water break. Fill and dump again. You get the picture. This is hard work.
Kudos to all of the volunteers for making it through the first few days. Keep the information coming!
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