Setting up always takes longer than one anticipates. I spent an hour this morning cleaning out the labs fridge (it has sat unplugged for a year) and all evening navigating the set up of bed, bath, mosquito net.
Yeh, they have had a lot of rain. Makes for nice and cool evenings though! Today I am going to meet some friends that have finished their field work on the Chan project, and will see what their analysis plans are. My roommate from last year, Bernadette, is going to be here until the 19th of August. Awsome!
I arrived this afternoon to the rain soaked coast of Belize. It has been raining for two weeks (well, at least every afternoon) and the sky seems to be clearing up right now. I was too excited to sleep last night, so I think I will rest well tonight. Tomorrow I will start setting up the lab space for my ceramic analysis. And then the writing begins!
So, this is the 4th trip I have been on in two months that requires packing a bag full of stuff that I think I will need, (I hope I need it if I am bringing it) and part of me wonders why I did not just leave a bag packed by the door. Of course, the contents vary slightly, and I did not need a mosquito net in Puerto Rico. I am pretty much ready to go, and am excited about getting to San Ignacio and getting settled. I will spend the next couple of days getting my room and the lab set up, and then begin the analysis. The things that add to the complexity of ones packing are the chargables. The laptop, phone and camera all have to have their power cords, download cords, and various other accessories. That is going to be the confusing part.
Today is Chris’ birthday, and I plan on making semi-sweet chocolate chip brownies and sun-dried tomato stuffed chicken. Yummm!
After unpacking, cleaning out the car (I acquired lots of sand) and sleeping tons, I think I have re-entered the atmosphere, at least for the time being. The TAS field school was so much fun, and I worked with some great people. As expected for the start of a Texas summer, it was hot and humid most days, but we were lucky to have cool and breezy nights to catch up on our sleep. It was so peaceful to sleep under the stars, and we had a full moon that lit our campsite as it waxed and waned. Despite the field full of crawfish holes (yup, we were on a flood plain) and the terrestial bugs, we were blessed with very little mosquitoes!
The site that we excavated was an Archaic site, and we were looking for pre-Caddo occupation. We found it in the form of post molds and fire pits which were designated as features. We found and mapped additional Caddo artifacts as well, such as stone tools, ceramics, and some pipe stems. I am posting pictures of the crew that I worked with, and some of the features and small finds at the following link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36568446@N00/
I could not wait to get back into the field, so I went to work at the Bowmer site yesterday. It was quite successful, one of the units had a portion of another rock hearth, and was labeled as a new feature. In the rock hearth that I have been excavating at for the last couple of months (mind, it is only a day here and a day there) I found an awl, very narrow — less than a cm, and 5.8 cm long. It was worked on one side, and the tip was still quite sharp. Things that I found that I did not want came in the form of chiggers and a spider bite. All said, a very good day.
I have started pulling out my dig kit and camping gear for next week. I realized I needed to clean out my tool kit, as it still has debris from my last excavation. The trowels need sharpening, I need to add some sharpies that actually work, and well, generally make it field ready. Most of the items we use in the field are generally found at a local hardware store, although the metric measuring tape is getting harder to find. Funny, I thought it was becoming more universal.
My mom made me a couple of bandanas to carry in the field, several are covered in various shapes of pots and bowls. Cute. I will be sure to model them next week!