By Erin Bailey
As if any other day here was normal, today was an interesting one. It began with a morning quiz, followed by a visit by an AP reporter and yet another photojournalist, Phil Coale, whom I happened to have worked with in my previous life in photography. Having been photographed by two of my former colleagues in the last week of fieldwork, I can really appreciate what this change in career has done for me. Imagine waking up to a new day of great exercise, an industrious and close-knit team, and new discoveries every day!
While our blogs might sometimes seem to overly emphasize every activity as a learning experience, most of it truly is revealing. The AP interview was a good lesson in choosing one’s words carefully (to “think before I speak”), as journalists speak volumes to the public. They tend to ask questions with professional intent, which is why they keep a recording device on hand. It is easy to forget this when they seem so down-to-earth, which is what I almost did.
Paul and I started on our unit at a depth of 55 cm today, not really knowing what to expect, as we had just come upon reversed stratigraphy only yesterday. This basically means that the soil was upturned when it was dug up and then re-deposited with the oldest material on the top and newer material in the stratum below. While we were still finding potsherds at this level, our trench-like feature running down the center of the unit was finally coming to its end, graduating into the same color soil as its matrix.
At this time, however, a dark spot on the east wall, which we once considered a root discoloration, began to look more and more like a posthole as we bisected it, the trench, and the surrounding stratum from east to west. The soil from it was collected and will be floated as a method of determining if it is, in fact, a posthole.
Jennifer and Evan’s unit is sterile at 85 cm. Mercedes, at 80 cm in her unit, reports, “We haven’t found stuff forever.” Juan and Mary were happy to have found flakes, a gaming stone, large potsherds with designs, and intact brick in theirs.
