My first week of field work!

I am currently in Alcobaça, Portugal working with Dr. Jonathan Haws from the University of Louisville and Dr. Carloine Funk from Stockton College doing field survey and testing seeking to find information on Paleolithic human beings. It is a multidisciplinary project and currently there is one Geolmorphologist, Mike, on the team with us. There will be more people from disciplines other than Archaeology joining us later. There are four other students working with me, two from Stockton and two from Louisville.

I arrived in Lisbon, Portugal on May 22nd around 11am. I was met at the airport by the rest of the survey team. It had been really cloudy and rainy until today since we arrived. So much for "sunny" Portugal. The drive to our apartment in Alcobaça was still beautiful despite the nasty weather. Portugal is full of mountains, you can`t look left or right without seeing one. The houses are all Spanish-style with red roofs and some have tiled fronts that are very unique and pretty.

The apartment I´m sharing with the four other students is small but has three bedrooms, one full bath, a kitchen and living room. It´s enough space for us and we´re starting to realize we do not spend much time there. We start each day making breakfast in our apartment then heading over to our Professor´s apartment at 7:30am. We refer to it as the PhD apartment, since they all have PhD´s and live there. We make lunch to take into the field at their place then head out sometime around 8:00am. We end each day by going out to dinner with the whole team anywhere between 7:30-8:30pm depending on what time we get back from work. Dinners here are a long process, no less than two hours. It makes for a long day but it´s been great so far. This is what we´ve been doing for the past five days:

Day One
After squeezing into our nine passenger Nissan van we headed out to see the area and begin our first day of work in the field. We are looking for chert and quartzite flakes and stone tools, so the PhDs first took us to an area next to the ocean that has an abundance of chert flakes. They had us look around for chert so we would get used to seeing it in the ground among other things. This helped us to be able to identify the chert we find during survey. They also explained to us what makes a flake a flake. There are characteristics we are looking for such as a bulb of percussion and a striking platform which determine that the rock was struck by a human rather than a plow.
Our second stop was atop a cliff overlooking the beach and ocean in a small town called Nazare. Jonathan picked that spot to tell us about the research we are doing and the history behind it. He explained that the coastal shelf of Portugal changed during the late Pleistocene period and that we would be looking for evidence of coastal settlement of Paleolithic humans.
Our third stop was a beach where we began survey for the first time. We hiked across sand dunes so big they put NJ ones to shame. They were covered in brush which made it a bit difficult to find flakes. The first day I did not find any, but other team members did.
We ended the day by visiting a Neanderthal site Johnathan and Caroline already did excavation on but want to revisit because they are unfinished. It is along the beach high in the dunes. After showing us that site they took us back to our apartment.

Day Two
It rained off and on on us lightly all day. We went to a farm field Jonathan and Caroline wanted to survey that was filled with bushes. One criteria they use to pick sites is soil color. On the right soil layer it is more likely to find flakes from the time period they are looking for. The first field we were at I again did not find anything but other people found several points. After surveying the whole field (and almost getting kicked out by the farmer) we headed out to another location.
We drove around for a while through woods before finding another farm field to survey. This one was well-plowed and did not have much vegetation. I liked this field a lot because I found my first flake there! Caroline said it could possibly be diagnostic, which means they will be able to date it and tell which ancient group used it. I also found a stone tool there, a quartzite side scraper. There were only two other flakes found at that site.
We headed out again to a an enormous pit with a man-made lake in the middle of it so Mike the Geomorphologist could take soil samples. We also went to one other farm field but did not find anything there.

Day Three
Jonathan had to take Kevin, one of the student from Louisville, to Lisbon to pick up his luggage that had been lost during his travels. This meant that the rest of the team had to stay in the PhD´s apartment for the morning because we only have one vehicle. Erin (one of the other Stockton students) and I spent the morning putting data into the computer. We had to enter code information about flakes, bones, and other artifacts that have already been found. Toni (Stockton student) and Tim (Lousiville student) washed bone pieces that have been excavated to prepare them to be taken to a specialist.
We headed out to the field around 12:00pm. The first site we went to was a forested laying high over the coast. We hiked through the forest looking for flakes. We ended at a couple potato fields that had been recently harvested and found some flakes there. I found a chunk of chert that was not a flake but implies human occupation because it does not belong in the farm field.
The second site we visited was a site where Jonathan and Caroline found many artifacts. It used to be a corn field but has since overgrown with weeds. We did not find anything more there but Mike used an aguer to take soil analysis. This is a tool that has a hollow metal cylinder attached to a long pole and is used to dig deep into the soil to pull out samples of the soil layers. Mike bagged half the soil he pulled out for himself to analyze and the other half of the soil was for our use. We did microdebitage analysis on the soil, where you break the soil apart to look for artifacts. This is done either by hand or with a trowel. We were unable to find anything but it was fun to learn something new.

Day Four
We started the day at a eucalyptus field that we could survey and Mike could take soil samples from. We did not find anything. It started to rain hard while Mike was taking his samples so we tried to wait it out in the van. After a while it seemed like it was not going to stop so we decided to pack up the auger that had been left in the field when it started raining and continued on to look for drier sites.
We found a large field right next to a dirt soccer field and began survey. This was a great site for us, we found quite a few chert flakes and several quartzite pieces that seemed to be flakes. Jonathan found a chert point that is very distinctive and they believe could be diagnostic. We broke the site down into sections A, B, and C because there were three areas split by a ravine and road. After surveying all three and deciding to come back to do test excavation the next day we headed out to find more sites.
We went to a field next to a hot dog factory that looked very similar to and was nearby the field we had just surveyed. It smelled like hot dogs so it was a litle gross and we only found one chert flake there. The fact that we only found one flake there gave the previous site more significance because the two areas were so similar.
We proceeded to go to a site Jonathan and Caroline had excavated before and wanted to revisit. It was another farm, this time with small fruit trees. Erin found her first chert flake! She came up to hand me something saying "Hey Beth this is nothing, right?" After looking at it for a second I was able to tell her it was chert. We were all excited for her because she had been getting discouraged since it was our fourth day in the field and she had not found anything before then. We ended the day there around 5:00pm.

Day Five
This day was the most physically challenging day so far even though we did not hike much at all. We returned to the site next to the soccer field that we had been at the day before but this time it was to dig test pits. Toni, Kevin, and Tim dug their own pits and Erin and I worked on one together. To dig a test pit you first pick a spot in the ground put a stake in it. You then use a compass to determine where North and South line up from that point and put another stake in the ground, in our case 50cm from the first one. From that stake you determine East and West and put another stake in 50cm away, beginning to create a square. To put in the fourth stake you measure 71-72cm diagonally from the first stake and 50cm from one of the other corners until the two measurements cross to create a square. After creating your square you use a trowel to scrape straight down into the dirt, forming a sqare ditch. You take the dirt you scrape out and sift it through a screen to look for artifacts. This process is done 10cm at a time. Each time you get to another 10cm it is another level, for example 1-10cm is level one, 10-20cm is level two, ect. After 50cm the chance you will find something becomes much less likely so that is usually the stopping point. We weren´t able to find anything below the surface but it was exciting to learn how to dig test pits since it is something used for excavation. Sifting the sand is also the best ab workout I´ve ever done, and the reason I said it was the most physically challenging day we had yet! I´m sitting here typing right now with sore abs, ribs, and arms. After finishing our test pits we packed up and moved on to look elsewhere.
We found another field nearby that had very bad visibility, Caroline classified it as 0-40%. Despite the bad visibility the site was rich with chert and quartzite flakes, everyone found something and most people found several things. Some of the artifacts were diagnostic. Jonathan and Caroline decided they wanted us to dig more test pits at this site. Kevin and Tim worked together on one while Erin, Toni, and I dug our own. I was the first to reach 50cm deep. Although the other students had not gotten that deep yet Caroline had everyone stop because none of us had found anything. We packed up and headed home.

Day Six - Today
This was our first day off, which is why I was able to write this blog. I will write again on our next day off which will hopefully be in five days.

Some information on Portuguese culture..
- they drink a lot. Wine and beer flow with both lunch and dinner, and bottles of wine at the grocery store (even some of the best ones) are no more than 3 euro. It´s great.
- you never know what you´re getting when you order meat dishes because they throw the whole animal in there. Two nights ago I found part of a spinal cord in my lamb dish, which caused me to stop eating it. I´m tying to be brave and try new things but I don´t want to see a spine in my food.
- the desserts here are the best I´ve ever had, as are the fruit and vegetables.
- they are known for their blue and white pottery which can be bought in almost every store around us. There are tons of plates, bowls, tiles, wall hangings, cups, mugs, wash basins.. you get the point. They are all incredibly beautiful.
- there is a black rooster of Portugal that is one of their biggest symbols. I don´t really know the story behind it yet but there are little black roosters with red hearts on them sold everywhere.