Getting settled in..

Over the past few days we have visited a lot of beach sites and dug many more test pits. The weather is starting to get a lot nicer, it was not raning as much in the beginning of the week and by the end of the week we were having no rain at all. The sun still isn´t out all day but usually comes out in the afternoon. At some point during the week I stopped being sore and started to become stronger which greatly improved my stamina. I am starting to get the hang of and understand better the process of looking for artifacts. After settling into the field work I have begun to think a lot about what I want to do in my future. This is what has been happening over the past five days:

Day 7
We revisited two sites found in 1996. The first was next to an overpass with rail road tracks running underneath. The site is only a few minutes from our apartment, it is possible for us to walk to it but it would be a long walk. We cross over it daily when we are heading out to all the other sites we visit. It is a forested environment. We all worked together digging a large test pit that was 1 meter x 2 meters and dug 90 cm deep. We found chert and quartzite flakes but not as many as Jonathan and Caroline had hoped for. We were there until after lunch. There was a picnic area with a small wooden café diagonally across from the site we were digging at and we went there to get bicas (espresso) after lunch. The picnic area provided us with a bathroom also, we felt like we were excavating in luxury since it was the first and only time since then we have been close to a bathroom while in the field.
After lunch we finished our pit and headed to a beach site that test pits had been dug at before. We parked at a camping site next to the road and hiked through a forest to get to the dunes. We were high in the dunes well above the beach with an absolutely breath taking view of the ocean and coastline. After finding some flakes on a surface scan of the area we picked spots to dig test pits. I worked with Tim and Kevin working on a pit while Toni and Erin worked together on one. Mike was working a few meters away from us hacking into the side of the dunes. While tearing away at the dunes he found the layer of sand that was the beach during the Paleolithic time period when the ocean level was higher. That was the layer we aimed to hit in our test pits, which all turned out to be sterile anyway. It was the first time we did not fill in our test pits at the end of the day because Jonathan planned on returning to the site to dig them deeper.

Day 8
We visited another beach site. The beach was filled with trash, tons of shampoo bottles, detergent bottles, glass, even a children’s cup in the shape of a penguin. The amount of trash made me want more than ever to organize a beach clean-up. It was really disturbing to see a large amount of trash coating a beautiful beach. After walking for a little while down the beach we decided to head up the brush-covered dunes to find the site Jonathan and Caroline wanted to dig. We had to hack through the brush all the way to the top, about 100 feet straight up. I loved it! There were a lot of sticker bushes and thorns, strange plastic-looking flowers, and small pine trees. I have to say it was pretty bad ass. The site we arrived at after our struggle through the brush was another where the beach would have been in the Paleolithic time period. We found very few flakes on the ground but Jonathan and Caroline wanted us to dig test pits. Erin and I worked together on one on part of the slope of the dunes. We had to scrape away at the slope to make a flat vertical back wall before digging deeper below it into the dune sand. I do not know exactly how deep our pit was because we never measured it since it turned out to be sterile all the way through. I can judge its size somewhat from pictures I have of me standing in it. The top of the pit where we began to scrape away at the slope of the dune began just above my head and the front of the pit where we leveled it out with the ground was just above my hip. Pretty deep! We spent the whole day at that site. On our way out we found a much easier path through the woods to get to the van so we didn’t have to hike back down through the rough brush. I didn’t think the hike back was as fun as the hike up, but it was nice at the end of a long day to take an easy way rather than challenge ourselves getting down!

Day 9
We returned to the same beach site as the previous day. In the morning Mike, Toni, and Tim worked together digging auger holes around the area while Caroline, Jonathan, Erin, Kevin, and I worked together digging a 1 m x 2 m test pit in an area above where we were digging the day before. The area we were digging in was a small clearing surrounded by brush. This made the pit extra hot since there was no breeze coming through. I only worked on digging for the first half of the day. After lunch I switched spots with Toni to work with Mike and Tim. We headed back through the woods towards the van and crossed the road to a large sandy area on the other side. Part of the sandy pit was a higher level than the road creating a cut where layers of soil were exposed. Mike took samples of each layer of soil and Tim and I helped him to label them. We did this by using a standardized soil color chart and matching the soil to a number and color description. This was something I had not done yet so it was fun to learn and easier than I expected it to be. Mike also took an OSL sample from the road cut. I do not understand how the dating of an OSL sample works but through dating it you are able to tell the last time the soil was exposed to light. He took a sample by shoving a small piece of PVC pipe with one end duct taped closed deep into the road cut where it would not have been exposed to light. After removing the pipe he duct taped the other end. The soil will be dated using the middle of the sample. After we finished taking that sample we headed back to the other side of the road into the woods to dig an auger hole. This was the first time I used the auger. The metal barrel is connected to poles that are about 120cm long each. When all the poles are connected to the auger it is 5 meters long. I was able to work with the auger until we put the last pole on it making it 5 meters. At that point it becomes difficult to pull straight out of the ground, lie down, and lift back up to put into the ground because the poles are thin and wobble back and forth. I attempted to use it at the 5 meter length but it almost knocked me over as I tried to steady it! Tim had to grab it and help me out. Tim finished taking the samples out of the ground and we helped Mike determine the soil colors as he took notes. Our day ended after we were finished with the hole. The test pit that I had been working on in the morning was continued throughout the afternoon and ended up being up to Jonathan’s shoulder. It was sterile the whole way through but they learned things from exposing the soil layers.

Day 10
We returned to the same beach site we had gone to on day 8. We worked in three pairs digging test pits that all turned out to be sterile and we only found one flake on the surface. Jonathan and Mike hacked into the side of the dunes again so Mike could take more detailed notes. We were there until after lunch when we headed out to visit another site.
On our way to the next site we were driving down a dirt road when we passed a connecting dirt road that had an outcrop of Jurassic soil. Jonathan parked and we jumped out of the van to give the section a quick scan. We found 7 pieces of chert. Most were large chunks that are classified as raw material. We only spent a few minutes there before getting back into the van and heading to our real destination.
We went to a large ranch the PhD’s had visited a few days before we came. There is a natural spring located on the property, which makes it a prime area for survey. We could not survey the field they wanted to because it was closed off by a barbed wire fence. We surveyed another small field that had been surveyed before and was recently plowed. There was nothing in it, hardly even any rocks. We ended the day at that ranch.

Day 11
We went to an enormous orchard on a mountain that is a natural resource for chert. It is also the location of a cave burial site that had a small portion excavated in the ´80s and was excavated deeper by Jonathan recently. There were many fields of peach, plum, and apple trees. It was a really pretty place. It was a fun area to survey because we really got to put our flake-finding skills to the test. Since it is a natural recourse for chert it can be found all over the ground, almost every rock on the ground there is chert. We had to pick through and determine what we thought were flakes or tools based on the characteristics we have learned to look for. We all found a lot of artifacts and it was pretty exciting. We surveyed several of the fields and found artifacts in all but one of them. They have surveyed most of the fields before. The reason we returned was because they had found diagnostic pieces there that their lithics expert determined were used by two native groups, Magdalenian and Gravettian. He wanted them to return and attempt to find more diagnostic pieces.
My favorite part of the day was when Jonathan took us to the cave site. We had to crawl down a thin, steep, dirt trail surrounded by trees and brush along the side of the mountain. Tim and I were the only students who went down with him, Kevin came following behind a few minutes later but did not stay to enter the cave. Jonathan and Caroline went in the cave first while Tim and I waited outside. There can only be two people in it at a time because it is narrow and low, a very tight squeeze. Once I got inside Jonathan was standing in a test pit he had dug recently. He explained to me what was found in the cave and some information about the soil layers that were exposed in the test pit. They did not find as much as they had hoped to from their excavation. There were human remains they had left inside and Jonathan showed me one of the bones. When Tim went in and I was waiting outside with Caroline she explained to me that there were people buried all around the entrance to the cave and that we were probably standing on some. She said during that time period the dead would be shoved into the cave and after their bodies decomposed pushed further inside to make room for more. Everyone is probably pretty grossed out right now, sorry. I’ll stop talking about dead people. We crawled further around the side of the mountain through trees, brush, and some nasty thorns to see another entrance to the cave. It was a bit dangerous, exactly the kind of thing I love doing. There were a few points where you had to be on your hands and knees or using tree branches for balance, it was even more fun than when we hiked through the thick brush up the dunes.
We resurveyed a site their lithics expert had determined was from the Copper age through diagnostic pieces even though it is not of much interest to their Paleolithic research. We also surveyed a field past that one they had not surveyed yet and found what I’m estimating to be at around 30 artifacts. We ended the day in that field. It was a great day because we had been digging sterile test pits for days… it was nice to finally see some artifacts again!

Today
It’s our second day off. We are just hanging around town again like we did last time. It is not yet warm enough to go to the beach and Caroline told us to wait until our next day off to visit a castle we want to see because the flowers will be in full bloom by then. We have to meet the PhDs at 5pm tonight because field school from Wake Forest working in the region is visiting so we can take them to a site excavated by Jonathan and Caroline and have dinner with us.

Some more on Portuguese culture..
-in all our driving around I have only seen one stop light. They have circles where you would expect to see stop lights. Silly New Jersey doing away with all our circles, they should take some advice from the people of Portugal and keep them!
-there are no dryers for clothing, everyone hangs their clothes out to dry on a line. Our apartment is on the third story and we have to hang out a window to hang our clothes on the line, every time I worry that I’ll come home to my clothes fallen in a pile in the private yard below us.
-there is a large soccer field behind our apartment and on Saturdays and Sundays there are games ALL day. It wouldn’t be too bad but they play crazy Portuguese techno music over the loud speaker during the games… thankfully we only have to listen to it when we get back from work before heading to dinner! If I heard it all day I would probably lose my mind.