Short week!

The past few days since we last had off have been a different schedule than what we were going on before. On our day off we met with a field school from Wake Forest being run by a colleague of Jonathan. We showed them the Neanderthal site that is the most significant site Jonathan and Caroline have excavated and had dinner with them at the restaurant we go to every night. We worked for two days after having off then took two days off to go to Lisbon to pick up two additions to our crew. They are another geomorphology guy who happens to also be named Mike and a paleobotanist named Tom. We’ve been calling him the “pollen guy.” We worked again yesterday and now are starting late at 11 because Jonathan and Caroline had to go to Lisbon to pick up another addition to our crew, a graduate student named Jennifer.

Day 13
We returned to the same farm site from day 4 where Erin found her first flake. We dug several auger holes and broke apart the soil looking for flakes. We found only a couple flakes in them. We were there until lunchtime when we ate and left to look for more.
We stopped at a small dirt road next to a small field filled with weeds and a small vineyard. We found a couple flakes there after surveying the road and vineyard. We did not spend much time there.
We ended up going to a large dirt road they call “The Road to Badger Cave.” All along the road are woods and farm fields that we surveyed. They have been there before and found a couple flakes, but always hoped to one day come back and find a significant amount. The day we were there was that day! After surveying recently plowed farm fields and eucalyptus fields we ended with multiple flakes in seven different fields. A few of the flakes were bladelets that will be diagnostic.

Day 14
The day before we went to Lisbon we worked more inland than we have yet. As we were on our day to farm fields they wanted to survey we passed a road cut and jumped out for a few minutes to check it out. Mike hacked into it and took some notes. We were only there for a few minutes before heading on our way.
We spent most of the day at an area that had several large eucalyptus fields and a few clear fields that we surveyed. Most of the fields had good visibility, meaning the rows in between the eucalyptus fields were not full of brush or crap. One that we walked through was really confusing because the rows were headed straight but were then cut in half by a dirt trail for a tractor and started on the other side in a pattern where they were running sideways and curving. I guess that farmer likes to mix things up. We all found a few flakes throughout the fields. One of the flakes I found was really interesting. It was pretty large, about half the size of my palm. It had a pattern plastered across it that looked like mud cracks. There was definitely chert in it but I think it was mixed with some other type of rock. Jonathan did not really know what to make of it so we bagged and tagged it and are sending it to their lithics specialist.
We went to another small vineyard after spending most of the day in the large fields. We found three flakes in the little vineyard. There was a beautiful view from the area. We were high over a valley of farm fields in between two mountains/large hills. It was a really pretty countryside view.
On the way home we stopped at a cut for Mike to hack into. There was a small clear patch of dirt next to the cut that was the right age for us to check out so we surveyed it. We were unable to find anything and headed home.
I do not have time right now to write about the two days we spent in Lisbon or work yesterday, so expect that in the next blog. The weather is starting to get a lot better. It is not raining any more and the sun usually comes out and stays out by 11am daily. It is starting to get a little hot too. Sunny Portugal and summer are on their way. Hopefully by the time I write my next blog we will have found a great Paleolithic site and done some serious excavation…

Thanks to everyone who has posted comments, I like hearing your feedback!
Pat and Phil - I do have pictures but I´m not sure if I can post them. I´m going to put them on my stick drive and see if I can bring them up at the library next time I come. I`ll put them up on a website when I get home if I can`t add any to the blog while I´m here :)