Day 8.

First day in the field. Thought I was running late, but ended up arriving before the supervisor. It was cold this morning. By the time I got to the lab it had warmed a bit and I didn't require the long sleeve (black and white striped w/ an orange jolly roger printed across the chest, high class) shirt I was sporting under my t-shirt so I ditched that. Felt like I was carrying a lot of crap (satchel, lunch box, toolbox) but turned out otherwise.

Loaded truck with things (of which supervisor forgot key things: red nails for marking elevations [used makeshift until they arrived] and the tripod for the transit system [doh]), crammed into truck (6 foot asian does not fit in backseat of pickup well unless folded carefully), off we went.

When we got to the site it was just a gorgeous morning out. It was a bit cool for the beginning, but by lunch I could lose the hoodie and sport the sprite t-shirt. The process of digging a hole was pushed to the max today. I'm used to, you know, dig dig dig dig dig dig dig the trench. But we started by mapping the feature. We set ABCD nails, effectively making a crosshair over our feature. From here we plot A and B on the graph paper, then C and D, then plot points using measurements taken across the A/B line and up to the nails that form the estimated perimeter of our feature. Do the same on both halves, find north and label it. Once the starting half is decided we left the line connecting A and B and commenced digging.

The digging was unlike any digging I'd ever done before. We gingerly scraped the surface so as to protect any artifacts we might find (I was informed later that this particular feature contained a higher density of "stuff" than others). There was a lighter, outer area (a slump)that contained little to no material and then there was the darker, inner area (burnt area) that contained all kinds of goodies. I dug up lots of good stuff today: numerous sherds, a bunch of chert, bc, some bone, a bit of rough rock, and a metric f ton of limestone.

I decided around mid-afternoon that this whole careful scraping could be compared to Christmas. The scraping was akin to having to wait to open presents and then finally getting to open them. The artifacts are the things inside said presents. I then decided that limestone could be considered socks if one were to further that analogy. People can use them, but they really don't want to get them because there's other good stuff they could get. Trust me, it works.

So, where was I? OH! I found this sweet rim. It wasn't as big as some of the sherds I found, I think the biggest sherd was as big as the palm of my hand. But, this rim was maybe half that, but it was sweet looking. You could see on the edge... well let's start with what are rims. Rims are simply the rim of a vessel. I know, you probably could have figured that out on your own, but I didn't want to leave anyone hanging. So this rim. The edge of it (yes, they all have edges as they're all usually broken, but the rim edge is a finished edge, the top, thus making it a rim sherd) was pinched. It rippled like... I thought there might be a combination of keys on the keyboard that would make what it looked like, but it was wavy.

Near the end of the day we got the call that it would rain tomorrow and the supervisor decided that he wanted our feature finished completely today, so we busted ass (cut corners?) and got it done. Training went a bit faster there at the end, but I tried my best to pick up the slack and not suck. I can only hope I didn't.

Anywho, the lack of music wasn't too bad. It was a pretty day out, we were near some woods and there were birds and all that. And, I had to pay attention. So, there was that. But, tomorrow I'll be back in the lab probably picking flots. Will have to find new things to listen to. Anywho, still have the dirt on me from my hole. Shower time.