our view from the deck, fabulous
Dear Dig Diaries,
We arrived on the island on a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day via charter boat from Whitianga Marina. The journey over was beautiful, uneventful and relaxing. On arriving at Ahuahu/Great Mercury Island (also known as GMI) we unloaded a week’s worth of food, all our luggage and proceeded to our home of two weeks; a converted shearers quarters.
We spent the rest of the day swimming on the picturesque beach only 50 meters away and preparing for the hard work to come.
Day one of field work:
Our group of seven were allocated to survey an eroding hillside. A steep eroding hillside caused by weathering; for example rain falls and wind, and stock drives down the side of the hill. Our task was to map out the surface archaeology, such as stone flakes, and to get an overall idea of how the erosion is affecting the site. The difficult terrain made for an interesting days work. We had to find the artefacts (archaeological material) without causing any landslides, make it to the top in one piece, and then document it with a very nifty piece of equipment known as a Total Station.
extreme archaeology in action
Then at the end of the day we headed ‘home’ for a swim after a long, hard day’s work.
– Tremaine and Jessica