Another 6.30am wake up didn’t stop Team Red from tramping over the ‘mountain’ to Te Mataku. We have had a very busy week on this coastal site and today was no different. With at least four fire features identified and bags on fire cracked rocks (FCR’s), stone artefacts, bone and shell coming out of our squares, we pushed on even with unforeseen technical difficulties.
My job for today was to identify and excavate the cut of a large Hangi feature on the eastern side of our excavation area. It had been partially excavated in June so all that was left was the lower section of the deposit (about 7cm deep). The section I was working on was along the northern wall and was full of shattered FCR’s, which proved very difficult to dig through.
Lisa and I were also on the hunt for archaeomagnetic samples for Gillian Turner. She needs large and in situ Hangi stones to be able to orient the stones for later lab analysis. To do this we had to place meringues or plaster to paris on top of each stone and once dry record the magnetic north bearing and also a sun bearing in case the stone was strongly magnetised after it had been fired, altering the compass. Unfortunately no extra stones were found today, but we did get two extra ones on Wednesday even if one of our meringues was a bit runny.
All up the day was very productive and despite having flat total station batteries we managed to shoot into all of our artefacts and features. Special thanks must go to the Blue Team running down the beach (action movie style) to our rescue with another machine. Here’s hoping the rest of the week runs smoothly!
– Rebecca 🙂