Over the course of the blogs, have you ever wondered how many rocks actually make up our excavation site? Well, probably not, but we can tell you anyway! 1856, to be precise. How do we know this you may ask? Over the past two weeks there has been two total station teams shooting in (recording the specific point) every single rock in the immediate vicinity of the excavation areas.
Wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let us tell you about total station. It is a laser based survey device that allows us to record any point in a 3-dimensional space, through the use of a tripod and target pole. We can then look at the points using computer software, creating an overall map that we can add to each day.
As well as rocks, the total station teams shoot in artefacts, different soil deposits, cultural layers (the soil layer that cultural events occurred on), features like hearths or hangi, and the full excavation area. As you can imagine this would keep us very busy, and at times is quite stressful. Our reply to calls of ‘total station!’ was “stand by caller, your rocks are very important to us. You are next in the queue; we will be with you momentarily”.
This brings us back to our rocks. The aim of shooting in every rock was to map out the construction of the terraces, and see their relationship to the excavation areas. Through using the total station, we are able to digitally reconstruct the excavation site. This can then be used by field school students to aid in their research projects.
After 12 hard days of survey and excavation, our time was coming to an end. Everybody was running around frantically in order to complete everything on time. While the survey crew were shooting in the final rocks, the other teams were busy filling in the trenches we had so lovingly excavated over the past two weeks. While the final paperwork was being completed and the photos taken, chain gangs were formed to efficiently move the soil up and down to the trenches. By the end of the day you could hardly tell we were there.
All in all, it was a wonderful two weeks. We were surrounded by a beautiful landscape and terrific archaeology, but perhaps the most defining aspect of field school was working alongside such knowledgeable supervisors and directors, enthusiastic peers, and generally amazing people.
– Nick and Bailey