If Wednesday was the day of rain, Thursday was the day of wind. We arrived on site to discover overnight rainfall had carved a new channel taking our stream out to sea. The dampness is often useful for revealing features not visible in dry sand or soil. We began the morning with a quick trench tour so all the students have an idea of what is happening in different trenches. After the trench tour we began work. I have been working on a trench to the north of the stream, where coring last year revealed promising material deep under the sand. Because we are working in two different locations we have to set up two total stations to survey the trenches. I have been running the second total station over the last few days. Survey is a very different task to excavation, but it gives you a very good overview of what is happening in the trench. You have plenty of opportunity to think about deposits, even though you don’t dig them, and to think about the different artefact distributions across the trench. We have a lot of evidence in our trench to suggest slope wash has moved artefacts down-slope, so we are interested to see if we can get down to a layer that is less disturbed.
The rain was gone by morning, but in its place a fresh south westerly. The wind increased throughout the day to the point where digging was stopped in some areas, we lost our sieving tripod, and empty buckets were flying. The temperature was much more bearable, but the wind certainly saps energy levels. Once again the day finished with a swim and evening work. Tonight students received a lecture from Zac, an MA student at the university. Zac was actually a student on the very first field school on the island, and has pursued a research interest on the island. His research examines the distribution of archaeological features across the island and how this relates environmental variables and use of place. We are all very relieved to be back inside out of the wind and are looking forward to another (hopefully slightly less windy) day of excavation tomorrow.
Rebecca