Great Mercury Island/ Ahuahu Dig Diaries

Liam began the day like any other day on the island. Little did he know what awaited him… Beginning his morning with a nutritious breakfast; peanut butter and apricot jam on toast that provided energy for the long day ahead. Liam devoted an entire 10 minutes to the construction of the perfect sandwich for his lunch. A delicious combination of sausage, cheese and lettuce was crafted.  At 8am he began the long climb over the hill to Te Mataku with buckets in hand.  He continued on in his 1×1 metre square that was so lucky the day before. As he began to excavate further into the layer, he uncovered many treasures and treats that delighted Team Mataku.

Liam getting ready to rock

Liam taking notes from Louise

First was a selection of stone artefacts that lay upon a mammoth rock. But time constraints soon tightened and Liam was force to divide the remainder of his 1×1 metre square into 25cm squares and start bulking them out to finish the excavation in time. Liam was finally able to lift the mammoth rock which had caused much curiosity.

Liam rocks

Liam enjoyed his short lunch break by the beach under the shade of a pohutakawa tree. Liam even broke out a block of chocolate and some lollies to share with his team mates. Liam’s afternoon continued with a stratigraphy drawing session and much wet sieving.

Liam tries out photography

The end of the excavation required backfilling. Liam carried many, many buckets of sand across the beach and returned home with buckets of artefacts in hand. A party had been promised by the opposing team and Liam took part in the festivities.

Liam relaxing

Written on behalf of Liam

By Emma and Katherine

Today was a little different; after working all week at Te Mataku, the team piled in the van (very very early in the morning) to visit the Tamawhera site. A casual stroll through the thistle forests later we arrived at the excavation site. After warning of the difficult road ahead, we tackled the terrain with ease due to the momentous mountain we were faced with every morning to reach our own site.

We checked out their excavated house and subsequently we were delayed in reaching our own site. This resulted in Louise pushing the turbo speed button. The first obstacle faced by the Mataku team was the hill mentioned above. We quickly realised we only had the one climb in us that morning and we struggled up the jagged cliff. The second obstacle for the day came in the form of a fire cracked rock overload. Our 1×1 metre square was choc-a-block with FCR, which slowed down the excavation process.

Even with both Katherine and I squashed into the square we were unable to conquer the rock continuously erupting from the rake out. The third obstacle was the total station threatening to shut down at any moment as the battery slowly drained as more FCR surfaced.

Wet sieving material

Crowded in the trench!

Meanwhile Liam was having all the luck finding lots of artefacts in his 1×1 metre square.  Finally in the afternoon we struck  shell, as a 30cm long shell zone became present under the masses of FCR.

Trench photography

At the end of the day, covered in charcoal we wandered on home around the reef, thankfully the tide was low, lugging our FCR behind us. Fortunately we were able to have a shower, however despite the intense pressure and scalding temperature, we doubt we will ever be clean again.

– Emma

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 🙂

Image of the walk down that we take each morning to the site.

The morning start was a little less prompt today, despite the early nights all around, the sleep timer failed to wake the four slumbering women in my room. But there is no rest for the busy and it was time to get to work!

I was working at Te Mataku this week, an area that was started in the June excavations, and had been found due to eroding material exposed with tidal movements and occasional stock trampling. To get to this site we have to hike up a hill and down again, avoiding thistles, patches of sheep droppings and sometimes very unstable patches of dirt. But it is a very good way to wake up in the morning, and it certainly gets the blood pumping, ready for a day of digging. It also helps the view is stunning!

The view we get at lunch time.

We opened up more units today, extending the excavations to include a few units in the middle of the area to expose more hearths for our visiting Geophysicist, Gillian Turner. She was there to record large in situ hearth stones in order to determine the geomagnetic changes that occurred in hangi stones once they have been fired. In order to do this, we had to find the stones for her, and so dig we did!

People at work (I am the one with the pole)!

We found a range of artefacts

We were working long hours at the site – from 8am to well after 5pm, and with a high tide we had to go back via the mountain pass instead of around the rocks –which was by far the more convenient option. We managed to find an assortment of things that day, as mentioned above, with quite a bit of fragmented bone, lots of fire cracked rocks and an assortment of stone artefacts. The sun was hot, and because we were working in the sand we had to work in our socks so we didn’t collapse too many of the edges of our trenches. This was by far the most challenging thing on survey, particularly as you have to go between everyone’s excavations and be careful not to stand on delicate areas or areas where sand may collapse. There are a lot of ‘sorry’s’, ‘can I stand here?’s’ ‘is that all you have’ and ‘who has the next label’?. It requires a certain presence of mind as you have to make sure you have recorded each code of artefact correctly, make sure you shoot around features so they are represented spatially and importantly of all – make sure the machine doesn’t get rained on!

I enjoy survey though because it allows me to get an overarching view of what is going on across the whole excavation area, what kinds of artefacts are being found and how everything is progressing.

By the time we ended for the day, Gillian had recorded 6 rocks for her palaeomagnetic study, we had found a beautiful range of artefacts, and everyone was ready for registry and bed. Once we got home we had to finish registering, as we had a back-log of artefacts for the day, as well as ticking off the ones that made it back to the house from the field. That took a little longer than any of us wanted to, and it was a 9pm finish followed by a 10pm bed – a late one for us on the island!

-Sophie

With the excavation all over, we thought this morning with some luck we may get a sleep-in, but it was not to be. We all blearily stumbled to the breakfast line at 7am and were frog-marched by Simon up to the site again! Thankfully the spades and trowels were shelved, and instead we had a small talk about the site and the excavation reminding us of the larger picture that our hard work has contributed to. The scale of all our work is impressive; we started off with three small trenches and never dreamed we’d excavate a rua pit, a huge storage pit, a drain, hangi features and so much fire-cracked rock! Back at the quarters everyone dug in filling out the last forms, registering the last artefacts and scrubbing the place from tip to toe.

students of the 2013 field school

This is our last day at the island! And we finished it off in style with our last swim, lots of music, and of course a chilled beer. We are all happy and excited to have learnt so much, it was an experience to remember. We have made some great friends and memories, and all hope to return to this beautiful island in the future. Luckily all is not over yet for us, we will continue to analyse our finds in order to further our understanding of the Maori occupation at GMI over the course of the semester. It’s not over yet folks – watch this space!

– Lizette and Sophie

Bailey grapples with sampling sediment

At last we grasped the final day of excavation. It was a day of blood, sweat, swearing and tears with the clashing of trowels and the flinging of dirt…

In the morning we trudged to the site with the knowledge of the impending de-turfing facing us. We began to take off the top layer of a section joining two trenches only to be told “Make it bigger!” *sigh* Being brilliant students we diligently de-turfed the selected area. Once we had got down to the next layer and made it sparkling clean we were told “Dig it deeper!”

Dig!

The digging and scraping of trowels continued until after lunch. Then all hell broke loose as the clock struck 3pm. Bailey was summoned to assist in the removal of a muffler cut in half (to be used MacGyver style as a core sample) that was hammered into the drain feature. Meanwhile the team had gathered to furiously scrape and sweep the last centimetres of soil from the drain area. All students had Simon watching and waiting until the job was done. Josh saved the day with his bionic arm making it bigger and digging it deeper before the final time was up. The final day of excavation ended with Simon standing on top of the van with a camera in his hand and a lesson to be had. When you make it bigger and dig deeper you will get a picture worth a thousand buckets of dirt to be sieved.

After the day was done we all had the evening off from tedious paper work and sorting of the daily finds to watch movies and eat junk food like typical uni students.

–        Katherine and Bailey

Its day 11 on the island and the countdown to a long, hot shower has begun! There’s only three days left and already things are starting to get crazy, but still we progress. Today the Hilly Mountain Goats (as survey 2 have been called) finished the surface survey on the steep, sloping edge of Stingray Point, with all members still in tact… just.

Our day started with a new transect for survey, marked out by a couple 60 metre tapes and some orange pegs. While three of us began the treacherous journey up the hill in search of artefacts, two of us remained behind to set up our survey equipment, our total station named Olga. Olga was having a bad day and it took an hour to set her up and get her level so that we could record the location of anything we found today. However, back up the mountain, the goats were labelling our artefacts, putting them in small zip-lock bags that we will later analyse in the lab. We soon sorted Olga out and managed to record all our 600 artefacts for the day! That’s a lot of fire cracked rocks!

Just when we thought the worst was over, we were given instructions to excavate the midden (AKA the blob of soil with shells in it) that we had found three days previous. This was not an easy task! We were actually 1000 metres above the ground (or so it felt), dangling off the edge of the eroded cliff, holding a spade in one hand and a bucket in the other as we adopted some extreme archaeology techniques. With our feet placed precariously on the moving ground we swung our spades in a feeble attempt to de-turf the shell midden.

Once we had used all our strength to hack out the turf layer, we began to excavate down and found some fire cracked rocks and little pieces of obsidian. This required some sweet balancing skills paired with some great total station moves as Sophie had to balance on top of the midden in order to shoot in the coordinates of the artefacts.

Photographing each layer above the midden was another test of how far we were willing to sacrifice ourselves in the name of archaeology. It required the entire force of our five strong team to take just one photo, not because we were technologically challenged, but because we had to hold Emma down so she wouldn’t lose balance and plummet down the hill!

Things got more difficult when the island’s microclimate threw a tantrum and couldn’t decide whether or not it wanted to rain, so we were constantly on alert, ready to sacrifice life and limb to protect the total station. Note that our total station was right at the bottom of the slope, 100m down the road, so we were in for a long sprint, thankfully it didn’t come to this!

Overall it was a productive day and we really enjoyed ourselves, even if we were facing great peril (or so we thought). We look forward to seeing what the excavation of the midden will reveal tomorrow and hope that no one falls off!

– Shannon and Emma A.

The average day in the field for the students on the GMI project includes excavating, recording, and surveying at the site, registering artefacts, forms, and photos after the field work has finished, and doing cooking and cleaning chores if it is their turn. However the work for the staff of the project does not stop there. For months before the season some staff are organizing everything from the supplies to the equipment being taking on the project, checking food quantities and booking the laptops and other electronics needed. Some of the staff even came out a week early to prepare for the field school and make sure we had a good site (full of interesting artefacts and features) for the students to excavate. For months after the project staff and volunteers are working on organizing the data and artefacts, cleaning and analysing them and guiding the students in their projects.

During the season staff are busy helping students throughout the day and building their knowledge in the evenings with lectures. After the days work is done there is always more project related work to be done on the databases as well as other personal work, whether it be writing applications for grants, keeping up on everyday work, working on a PhD, or preparing to embark into graduate studies. Often in the quarters someone can be seen working late into the night, only to get up early the next morning to do it all again.

The staff on the project, be they professional staff or graduate volunteers, gladly take on the work because as hard as they fall into their beds each night, the work is in an amazing place and the students are grateful for the opportunities and experience shared with them – and that makes it all worth it. Also, we get to avoid Auckland traffic for a few weeks!

– Josh

Sunday… day seven… a half day!!!  But first… work again.  We began as per usual, digging, troweling, sieving, climbing the slope and generally getting dirty.  Yet, once midday rolled around we were free to do what we wanted, for some of the afternoon at least.  Whether it was catching up on sleep, looking around the island or enjoying the beach we all savoured this rare opportunity for some free time.

Personally, we (Liam and Sophie) took the opportunity to take a look around the island, climbing to the top of one of the several pa sites scattered around the island.  Yet, after a week of archaeology the world all of a sudden looks very different, and even when we were free to do whatever we wanted, this group of archaeology students couldn’t help but notice all the stone artefacts and especially the fire cracked rock strewn around the place.  Although our eyes were fixed on the ground, the spectacular landscape was still evident and impressed us all.

It was then time to cool off following our climb and we decided to visit one of the otherher beaches.  While not everyone was keen to jump in at first, eventually we all had a look round the rock pools and discovered that despite the long distance (150 m) this beach was worth the walk.

So that was our (half) day off.  A chance to rest, recover and recharge that left us well prepared for the final week which promises to be at least as busy as the first.

– Sophie and Liam

It is our 6^th day on the island and time is going insanely fast. If it wasn’t for our built up dirt layer, the sunblock grime,  blisters and awkward tan lines (sock lines are all the rage) reminding us of how long we have been here we would swear its only been a couple of days. Unfortunately, illness has started to spread through the camp (avoid Leisa). Leisa will tell you that excavating under the hot sun with dust and dirt coating your entire body while spluttering and snivelling is not a pleasant experience. For the rest of us “healthy” people the work is tiring but extremely rewarding. There is something amazing about unearthing and handling material that may not have been seen for hundreds of years. Leisa and I were fortunate enough to have spent the last 5 days excavating in our respective trenches and have been able to see the entire process from de-turfing with spades to troweling out the bottom of pits and postholes, or in my case a modern drain pipe. We uncovered a range of materials from a shiny obsidian blade to the more abundant fire cracked rocks and even a few fragments of a modern metal rake thrown in just to confuse us further. Today we were both moved from our beloved trenches, which after 5 days we had become quite attached to, to a survey crew. The total station, named Ingrid (previously referred to as R2-D2) and her partner in crime the prism were our temperamental tools for the day. We can tell you now it is incredibly difficult to learn how to use a total station for survey in gale force winds as everything has to be level. As soon as you got it level and about to shoot in your location the wind would throw it all askew and you had to start all over again. Oh, and lets not forget the absolute power that comes with being on the survey crew as we set the pace of the excavation. As we have experienced it becomes increasing difficult to excavate around a large amount of artefacts and are incredibly thankful when the survey team arrives to record these artefacts and clear the space. Despite the difficulties we faced today it was a great learning opportunity to witness all the work being undertaken all over the site in different excavation areas and gaining a greater understanding of the site as a whole.

–          Emma and Leisa