Great Mercury Island/ Ahuahu Dig Diaries

So it’s our 5^th day in the field today. The view from our worksite is really beautiful, and although it is very dry here has a really amazing, picturesque view with the pristine waters surrounding us, the stepped pas and the fields. Most of our weather has been really bright and sunny, though we have had the occasional shower. Even though we have only been here 5 days we have already slipped into a routine of work, early mornings, early evenings (speak for yourself, Rochelle!) and eagerly daydreaming about swimming away all the dirt. We’ve all been finding it a bit tedious getting up at 6.30-6.45am to slather ourselves in sunscreen and get in nice and early for breakfast before being on site, ready to go, at 8am. We (Rochelle and Emma – HI EVERYONE!) had previously been on the “Extreme Team” marking and recording artefacts coming out of a heavily eroded slope which we thought was hard enough on the body, but yesterday we began our work in the excavation squad. When we were watching from a distance doing laser scanning or survey from the hillside we never imagined it would be so labour intensive.

The image that previously came to mind when thinking about excavation was someone sitting in a ditch and leisurely chipping away at a bit of soil with some kind of small tool or brush as opposed to arduous. In reality, it’s actually some of the toughest work we’ve ever done. You are literally spending a full working day bent over, breaking your back, and digging through sediment scouring for bits of stone that, unless you know what you are looking for, you would probably usually ignore. We have been finding some incredible artefacts so far, including obsidian flakes, stone flakes and chert cores. The most common find at this stage is fire-cracked rock, and the mere sight of it has become somewhat of a running joke; but really we are very lucky to be finding so many artefacts.

Where does all the extra soil go when we’ve dug it up out of our trench? It goes into large (and exceptionally heavy) buckets to be sieved, where we hope to find even smaller bits of special stones. It is very hard work, and both of us were incredibly tired and sore by the end of our day today, but we have to admit it is the most fun we’ve had in SUCH a long time. It has been a lot of fun to be toiling in the dirt and singing songs, making jokes and light banter, and discussing the wider context of the artefacts and features we are looking at, such as the pit, postholes and drain in our trench.

It is a wonderful feeling to have a cool swim in the beach that is literally right behind us. It’s funny seeing all the people with their yachts come and stay the day while we are up on the hill, intent on our work. We have also enjoyed watching the cute sheep get herded around by the dogs, and we have to temporarily stop work to guard our work areas and equipment. It was hilarious to watch from the hill top as a whole flock of sheep surrounded Joe below us as he protected the Total Station and just stare at him. Looking back at the time we’ve spent so far we are realising just how much we’ve learnt already, and listening to our lectures makes us realise just how much we have to learn, and will probably continue to learn for a long time. There really are very few people who have the opportunity to participate in this kind of activity, and there are even fewer who are able to roll around in the dirt all day, not shower for days (and days, and days, and days…) and not have to experience the strange stares of passers-by.  As you can see below, Emma decided to take advantage…

Here’s to another day at the office tomorrow!

Emma and Rochelle =D

Dear Dig Diaries,

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to wake up in the mornings despite the sheep calling in our ears. However, once we are up and running its all action at base camp (queue epic explosion soundtrack). Bags packed, sunscreen on in large amounts fuelled with the anticipation of finding artefacts that will make all the other students jealous.

Cut to scene…

Picture this, students labouring in the blistering heat with sweat dripping down their soil-covered faces; muscles twitching under the strain of the trowel shifting earth to reveal the precious material below (mostly fire-cracked rocks that have been superheated to the intensity of 10,000 suns) for us to find.

NZ archaeology

As we toiled in the field, digging into the past and scaling cliff faces like mountain goats, a herd of sheep came to see what we have uncovered, all 800 of them as they were off to frolic in the paddocks on the other side of the island.

Cut to trench…
Trenches were removing vast amounts of artefacts such as obsidian and basalt flakes, precious materials sourced from great distances by prehistoric occupants. Deep post holes were uncovered, hinting at the possibility of structures covering the site. Excavation of sites is not as simple as just digging in the ground but has a technique to record each level of soil deposit (change in colour of the soil as it excavated down) which is very time consuming. Only small pieces of deposits can be uncovered at a time, beckoning curiosity and leaving students eager to tackle the site the next day to see what emerges.

Cut to cliff face…

Students are frantically scaling a steep, eroding bank like hungry mountain goats, in search of the precious grass that is artefacts. Lasers are shot from the total station (Think R2-D2 sitting on a tripod) to record and store the position of every single artefact in space into our database. This can be used to create a map displaying the distribution of all artefacts across our site. The artefacts are falling out of the cliff at the speed of a chuck Norris round-house kick to the face due to erosion building up at the bottom of the bank.

Although it is all fun and games at camp, when we are in the field the work and artefacts being produced is a real eye opener to the immense power of the human brain and its ability to create the material goods we are finding in the trenches.

– Kody and Mana

Beautiful piece of obsidian

For most people archaeology is excavation.  Although (as you have noticed by the previous two blogs) this is definitely not true, that was the main task assigned to us for the last three days. We learned new techniques like spade jumping, troweling and keeping a watchful eye for tiny artefacts. Gardening may be a fun activity for most people but taking the turf out is a very difficult job which we had to deal with on the first day. The real excitement came when we found stone artefacts like obsidian (volcanic glass), fire cracked rocks (in abundance) and basalt flakes (mostly broken).

Archaeologists at work!

Some excavation teams were lucky enough to hit the bottom of kumara pits or drains. Filling buckets and buckets of the dug out material and sieving it for even tinier artefacts made this job very time consuming. While digging deeper and wider, we have to be very careful not to disturb any features lying underneath. Excavation also makes you very familiar with forms- for a hole in the ground we filled out three different forms. Although this might sound tedious, it is now a second nature. We had the best introduction to archaeology through excavation and all that we have been reading about has finally become a reality.

– Sayali and Sophie

Survey involved pinpointing the exact location of artefacts
while the excavators worked away

Dear Dig Diaries

After waking up refreshed from a deep sleep in a tent (who would have known) we dived into another day of uncovering New Zealand archaeology on Great Mercury Island. With trowels, spades and developing blisters the excavation teams went on their way. The survey teams, on the other hand, were already underway, setting up for an eventful day two. Our job as members of the survey team was to ensure the spatial position of all subsurface finds were recorded and they were entered into a database which will wait patiently for when we get back to the mainland to analyse. Some of the awesome discoveries in excavation that were made, which we in turn recorded, included postholes, a drain and even a potential rua (storage pit)! What we learnt very quickly whilst surveying is that when you’re on survey you are a very popular person, and in high demand amongst the various excavators. When we weren’t frantically running between trenches we found ourselves immersed in registering the hundreds of artefacts.

The stunning view
we were treated to
while we surveyed
throughout the day

Ingrid, as we affectionately called our total station (refer to previous blog post) tends to be a tad grumpy in the morning and today was no different, making an already difficult task even worse. By the afternoon however, Ingrid was friends with us again and we were back to recording like crazy. The major benefit of survey was that we got to keep an eye on everything that was happening in all three trenches. This meant we were often the first to find out about any big discoveries and could help by circulating this info around to the other excavators.

Regardless of Ingrid’s behaviour we ended the day on time, happy with how the day had gone and with the finds that were made. With grubby bodies and the reddish tinge of sunburn there was nothing else to do but head down to the beach and jump into the crystal clear water. For now we can rest our bodies and only wait in anticipation for tomorrow and the finds we might make.

–          Bailey and Corrine

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

Excavations on the Stingray Ridge

At the end of November 2012 a small group of archaeologists spent a week on Great Mercury Island. The intention was to carry out small excavations on the two sites selected for excavation by the Fieldschool in February 2013, to learn about the stratigraphy (layers) and whether any features were present.

The excavated drain

The ridge overlooking the tombolo in the centre of the island, named Stingray Ridge, had stone flakes and fire cracked rocks (resulting from being heated in cooking fires) eroding down the south facing slope. The ridge surface had a gentle slope to the west and south which would have been quite suitable for living on, and had the benefit of a good view over the tombolo and sea approaches on east and west sides of the island. Six 1 x 1 m squares were excavated and stone flakes, fire cracked rocks, several postholes and a drain were uncovered. There were two separate occupations present. Where drains similar to this have been found on other sites they usually are associated with channeling water away from semi-subterranean storage pits where kumara tubers were stored. The site looks very promising for excavating a large area over the summer.

Stone-faced terrace on the slope at Tamawhera, with stone-enclosed hearth

Meanwhile the other team were at Tamawhera, the large garden site in the northwest part on the island. Naturally occurring stone boulders had been shifted to form stone rows dividing the north-facing slope of the valley into long strips. There were also narrow terraces on the upper part of the slope, and on the ridge top single alignments of stone and broad terraces with stone-faced front scarps. Narrow trenches were excavated across several of these ridgetop terraces, and across two terraces on the slope. The ridge top terraces had no stone flakes but there was very deep topsoil. We think that the soil had been gardened and that the stones on the front edge of the terraces acted as a retaining wall, allowing more soil to be built up within the gardens.

Stone-enclosed hearth on the second slope terrace

The narrow terraces produced different evidence. We don’t know what we will find under the grass surface and sometimes archaeologists are lucky and place the test trench in the best possible place to interpret the terrace. In this case on each terrace a stone enclosed hearth was found, and stone flakes. Stone enclosed hearths, usually found within houses, are rare on the Coromandel Peninsula, and very few well-defined houses have been excavated in this region. We look forward to uncovering the entire surface of both terraces in summer to learn about the size of the houses and how sturdy they were.

The conditions at the two locations in late November were very different. The archaeologists on Stingray Ridge, which is very exposed, were well dressed in multiple layers of clothing to stay warm in the cool westerly winds. The lucky people at Tamawhera, protected from the wind, were too hot!! It’s difficult to please everyone all the time.

– Louise

Shelter for the total station!

We only had one week to complete the excavation on the beach, begun in February. We began by clearing away the sand covering to excavation until we reached the protective layer of tarpaulin covering the archaeological material still in situ. Once uncovered we continued excavations, targeting the units we had left unexcavated in February. We quickly discovered this included as very large haangi, clearly defined by densely pack stones and charcoal. The units at the end of the trench furthest from the sea continued to   yield large numbers of stone artefacts. Perseverance in this area was rewarded however, at the end of the week when we discovered four postholes along the back of the trench. With all this information we can finally begin to reconstruct the occupation of the beach. Now we have to process thousands of artefacts….Watch this space!

Post holes along the back wall

Preparing for final recording on the beach, February 2012

Eager to get back out to Ahuahu, a small group of us returned to the island in June to continue excavations not completed in February. The June crew consisted of Simon, Louise, Peter, Pete, Alex, Rod, Ben Davies, Ben Jones, Josh, Annelies and myself. In conditions that were significantly colder, rainier and windier than February, the focus of this dig was to complete the work begun on the beach front. In February the beach front had yielded a large cluster of haangi stone in addition to stone artefacts, and some faunal material, however, it wasn’t clear exactly what this area represented. Was it a rubbish dump filled with remains of haangi and stone working? Or was it an area people lived in? And if not, where might that be? We wanted to know if we could discern any clear features to account for the large numbers of haangi stones, but also the large numbers of stone artefacts and comparatively low number of bone and shell material.

Excavating in colder and wetter conditions on the beach, June 2012

archaeology lab

The field work may be over, but some of the most interesting aspects of this project are just beginning! The archaeology field school is part of a 3rd year course in Anthropology ‘Field Methods in Archaeology‘ that teaches students how to conduct research from the field through to the lab, and on to a final report. Each of the 16 students in the course choose a topic they will work on for the semester. During the first class, students were presented with 19 different topics and ended up choosing a very interesting selection of study areas. These include:

Different gardening practices, analysis of faunal remains (shell and fish bone), wood charcoal analysis, raw material sourcing, study of the haangi stones, technological analysis of stone artefacts, taphonomic analysis of the archaeological record, analysis of spatial distribution of artefacts and features, the history of the occupation of Great Mercury Island/Ahuahu, a study of the previous archaeological research conducted on the island, and the geology and geomorphology of the island.

On Friday we began organizing the lab. Over the next few weeks students will wash, sort and begin analysis of archaeological materials collected during the field school.

We will keep you posted with our progress as we begin to piece together the prehistoric occupation of Ahuahu.

– Rebecca

The excavation area was rather crowded at times but everyone had a job to do as excavator, surveyor, label writer to include with samples, siever, or bucket carrier

The last few days on Ahuahu Great Mercury Island were hectic and the weather was not particularly obliging. We had intense heat, then rain and strong winds from the north west with our dune excavation was in its direct path. Many flakes and oven stones were found in the 12 m² area which required the location to be captured using the total station so the coordinates could be transferred into the GIS system. Flakes of chert, obsidian and basalt were located, and the sand in each 1 m² sieved to recover all the minute flake debris from making flake tools.

The wind and incoming tide caused a few anxious moments for the datum and use of total station but a sand barricade proved effective

As usual on the last day, the excavation took longer than expected and we were under pressure to finish the recording and photography and get the excavation squares ready for backfilling. The weather, and the quantity of flakes, prevented us from excavating the cultural layers in all squares so we sandbagged the edges of the unexcavated squares and covered them with a tarpaulin before the farm manager kindly helped us backfill with the tractor. By this stage everyone was exhausted and sand blasted. However that wasn’t the end of the work. Students worked long into the evening entering the samples into an Access database, and the surveyors were also working hard making sure the data was downloaded from the total station and correct. The rule is that all the data is entered before the fieldwork period ends.

Preparing the excavation area for backfilling so we can return at a later date and finish the work

The final day – Sunday – was sunny and calm. After house cleanup and packing, samples, luggage and students were delivered to the boat for return to Whitianga, and the remainder of us, with a large quantity of samples, personal luggage and electronic equipment caught the boat several hours later.

The fieldwork season was highly successful and everyone worked well together. The island is a beautiful place but we were too busy to enjoy the beaches in a relaxing way. Thanks to Peter and Pete Johnston of Ngati Hei for being with us and sharing some of Ngati Hei’s stories of the island. Thanks also to Michael Fay for hosting the crew.

Just some of the gear ready to leave the island

Although the fieldwork is over this is not the end of the project. Students on the field school will choose a topic broadly related to lithics, gardening or environment reconstruction and analyse material brought back to the Anthropology Department. This process will take all year and then the information can be collated to assist with writing the report which will describe methodology, natural and cultural layers, and interpretation, and will also include analysis, photographs, maps and plans.

– Louise