Okay so I think we can agree that I have fallen epically behind on posting about the field school, but I’m going to insist that it is valuable for me, and for you dear reader, to wrap things up. Good news is I have only this last post for you. The bad news is here are my notes for what I should cover (Good work, Past Katie btw! Also I really wish there was a dedicated sarcasm font.):
On looting…fuckers…
On the mad rush at the end to back fill, re-seed, etc…
On the last push of lab work and final research papers…
On the importance of a feast…
So yeah, the site was looted. After spending weeks carefully revealing the bones and contents of the midden/garbage pit, our students excavating in Unit 3 arrived one morning to find it had been disturbed. It was immediately clear that several bones (mostly cow skulls) had been stolen from the unit (this was confirmed through consulting the maps precisely drawn at each level and through reviewing notes and photographs), Haeden reported the looting to the Archaeological Survey, while several students, and myself, took to social media to express our anger and our outrage. Honestly I tweeted without thinking – something I usually am better about when it comes to ethical and legal issues like this – and while I didn’t say anything horrible I wasn’t thinking about appropriate procedure nor ethical or legal implications and consequences. Luckily it wasn’t illegal to publicly discuss the looting, instead I will argue that the media coverage and public attention we received about the site and our work goes a long way towards informing the public regarding the importance of protecting, preserving, and not-looting archaeological and other heritage sites. So several media sources, who had covered and were continuing to follow the project, saw our tweets, instaposts, and Reddit forum comments, and contacted us for follow up interviews. I was particularly proud of the thoughtful comments made by my students on Reddit who had been patient science communicators and represented our work, our course, the site, and our discipline articulately throughout the field season. I think these personal accounts by the students – how they were angry and hurt that someone could so thoughtlessly destroy the careful work they’d done over weeks, that questions would go unanswered because of the loss of critical information we could have obtained from those bones – really resonated with the public. Further we had several community members stop by the site or contact us to let us know how upset they were by the looting as well. See that’s the lovely thing about projects that welcome community members, they too become interested and invested. While we never recovered those bones (and likely never will), the students also learned one of the harsh realities of archaeology – looting is a common part of the experience of field work.
Here you can see holes in the unit wall (look for the “fresh” or darker coloured sediment that was exposed) and the dirt on the floor from the looting of Unit 3.
Following the looting, work at the site was simply a blur. We had more rain to deal with (meaning we were yet again bailing out units) followed by some really hot days. There is so much that needs to be done to wrap up work at a site. First we needed to finish excavating all of the units we started. Units 4 and 5 were already close to completion leading into the week so we weren’t too worried about them and we did finish them by the Thursday. However, Units 3 and 6 were our biggest concerns. The profiles for Unit 3 were taking quite a bit of time simply because there was so much left in the walls; we typically leave objects in the wall unless they are at risk of damaging the wall (i.e., are too loose and may fall out). We continued expanding and excavating Unit 6 until the Friday (technically our last day on site). We’d encountered some more cement and a few pipes and needed to determine their relationship to the cement feature in Unit 1. While we finished excavating it, Haeden and JP decided they would come back over the next few days to finish up the profiles and requested that we all return to the site on the following Tuesday to backfill the units.
Revealing a pipe feature in Units 1 and 6, and preparing wall profiles for Units 3 and 4.
Why Tuesday? Because on the Monday we went on a field trip. I really wanted to make sure the students visited another archaeological site at some point over the term. It’s valuable to see how other research questions are approached, what other strategies are used in different contexts, and to examine different kinds of material culture. I’d originally hoped to visit another field school, and possibly do an exchange of sorts, but the other ones occurring in the province were Spring Term courses so it didn’t work out with our Summer Term schedule. I decided then we’d drive out to the Bodo Archaeological Site and Center, where one of our former students was working and where I’d previously excavated, then swing by the Viking Ribstones. I love the Viking Ribstones; they are situated in the most beautiful spot and I always feel so calm and peaceful after visiting and making an offering there. All the driving and the multiple stops made for a long day but we all agreed it was well worth the trip.
Field trip to the Bodo Archaeological Site and Center. Note I’m talking in the photo because of course I am.
So the following Tuesday we returned to the site to backfill. Backfilling involves replacing all of the sediment excavated from the units back into place and we also had other site reclamation we were required to perform (in this case we had to re-seed the surface of the units where sod had been removed). We also had a bunch of housekeeping to do: all of the gear must be cleaned and repaired (as needed) then returned to storage (or to those individuals we begged and borrowed from).
For the rest of that last week (technically week 7), the students were also busy wrapping up their final “research projects” and trying to complete any remaining lab work. They really accomplished a lot in the lab; we had very little left to clean and catalog once the course was finished, which Haeden and JP completed in just over a week. The students’ final “research reports” varied in content and form. Most wrote a paper either looking into the history of the site/ravine or a particular category of raw material in more detail. One student wrote a wonderful reflection on how prepared (or not!) our current Introduction to Archaeology (Anth206) course made them for field school. Another prepared an “unessay” of sorts; they designed a poster and exhibit proposal for a space in our Centre for Advancement of Faculty Excellence (CAFE); paired with my personal photos, this student’s work is currently on display in CAFE as a curated art exhibit called “One Site, Two Histories”.
Finally we had a feast…of sorts. It’s tradition to have a wrap-up party so I hosted all of the students, their guests, and our volunteers at my home. We did a simple BBQ, where we ate, chatted, and decompressed. During the party I presented them each with a Certificate of Excellence “for digging real good”; a silly tradition started when friends of mine presented me with one after a particularly intense field season. They also received from one of our volunteers a special camp stool to mark their transition from field school student to archaeologist; we had two of these stools on site and they were much coveted by the students. It’s hard to capture the meaning of gifts like these; they truly represent the bizarre and lovely microcosm that can develop on a field site between team members during a project. No outsider will ever understand why eating a whole cucumber with rice cakes for lunch is hilarious. No outsider will ever understand why we’ll forever cringe and roll our eyes upon hearing a dog named “Precious*” being called. *The name of the dog has been changed to protect the innocent dog. All dogs are good dogs. This dog just had a really obnoxious owner who was not a good dog owner.*
And then it was done.
I want to finish by acknowledging my fantastic students (Lace, Jesse, Kat, Kathryn, Emily, Keyna, Tara, and Josalyne), volunteers (Erika, Lisa, Andrea, Thomas, and Kendra), Haeden and JP. It was a honour to have worked with you this summer. I’m proud of what you accomplished and the work we did. It was archaeology at its best.
Last day photo of Team MCHAP 2017.
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