Days go by...

It feels so weird to be on a dig on an island and yet be completely connected via internet access and even working phone service. I can’t quite seem to get used to this setup. The past four summers I’ve worked on projects in other countries where I have had occasional internet access but it was not something I could really rely on to stay connected. I keep thinking, ‘I need to post entries! I need to post pictures!’ and, in fact I have such a backlog of photos and raw entries I very well could have posted more already without editing. I’m finding it hard to find the motivation to do anything after a full day in the field/sun and I’ll admit much of the energy I have left I use to go for a run or swim. On a typical day we leave the apartment in Vega Baja around 6-6:15 to get to the Hacienda in Manatí and are usually set up and ready to work by 7-7:15. Then it’s an 8 hour workday, we start packing up around 4:00, are on the road back to the apartment at 4:30 and usually get there around 5:00 or so. Add on an hour in the morning for breakfast, packing lunch and getting ready and your looking at a pretty solid, exhausting 12 hour day!

So Monday, June 30 was the first day of excavations at La Esperanza and it was a wash-out even though it’s been mostly dry since getting here two weeks ago. We got the first two units set-up and opened the first levels for each, meaning we removed the grass/vegetation mat on top of the soil and got all the walls squared off. The weather is calling for rain and thunderstorms the next few days, but hopefully they are just passing clouds. The winds here can be really strong along the coast which help to push storm clouds along or push them south to miss us altogether, but the weather changes so frequently on these coastal plains that it’s hard to keep up! Since then, we’ve about finished these two units and have started washing and processing the associated artifacts. The unit we were hoping to find a floor/foundation in, Unit 2E, turned out to be what looks like debris from a collapsed floor from further east and slightly uphill from the unit. It didn’t yield too many exciting artifacts, just crumbling mortar, brick and other construction materials. In Unit 4 we did have some pretty great finds before the soil started becoming more culturally sterile. There are two coins that look like the kind the Spanish issued for Puerto Rico, though they do not appear to be made of silver as they should be, a marble, a silver spoon, part of a perfume bottle, a crystal bead, a variety of buttons, and what appears to be a token or perhaps a game piece. This week we’ll be wrapping up these two units, start two more, and continuing to process the things we’ve found. 

Goodbye mosquitos, hello fire ants!!….

Ok, so here’s a recap of my second week on the island. This first week on the job in Vega Baja has been something of a whirlwind between starting the excavations in Manatí and dealing with obstacles at the apartment like the fridge dying right after we stocked up on cheap/bulk frozen fruits and veggies and my brand new laptop having issues booting up. Ay ay ay! >_<

As for the field, things are slow going so far. We are running a bit behind schedule for several reasons so hopefully next week we can pick up the pace. For starters, they’ve been having issues with water at the plantation so we are not able to water-sieve our soil samples and now have quite a backlog of them to process. Right now we have two 1x1 meter units open, Unit 4 and Unit 2E. We are finding tons of material in Unit 4 like ceramic and wooden buttons, animal teeth, a metal key, spoon and ceramic sherds, glass sherds, pieces of brick, mortar, etc by the bucketload, which is both awesome and frustrating (the more artifacts found, the slower the digging goes). 

Unit 2E 

Unit 2E at a later level, further down

This dig is definitely a change of pace from the pre-Colombian projects I’ve worked on in the past. It’s a very interesting projects but a lot less exhilarating to find chunks of brick as opposed to flint-knapped lithic stone tools haha. Unit 2E doesn’t have much cultural material aside from brick, though an intact porcelain button was found yesterday! The soil in Unit 2E has been a royal pain due to compression from sandbags used to prevent flooding of Unit 2 during the last excavation season; we had to start out with a pick axe and shovels in order to bust through it. Did I mention the wind has been relentless?! We’ve already gone through two canopies, one of which we brought to the field brand new and it broke in a day. Every day we have to figure out new ways to jerry rig them to withstand these gusts fueled by what must be the powers of Aura, Lelantos and Perses combined!

I will say, the mosquitoes here are not so bad and I’m sure the insane wind helps with that a bit, so that’s a plus. However, there is one thing the plantation is covered with: ants! FIRE ants to be exact and man do they pack a nasty little itchy punch when they sting you!! The most frustrating part about their bites is that they can spread if you scratch them open and they do not respond to bug repellent. Needless to say I have already acquired quite a few and am one very itchy archaeologist, but I guess that’s just the nature of the trade. And at least they’re the only real insect threat I have to worry about here, whereas in Belize you are have to be on constant alert for dangerous creepers and crawlers! 

It’s easy to become focused on the negative with so many things going wrong but for now I’ll count my blessings.