Field school, 2007

I am trying to have a good attitude, but it seems I really do not care about much that happened here after 1492, or anything at all if I am in a temperature over 82 degrees Fahrenheit or 65% humidity. At least, things that happened without leaving small finds behind. We are digging at the Webster Farm,looking for Salisbury Fort. It's not much in evidence. Edna, who is co-PI, says she has never seen such a clean field in 30 years in NH. We are finding very, very little either Native (I found a nice quartz thing;

Might be a scraper on the best day of its life.

there have been a couple of other flakes and one potsherd) or European/Colonial/Eurotrash, what you may call it. A tiny brass tag that says "15" very clearly. A fine diaspore of slag from an illegal dumper sometime in the early 20th century. We had high-tech assistance,

This is Dan, the Ground Penetrating Radar person (he uses the machine, actually). The machine makes a series of slice perpendicular into the ground; then the computer puts them together into a horizontal portrait. It means Dan running back and forth a meter apart from the last track, over a set piece of ground. Dick and I moved ropes along a tape measure to give him his course. It would have been boring if it had not been so very hot. The radar finds anomalies, which don't necessarily mean anything. It's a good way to find actual remains of concrete buildings and underground pipes, so lot of GPR is done in aid of urban construction.

which was interesting, but I am not sure it proves anything.

I try to feel enthusiasm for the features, but I can't. When I left digging in England in 1980 I often had trouble discerning features unless they were very contrasty. The ones we were finding don't seem very convincing, compared to the much, much older stakeholes we found last year (see the Summer Issue of American Archaeology, but not online); it may be me. And I know it's me when I feel like the colonials should have kept better records, in England they would still be _living_ in buildings from 1745, and really, why bother? I respect all my more historically-minded friends (well, I don't, but I _like_ them, which is more important), but it seems to be the way I am made. Nothing after 1535 is worth digging. I know, knitting really took hold later, and I am actually big on plumbing, antibiotics, modern science... but not to dig.

The views

This doesn't show the heat.


Notice, for instance, that these people are sitting carefully in the shade.


Dawn and Heather, the field supervisors. I remember when they were were rookies... and they are very cool now indeed, except in this field, when it was about 85F.


Joanne, on her first dig and she was gifted in the straight careful 50-cm pit dep't; and Caleb, who after two seasons is finally 18 and a very good egg indeed


Why is the lesbian the only one in this picture with her weight on both feet?

and the social life, however, are excellent. We are staying across the street from the Daniel Webster house in an old convent, with our own rooms with basins and actual running water. Toilets that flush, multiple showers, a big beautiful kitchen. The mosquitoes aren't too bad. And the owner and patron, who owns The Common Man restaurants, laid on cable TV and internet. The small-holder gardener manager guy brings us fresh greens. We have our own soap opera (we have several, but never mind): Matt has fallen in love with a cat: Will Matt persuade his relatives to take her in? will she continue to be as loving as she is now, when the other cats in her household have set upon her and turned her out into the snow and only the diggers to offer her succor, or will her Old Ways (scratching old people when they either petted her or stopped at the wrong times) that caused her to get thrown out of an Assisted Living place come back once she is securely in Matt's household?

The snow in the previous passage is hyperbole. It's hotter than Satan's hairdryer.

I have so far escaped the absolutely rampant, carnivorous poison ivy that has gotten more than one digger to be taken to the hospital for prednisone. No instances of 'roid rage have been proven so far.