Sunday September 21st
I thought I'd write down what I did at Avebury and type it up later - sort of an old-fashioned paper and ink weblog. I'm going to want to add hyperlinks though. I suppose I could just underline things for now. ;)
Rob drove me here - we arrived at about 6pm. Not bad going, even if he did insult my navigating skills. It's not like we got lost or anything! Anyway, Mark Gillings (one of the three people in charge and the man who invited me) showed us where we could put the tent up, then Rob helped assemble the thing. He did most of the work. It's like sleeping in an umbrella except the pole detaches, otherwise you'd have to curl up around it or something. Whatever, I don't know how you'd fit two men in a two man tent!
When Rob went Lisa showed me around - where the kitchen area was and how things worked. Then I talked to the two incredibly sarcastic Americans on the dig - Randy and California Dave. Randy has a magical woman attracting blanket that he bought in Devizes for £1. His dad once lit a fire (indoors) with petrol, stole TNT, and blew up a tree stump (at a different time to the TNT stealing) causing fallout over four blocks! Yesterday he bought a beefburger and smothered it in English mustard not realising that it wasn't like American mustard. He doesn't know how twibbling means.
The evening meal was BBQ and all the leftovers from the last week's food (the dig's catered but she doesn't cook weekends). I feel replete and not all that tired - it's 9.30pm. Everyone else has been working all day. It's not that quiet(there's a fairly busy road running past the campsite) but it's quite dark (maybe I'll see Mars). My sleeping bag and tent are cosy; my feet are a bit cold but nothing serious. It's not that cold. Yet. Hehe.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow with trepidation...
Monday September 22nd
Today was an odd day. I got up at 7.15am and ate bread and marmalade and drank some tea. The minibus left at 8.30 and soon after we arrived at the two remaining stones of the Beckhampton Avenue. That's where they've been digging, trying to work out far the avenue continued.
The stone nearest is Adam, the other one's Eve. There was a stone paired with Eve just to her right, where they were digging. There was also a stone way across the field - you might be able to make out the dark mound of spoil heap in the distance! The Avebury stone circle is off that way, too, across the fields.
In the morning I was digging in Trench 30. There are five different sections across a ditch feature. My slot was the least excavated but it wasn't too bad. You basically dig until you hit solid chalk, removing all the compacted soil and chalk that the ditch was filled in with. The people who dug the ditch in the first place must have had a harder job. Anyway, it involved trowelling, mattocking and shovelling.
After the tea break Josh (one of the other directors) showed me what was in his trench. It was near the two standing stones - Adam and Eve. Basically it contained an enclosure ditch (predating the avenue) with some strange gullies inside it. There was also a destruction pit where the twin stone to Eve had been burnt and broken up.
The stone destruction pit.
I dug in my trench until nearly 3, then the third director (Dave) asked me to help him take photos, recording the ditch sections. It was raining a bit and once it hit 3pm it rained torrentially. It was a solid wall being driven sideways by hurricane force winds! The bad thing was we all ran to the cabin and left the cameras outside (under a wheelbarrow) as well as another piece of equipment. The director was understandably annoyed with us... he shouted a bit. I felt pretty bad but I'd just run away when commanded to. He shouted a bit.
We waited until 3.30 and then gave up. Thankfully my tent was still standing (and dry inside) and after a hot shower I felt much better. Later on in the evening Dave appeared and was amiable and joking, so I didn't feel quite so bad.
The evening's been spent in front of a roaring fire. There's an outside patio with a fireplace and pool table. I watched Randy drink two large bottles (1 litre ones?) of Smirnoff Ice and then walk around in arcs. He has an e-book reader. I didn't know anyone had actually bought those things!
That's about it really.
Tuesday 23rd September
Today has been good. My only problem is that tonight it's rumoured to be hitting freezing. I'm wearing two T-shirts (long and short sleeved), a sweater, jogging trouser and a sweater wrapped round my feet. My feet were freezing last night, they'll be awful if it does get cold. I feel pretty toasty at the moment...
Today I was working in the same trench as yesterday. I discovered I'd been a really short distance away from the bottom of the ditch, so with California Dave's help it was soon cleared out. Then we started cleaning it up - taking off the loose stuff and making it look good for the photos. This took the rest of the day, since a lot of the stuff is in a higher bit of the trench needed to come out (it was rubble not natural chalk).
After lunch Mark took some of us to see the buried stone that was in his trench. It was only a little way away. You can see the area from where we are. In the same way that stones from the avenue were burnt and broken up, some were just toppled into big pits. Mark's team had dug out the pit... the stone's pretty impressive!
I finished cleaning the slot a quarter of an hour or so before the end of the day. Dave got me to help him with photos again, which was scary. I think I did okay, though.
We all went to Safeway. Most people bought booze, I bought chocolate. Then we had dinner. Randy sang (he sings most of the time, to be honest) and made a fire, Hector (the Spaniard) and California Dave played a particularly thrilling game of chess. Insult psyching out chess. It wasn't a bad evening, though we're all a bit worried about the threat of imminently cold temperatures!
Wednesday 24th September
Another good day. It was very cold overnight. It was frosty everywhere when I got up at 7.30. Well, I got up before that but decided it was way too cold and went back to the sleeping bag.
Today I was cleaning trenches most of the day. The first was the slot right next to the one I'd been in before; the second was next to that. I've gradually been working my way south. I was in the trenches with Hector and Randy. Randy is completely insane. He started off asking questions about soil science (geomorphology?) and ended up enacting a soap opera about a man who liked to watch TV on Tuesday nights (but it was always repeats) and a female neighbour who wanted to borrow 13 cups of flour because her therapist had told her to make some sort of strange dessert. Anyway... I suppose yesterday he was composing an archaeology musical in which one of the songs was called, "You're dead, get over it", so...
When we finished those I was given the task (by Dave) of sorting out all the sections and plan drawings. I think I got it sussed. I'm still really nervous when he asks me to do things. I was his photography assistant a couple of times, too. I had to make sure all the plans were in the drawings index and numbered on the originals. That was my day.
They've decided the Trusloe buried stone is called Bob. This is because it looks like an Angel Fish and fish go, "Bob, bob, bob". Also, we went to a volunteers house for curry. It was good, although I feel shyer than ever in situations like those, especially when everyone's drinking wine! I wish I'd seen some of the mad archaeologist baiting characters though. Stalker boy - the guy who obsessively takes pictures of archaeologists (not features), hiding behind spoil heaps etc, and works in a camera shop in Salisbury; rude orange-haired woman; Terry the Druid, who rides a motorbike.
You can't get an idea of Bob's size from this, but his mouth's at the bottom and his eye's there... see? ;)
Today was the last day of digging. I'm kind of sad.
Thursday 25th September
It looks like they've decided the pit alignment/ditch feature is Iron Age by a process of elimination. There was no dating evidence - nothing at all really - in the ditches. When they told Terry the Druid the ditch was Iron Age he said he wasn't interested, which is interesting since Druids were around in the Iron Age. Hehe. After Randy and I cleared out the tool shed we were sent off to see what Mark and the buried stone were up to. He sent us to see Ruth and Paul, who were doing flotation. Basically, you mix up soil samples with water, float the organic stuff off, sieve it and see what's there. Anyway, nothing came out of the ditch. Well, maybe a snail, but nothing interesting. It was a very stale and enigmatic feature.
The stone destruction pit/causewayed enclosure trench had been filled in by the JCB. The next trench to be backfilled was Trench 30 - the trench I'd been working in. They started one side but there were still a few section plans to draw.
Randy and I took some levels and measuring of ploughsoil layers for Mark, then before lunch Ruth, Paul, Randy and I walked a few fields away to the site of a Roman villa. They'd geophysical surveyed it - the scatter covered several fields. We walked around a bit but I didn't find much. There was a lot of flint, which had been used in the villa's construction. I picked up three things - two pieces of medieval pottery and one piece of decorated Roman tile. And some lumps of flint, but not for interesting reasons. ;)
We went to Avebury for lunch - we ate in the National Trust tearooms. It was fun, and we had a free look around the museum afterwards. Then it was back to the site. Randy and I (we always got stuck together for the horrible jobs) had to clean out the office/kitchen on site, which involved trowelling gooey coffee off of the work surfaces. Then we sat around and watched the JCB all afternoon. At one point we threw chalk pebbles at California Dave (who was finishing the last section drawing). Josh and Mark went to protect him, ending up in the line of fire. Then Mark got the water sprayer out and attacked us. It was very strange. Eventually everything was finished (although there's still lots of backfilling to be done).
It has been fun, or worthwhile... something... definitely worth doing. It's been okay camping. My tent's pretty bug proof. Less bug infested than home, with the evil spiders. It was been good to see the stars, and hear owls. I haven't enjoyed the freezing night temperatures, but still... it all balances out. Even though everyone else had bonded over weeks of work I felt part of the team, and I'm pretty sure I was useful.
I have tons of bruises on my knees, one on my arm that I don't know how I got it, dry chalky hands, dry painful lips... but this is what happens when you do archaeology. At least the gross cut on my finger's healing, and the blister on my hand's just about gone. I'm glad I didn't have to mattock more than two days running - my back was hurting a lot. Archaeology is definitely not something you can do for a couple of days every so often.
All hail Bob the mighty fish deity!
The Iron Age(?) ditch feature.
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