10 posts tagged “archaeology”

What question do you hate being asked?

"So, dig up any dinosaurs then?" which is inevitably asked when I tell people I'm an archaeologist. Being who I am I don’t correct them and say that that would be a palaeontologist, I simply make up far-fetched stores and wait for them to realise they are very slowly being wound up. "Oh, so you design buildings then?"  is nearly as bad and Architects themselves are no better; when the University had its societies fair 6 architects joined "arch soc" the archaeologist society, bevelling it was for architects; despite the togas, trowels and Indiana Jones costumes much in evidence by the recruiters. The best ever response I got was "Wow, So you build speedboats then? How exotic!" by a very attractive if somewhat easily confused girl at a house party. My response was "Yes, yes I do. Brad Pit just bought our companies ‘Monte Carlo’ model in fact."

The fact I was wearing a Cardiff arch Soc t-shirt seemed to have passed her by.  Then again if you think an archaeologists job entails luxury speedboat design it is possible she noticed but attached a rather more glamorous and utterly false significance to it.

Also, As i write this i have an odd sensation of déjà-vu.

Well, I'm back in_England for a MRI scan, and it slightly nice to get away from_Wales for a bit considering what’s been going on there. I have been helping a PhD student with some geophysics, and the results have sofar been limited to early mornings in my a-metallic clothing so I can help him run the fluxgate magnetometer. Mag is always tricky and this one seems to hate us. The unreliability and fussiness of the kit aside, our biggest problem was sheep.

Jokes about Wales aside, these sheep were the sheep from hell. The overly aggressive ram was the least of our problems, it was the smallest ewe that caused us the most problems., That tiny sheep was freakishly intelligent for livestock and managed to example and lure the rest of the heard to exactly where we didn’t want them several times. Then a small child managed to chase all the sheep across the field, driving them towards me. fortunately it turns out the ram is easily scared off by any beeping equipment and so rather than getting charged for getting between the ram and his ewes I just had to more or less wade through  sheep with the magnetometer to get the survey done. We were hoping to find a mediaeval manor house, but I think we found son thing industrial (but still mediaeval and probably manorial) instead.  During the lunch break the sheep regrouped and retaliated by surrounding and licking all the equipment whilst we weren’t looking. It also turns out that ancient breeds of sheep have a strange fondness for eating yellow spray paint off the wooden pegs we were using to mark out the grids for geophysics. Equipment covered in sheep spit aside, we worked on and made good time, and then right at the end of the weekend we discovered that one of the sheep had decided to chew through both of the cables connecting the resitometer to its spacer probes.

Oh well. hopefully we'll be able o finish the work next week without any more equipment getting eastern.

Also MRI scans are VERY noisy. Mine sounded like a train of all things.

What will you remember most about this summer?

Digging over the summer in the isles of scilly probibaly

Hi, possibly someone noted that i have not posted on this blog for about a month.

Sorry.

I have been away on a compulsory Archaeological Dig as part of my degree, going back to the Isles of Scilly for a second year, and i loved it. However, it did mean that I couldn't get to a computer except on work related matters. However, there is a site blog about the dig that people could write if they wanted, and i volunteered and got to write Four blogs. so here are the links. they also include actual archaeology if you want to know what i was up too all that time.

yrs, Random Archaeologist.

The blog home page
http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/

The first Blog
http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2007/06/28/10/

My first blog (they spellt my name wrong in post production, Heads will role)
http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/site-blog-tean-2nd-july-2007/

My second blog
http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/samson-with-aidan/

My third and best blog
http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2007/07/22/aidans-blog-21st-july/

My forth blog, the final blog of the trip
http://scillyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2007/07/26/final-blog-july-25th/

Surveying diary, Caerleon Roman Legionary Fortress 2007.

Friday 30^th of March.

Early morning, cold at first. Resistivity on Priory field. Watched grid get set up on field using GPS. Used the Resisitometer with multiple different depth configurations, the largest of which was 1.7 m if a recall. Larger spaces between the prongs used in a measurement creates a wider and therefore deeper arch and so revives deeper archaeology. However, as the fixed point electrodes must be at least 30 times the widest arch away from the survey area to avoid interference, we had to put them over 40 meters away. At first unsure if we had a long enough cable but it worked in the end. Also taught to avoid coils in the lines leading to the fixed point electrodes and to avoid having the lines parallel, to avoid induction. This is why the two lines are of different length. Learn not to hold both fixed point electrodes when machine is on as although normal setting is theoretically harmless, higher settings could give an electric shock.

The multiple configurations of different prongs meant we were looking at different depths at the same time and had high resolution, however for that we would need parallel measurements at I m intervals, walking up the 20-20 meter grid every meter and in the same direction rather than zigzagging up and down. In effect this meant we were doing twice the survey as we had twice the measurements per 20-20 square. 800 measurements was the number given. We took one every 50 cm in lines moving along one meter apart. Surprisingly hard to get spacing right; I had to redo several lines. Finished last out of all the teams, but got 3 squares done; apparently not bad for the last half of the first day.

Saturday the 31^st of March.

Warmer morning, but I felt then a storm was brewing. Saw geophysics results from yesterday; our sweep reviled an internal wall on one of the granaries last weeks magnetometer geophysics found. We are re-writing what we thought this fort was like. Other team did not fare so well; there Resistometer was apparently working and taking readings, but a wire has snapped inside so it only looked like it was loging results. Only when they tried to download results did they find none of their sweeps had been recorded because the machine was utterly fubar. GPS team also had problems on the first day, equipment not uscwap but battery died unexpectedly so they only got a half day done. Snafuau.

 Used GPS today. Set up the base station over a known point, much like an EDM. Learnt it took the correction factors from the nearest five base stations to work out a correction factor for the site and sent that to the rover units on a wireless modem. Accurate to 4 cm in the United K. Batteries dodgy to start with, and someone was broadcasting noise on all the frequencies the modem needed, but we got the things working. Now it is the school Easter holidays we extended our survey to the Caerleon primary school field, so we had to peg it out. Team walked with rover and used the map to put down our pegs and mark out 20-20 grids for the magnetometer, accurate to 4 cm of the Ordinance Survey map. After a spell as hammer-and-peg bunny I was promoted to topo point man. Measured topographic points every two paces, with detail on any lump or bump, in the small field until lunch using the newer rover, the one belonging to the professionals not the university. Easy to use as a synthesized American lady’s voice tells you when points are recorded, battery or signal low ext. As a fan of Halo and Red Vs Blue, I called her Sheila. After lunch I used older rover, the one with the back-pack modem. Taught to keep GPS staff utterly vertical so the point on the ground measured is directly beneath the raised antenna, but I guessed that from my EDM theodolite work last summer. Hard as wind picked up thought the day, and humidity increased and animal activity doped, birds oiling themselves. I expected rain, but none came. After lunch moved on to topographic survey of the school field. After about an hour or two the odd spots of rain and persistent humidity and Petrichor tuned into fully-blown lighting storm. Would of course be whilst I was waving a large metal pole with electrics on top standing under trees trying to get a GPS clear reading from the satellite though the branches the lighting chose to start, only a few clicks away. Put Shelia down on the ground, checked it was save to leave equipment out in rain, and legged it to the mini-van to wait out the storm and eat a second lunch. Typical spring storm. Noisy, violent and over in half an hour, twenty minutes.

After the storm retuned to work but the battery at the base station died after about half an hour, disabling both rovers temporarily. It was fixed but despite may effort the radio signal from the base station remained too intermittent for the rovers to find the correction factor and eventually we packed up for the day. But despite this and the storm we did get 1000+ points measured and we left happy that we managed to work until nearly 1500 until the system crashed when the day before the team only worked until noone.

What? I though most mammals were meant to be mainly nocturnal?

Thursday. Had to finish an essay but had my surveying field trip, day one of 9, 0830-1800 (with no days of) on Friday and so did not sleep before handling in. At least I don’t think so. I can work 30 hours and stay alert and active if I have too (although I start singing “Bright-eyes” to myself without realising after 24 hours, apparently) but I do have a gap in my memory about 5am to 7 am that may be sleep, or just a memory blank.

Of course, yesterday was the last day of the Easter term so the Student Union bar had to get rid of all the beer it can not store over the holiday, so they have “Drink The Bar Dry”, a party where EVERYTHING in the bar is £1.50.

So of course when I got back after my 0830-1800 geophysical shift I had a beer, a shower, pasta, watched the X-Files and then went straight out to the Bar to round of my day drinking until 0100 today (well, technically yesterday at this time). So that’s 1200 noone on Thursday until 0100 Saturday with a 3 hour period that may or may not have been sleep.

AND I got up at 8 today for my day's shift.

Ahhh... the student lifestyle. Archaeology; Go to university and ensure yourself a low-pay outdoor job with heavy lifting!

It was such a nice day we decided to do our work outside, lying on the grass outside our university humanities’ HQ. We sat and talked through what needed doing for our report and discussed the maths of it. However, so nice was the day my group of three fell to doing this by staring at the sky chatting  about or group report. As a result, we were unaware of how many people were around us, and so managed to horrify several dozen.

Our report was for Forensic archaeology. We have to produce a report on forensic entomology using details from a semi-fictional murder. Our main blissful topic of conversation was the relationship between necrophages and other corps fauna, particularly between blowfly and housefly larva in the cadaver and the black rubbish fly larvae that predate them.  The maths was ADH, accumulated degree hours, a way of working out the rate of development of larvae at any temperature compared to ones grown in a lab at a fixed temperature. With this you can use the stage of development, larval instars, pre-pupae and pupae to estimate how long a species has been in a cadaver and from the total of all relevant species and count back to time of death. It was a nice day and we were just chatting about our class-work in a relaxed way going into occasional precise detail speculative tangents about which bugs had the most disgusting habits followed by long and detailed explanation of such habits. Then at the end we realised we had an audience

The humanities’ building also houses the English literature students.

A lecturer also thought it would be a nice day to work outside and brought out his first year romantic poetry class to seek inspiration.

I think we turned them all from Inddie kids into EMO kids and Goths. Certainly they got inspiration, but I doubt anything they write will be at all romantic for a very long time to come

Now for a real Post; Rugby and the problems therein

Facts;
One, i am half Irish and like it when the Irish rugby team wins stuff.
Two, So at the moment i am happy with life in general because_Ireland has won the Trippe crown and the six nations are still very open.
Three, The last 6 nation games are this Saturday.

Four,This Saturday is St. Patrick's day.

Now there is know problem in that, but i like to make it to the SU early and catch the Irish poetry before the place fills up with drunks, who i then join. However,

Five, the last match in the 6 nations is England vs. Wales in Caerdydd. The Student Union will be one huge shine to rugby and things will get very messy as they always do when england play wales in Caerdydd. and i will be expected to watch the match as i am a nessisary buffer zone to sit between my english and my welsh friends.

Not that bad, BUT,

Six, Saturday is also the date of the Archaeology vs anchent history paintballing which i have allready paid for. It will seriously eat into my Paddy's day cash and make me miss not only the game, but several hours of drinking by which time the Student Union will be awash with drunken English fans, Drunken Welsh fans and Drunken Irish fans. And i will be walking into that still acheing from paintballs.

only one thing to do...

buy green paintballs and make those Anchent Historians whish they'd never been born!

No Blog today, I have to finish my osteoarchaeology report for Thursday so I can spend Thursday finishing my archaeological-metallurgy report on how the properties of copper alloys effected their use in the ancient world. When do we finish the Archaeological theory ...
(ultra-scientific American Processualism or ultra fluffy hippy European post-Processualism, hard choice but the past is not a repeatable experiment so Archaeology can never be science. Plus if I go with post-Processualism I get marks for pointing out that everyone may be dead wrong. Plus I get a tee-shirt!)...
and the scientific analysis ( just because I believe Archaeology is an art not a science like most people this side of the pond does not mean I don’t like the scientific bits, I’m doing a Bsc for god's sakes) and get on to the bits with whips, and guns, and booby traps and Nazis and SILLY HATS! THATS WHAT I SIGHNED UP FOR!

Lara Croft and Indiana Jones, I’ll get you for false advertising if it’s the last thing I do!

No seriously, I knew what I was getting into when I sighed up, and I already have a silly hat. I just wanted an excuse to bash some well known cultural icons. If you like Indiana Jones satire be sure to check this out....

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/24.html

and http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/comic.php?current=24&theme=5&dir=next5

There we go.
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And I’m aware I said there was no post today on the first line of the post. I know that’s a paradox. I was lying; All archaeologists are liras.
....
I really wish that was a cooler paradox. Like one that involved time travel due to hitchhiking and an exploding computer-bank kicking me to the end of the universe and I was the one blew up the universe because I touched myself and since the same matter cant occupy the same space at the same time everything goes weird. I mean really weird, sort of so weird you only possible music you could play would be “Bright eyes.”

That would be cool...