| Entry: | Excavator's log, Catal Date see last entry + 1.
Ghost chases can be fun, but the next morning they are usually over. So this one as well: Where there might have been a disturbance with a lot of charcoal and burnt clay, this morning there was only a freshly dried surface that looked like all the others before.
Another ghost to disappear was the connection of the disturbances, which was a pretty stupid idea, as the excavated disturbance had cut F. 5052 or F. 3327 (we cannot see the border between them yet, if there is one, but we have a nice new plan drawn by the trenchmaster) - and therefore cannot be a building trench. Should have remembered that.
My activities in the trench today are very easily summed up:
*look*, *pick-axe* *scratch* *brush* *look* *pick-axe* *pick-axe* *pick-axe* *scratch* *pick-axe* *scratch* *pick-axe* *scratch* *brush* *spray* *look* *help with finds*
Insert as many *remove soil and carry buckets to dump heap* as you like. Though actually at some point I got a wheel barrow. For two loads, then it was needed to keep our younger workman from boredom.
Now, as it would be a shame to write such a short diary entry I will expand upon a few thoughts of self critique I had while doing the mind numbing job of "hacking it away".
Excavator's bias.
I noticed in my behaviour towards artefacts in the soil, that I had gotten rather lax about collecting small sherds and bone fragments. I explained this to myself with the observation, that everything I had gathered the last two days had been chucked anyways (as the finds were without context)- so I'd bother only for the nice finds.
But what is a nice find?
Obsidian always got picked up, no matter how fragmented - just because it's nice and shiny and crying for attention? Or has my experience with sherds also subconsciously influenced my judgement, like "nobody will be able to write a number on this anyways" - although all sherds are at least weighted? Same with bones: if they are too fragmented, usually they can't be identified anymore - so why bother and lose time picking it up?
On the other hand, this is- conscious or unconscious - only a part of what was in the ground and the thought that my assemblage of finds is not representative annoys me.
The sieve, which I at first thought of as 'cheating', is a kind of back-up at least in regard to size as choosing faktor. But getting nice stuff from the sieve is really annoying as well, as it can't be located anymore... And isn't it somehow an excavator's honour to get as much information and finds as possible himself?
So I guess I'll go back and try to improve my hand-eye-method, especially as my spoil has not been sieved in the last days.
One more sin I have to confess (almost forgot): I was reliving yesterday when I wrote the labels to Xs or Ps finds - they're dated wrongly. Sorry.
SCS out. |
