This blog records the survey and excavation of the old orchard found on the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Queen of the Holy Rosary grounds. This work is being undertaken by the students of CSU East Bay's Field Course in Archaeology class of Spring 2011. Check out our blog and see what we're up to!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
it must be the culture historian in me ...
that sees this picture and wants it to be a birds eye view from the southeast corner of our site. anyhow I just thought is was kind of trippy cause it sure does look as though it is a vista west and down hill. Check out the title at the bottom of the picture.
No, really what i want to talk about is the difference between digging a test pit with an auger and digging with a shovel. Perhaps it was the fact that we used the auger first thing in the morning when we were all (relatively) fresh and that we got to use the shovel method after lunch when the sun was higher and my post prandial mood had kicked in. Makes no never mind though, I really love what we are doing. I got my fingers crossed that I will find something cool like my classmates. So far i have hallucinated pieces of plaster and ancient seeds that will unlock the secret of old school agricultural folk ways at DSCQHR. I will have plenty of zip lock bags and a ton of mandarin oranges for you all saturday am. see you then. mark
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that looks suspiciously familiar.
ReplyDeletevery cool picture! Would you mind if I made a copy for my field book? I didn't get to use the auger. Had the chance in the afternoon - but wanted to finish the test pit I was working on. Unfortunately we ran out of plastic bags do we didn't finish the pit. I too will bring both sandwich and quart size bags on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great picture, Mark! (And congrats on your success with posting pics to the blog!) It does look like the southeast corner, except that the perspective isn't from such a steep incline as from our little hill. But still! If not directly from our vantage point, it looks like it could have been drawn from a nearby location, and reading that it's a depiction of a vineyard was *awesome*. Thanks for the interactive surprise! :)
ReplyDeleteHello Mark,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the mandarin orange it was tasty. Thanks again for bringing some plastic bags for the site, it inspired me to donate some as well. Well I hope we find something new on Saturday. The picture was pretty cool, where did you find the photo? I was with Amber`s group we`re we started to make a large trench and hopefully we can find some new finding there. I think the auger is more difficult than digging a trench, but with hard work it does pays off!
Haha Mark, I love the picture, that is really what I wish to had seen at our site as well.
ReplyDeleteI concur, I love this picture. It's funny whenever I go to a new site I like to imagine what the environment looked like in the past, for me it helps formulate and be able to give way to connecting the dots when digging in different soils and understanding how the environment affects the cultural material.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love also by your post Mark is the second paragraph that illustrates you hallucinating pieces of nothing looking like something reminds me of my very first dig. In all my excitement I wanted every piece of rock to be modified and and every bone to be a tool :) So fear not Mark I would say it's a common occurrence especially when it is your first time digging.