Week 6 Achill Island: 27 June- 1 July 2016
Week 6 was a little bit monotonous and hectic, however that works due to trying to wrap everything up before we had to go. I couldn't believe that these two months had come to an end so the work of closing everything felt odd and disconnected from the previous weeks.
Tuesday on the weather was awful with cold temperatures and lots of heavy rain and winds. The Danish ditch that was worked on by the supervisors and those before us had to be backfilled which was absolutely miserable with the rain. Dirt is heavy enough when hauling it but mud is ridiculous. By the end of the day almost every body had fallen over and was covered in mud head to toe. Rachel had the worst fall when she was pushing the wheelbarrow over into the ditch. The wheel slipped on mud and in she and the wheelbarrow went. She did a ninja somersault roll to the side of the pit and just laid there for a minute in defeat! Luckily she wasn't hurt and had good humor about it all.We all had fun and were laughing our way through the ridiculousness of how archaic archaeology techniques are, I mean we still draw every rock in by hand and measure with just rulers, so this helped the day go on much quicker.
Back filling the Danish ditch took up all of Tuesday, so we resumed working on our own project Wednesday. We had to draw in every level of statigraphy for each of the walls to mark down the differences in soil types which gives us insight of the timeline of history. This took all day long as well, it isn't hard work but it sure is time consuming.
Nothing could have ended up describing the Irish weather better than our last day working up at Slievemore on Thursday. It definitely was the worst day we had in the entirety of the 6 weeks. We hadn't quite finished up statigraphy on Wednesday due to the immense amount of rocks sticking out of the wall (this is where the post medieval hut is). It was very confusing keeping track of the stacked rocks on the drawings which made everyone a bit frustrated and grumpy. I literally had to lay down in a pit of mud in the pouring rain just holding up rulers and tape measurer. It had gotten so cold that nobody could feel there hands and we had to keep taking breaks. During our lunch break we ended up cuddling under the tarp together just to try and escape some wetness and enjoy our food. Wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible we cut lunch short and got back to work. Luckily the last thing we had to do was back fill and only with the turf blocks, we didn't have to haul down buckets of dirt. With 13 people this didn't take too long and we were out of there by 3 pm. It was sad to say by to the mountain and site but the rain helped to push the sentiments away.
Unfortunately next years diggers are going to have to reopen the site which Stuart is upset and excited about. The lithics that we found in the entry way of the bronze age round house lead us to believe that this site may actually be much older, probably neolithic. It will be exciting to keep up with the new finds and get answers to some questions with the videos and web links that Stuart will be posting next summer. This site just ended up being way to cool to completely close off and forget about.
Later that night Jackie took us to Nevin's to show us off one last time. It was a long day and night but we knew it made him happy so we all sucked it up and went. I ate delicious chicken curry and naan bread and split a super chocolate-ly cake dessert with Rachel. While we were waiting on everyone to finish eating Jackie took Rachel and I over to the church next door. He told us a story about how one time he snuck in and dressed up a priest and stuck with the prank for the entire day talking to tourists and seeing what they could believe. He said he felt so bad about it the next day that he immediately went over the the priest's home and confessed his whole prank. The priest thought it was so funny that he couldn't rid him of his sins because he was laughing so hard.
After that the live music started and we stuck around for a few Irish tunes, but it was almost midnight and most of us had packing to do so we couldn't stay around too long. When we woke up the next day it was raining and Stuart decided that we would finish up with a lab day, finishing up lose ends. I ended up sifting through bags of dirt looking for charcoal and then putting them in other bags. There definitely isn't that much glamour in archaeology, but it sure is fun to get to play in the dirt all day.
Overall this has been one of the best experiences in my life and has brought me so much joy! The people I have met and the experiences that I have had have been nothing short of excellent. I feel much more confident that I am going to enjoy studying anthropology and archaeology for time to come. And with that I am going to finish up this field school recollection section of this blog. I am going to continue with the rest of my Ireland adventure with my family and see where things go from there!
With that Achill, slán go fóill.
Tuesday on the weather was awful with cold temperatures and lots of heavy rain and winds. The Danish ditch that was worked on by the supervisors and those before us had to be backfilled which was absolutely miserable with the rain. Dirt is heavy enough when hauling it but mud is ridiculous. By the end of the day almost every body had fallen over and was covered in mud head to toe. Rachel had the worst fall when she was pushing the wheelbarrow over into the ditch. The wheel slipped on mud and in she and the wheelbarrow went. She did a ninja somersault roll to the side of the pit and just laid there for a minute in defeat! Luckily she wasn't hurt and had good humor about it all.We all had fun and were laughing our way through the ridiculousness of how archaic archaeology techniques are, I mean we still draw every rock in by hand and measure with just rulers, so this helped the day go on much quicker.
Back filling the Danish ditch took up all of Tuesday, so we resumed working on our own project Wednesday. We had to draw in every level of statigraphy for each of the walls to mark down the differences in soil types which gives us insight of the timeline of history. This took all day long as well, it isn't hard work but it sure is time consuming.
Nothing could have ended up describing the Irish weather better than our last day working up at Slievemore on Thursday. It definitely was the worst day we had in the entirety of the 6 weeks. We hadn't quite finished up statigraphy on Wednesday due to the immense amount of rocks sticking out of the wall (this is where the post medieval hut is). It was very confusing keeping track of the stacked rocks on the drawings which made everyone a bit frustrated and grumpy. I literally had to lay down in a pit of mud in the pouring rain just holding up rulers and tape measurer. It had gotten so cold that nobody could feel there hands and we had to keep taking breaks. During our lunch break we ended up cuddling under the tarp together just to try and escape some wetness and enjoy our food. Wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible we cut lunch short and got back to work. Luckily the last thing we had to do was back fill and only with the turf blocks, we didn't have to haul down buckets of dirt. With 13 people this didn't take too long and we were out of there by 3 pm. It was sad to say by to the mountain and site but the rain helped to push the sentiments away.
 |
| The whole crew (minus Stuart) |
Unfortunately next years diggers are going to have to reopen the site which Stuart is upset and excited about. The lithics that we found in the entry way of the bronze age round house lead us to believe that this site may actually be much older, probably neolithic. It will be exciting to keep up with the new finds and get answers to some questions with the videos and web links that Stuart will be posting next summer. This site just ended up being way to cool to completely close off and forget about.
Later that night Jackie took us to Nevin's to show us off one last time. It was a long day and night but we knew it made him happy so we all sucked it up and went. I ate delicious chicken curry and naan bread and split a super chocolate-ly cake dessert with Rachel. While we were waiting on everyone to finish eating Jackie took Rachel and I over to the church next door. He told us a story about how one time he snuck in and dressed up a priest and stuck with the prank for the entire day talking to tourists and seeing what they could believe. He said he felt so bad about it the next day that he immediately went over the the priest's home and confessed his whole prank. The priest thought it was so funny that he couldn't rid him of his sins because he was laughing so hard.
 |
| Holy water is never at a shortage here |
After that the live music started and we stuck around for a few Irish tunes, but it was almost midnight and most of us had packing to do so we couldn't stay around too long. When we woke up the next day it was raining and Stuart decided that we would finish up with a lab day, finishing up lose ends. I ended up sifting through bags of dirt looking for charcoal and then putting them in other bags. There definitely isn't that much glamour in archaeology, but it sure is fun to get to play in the dirt all day.
Overall this has been one of the best experiences in my life and has brought me so much joy! The people I have met and the experiences that I have had have been nothing short of excellent. I feel much more confident that I am going to enjoy studying anthropology and archaeology for time to come. And with that I am going to finish up this field school recollection section of this blog. I am going to continue with the rest of my Ireland adventure with my family and see where things go from there!
With that Achill, slán go fóill.
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