7-8:30 wake up, breakfast
Breakfast was self-service from a bunch of cold breakfast-like offerings
8:30-9 leave for dig
The departure time was generally between 8:30 and 9, and the drive took about 40 minutes
9:30 arrive dig site
There was always work to "set up" the site. In the cave, this meant stringing lights and power cords, since this equipment could not be left in the cave. (Hard experience. The crew in previous years has had equipment stolen, including scaffolding used to access the upper levels of the cave.) Outside there was very little setup, mostly just carrying tools.
9:30-1:30 work the site
In the cave there were two main tasks: digging and sifting.
Digging involved using a suitable tool in an area specified by Luis. This could be a pickaxe and shovel, if the material was hard and unlikely to show bones, or it could be brushes and small tools to work bones out of the matrix. Once bones were removed while digging, the remaining material would be put in bags, and brought to a sifting station in the cave, where the sifters worked, looking for smaller items (about 5mm or larger).
People would generally do one or the other of these tasks for an hour or two, and then we would switch off if/when people wanted to.
Digging
Filling bags for sifting
Sifting
Finds
Some larger bones found
Part of a horse jaw
A horse molarOutside there were two main tasks: digging and sifting. (Surprised?)
In this case, digging was always using small tools, because we were working largely in an archeologically interesting layer, and the location of artifacts was important. Each volunteer was assigned a square meter to work in, and would basically work to dig down in that area. Finds were either flint chips or small bones, and a variety of snail shells, and were "coordinated" using a total station (basically a laser ranging device for giving 3d coordinates for the object). Each volunteer had a bucket for dumping non-find materials, and when this was full, the volunteer would screen his/her bucket contents in a screening area next to the site.
Outside site
Outside site1:30-2:30 dig ends, time for a drink
The dig would be wrapped up, equipment broken down and returned to the van. On many days, we stopped at one of two local bars for a drink.
2:30-3 drive back to house
3-4 lunch by Jose and Antonia
4-6 siesta/quiet time
There's a reason why not much happens between 3 and 6. It can be quite hot. People would sleep, read, swim in the (smallish) pool, chat quietly, do laundry, and so on.
6-8 micromammal sifting, and cleaning finds
This work took place in a area near the house where the crew had set up a work area. Cleaning consisted of using water and brushes and similar tools to clean the finds of the previous day(s). Micromammal sifting was basically trying to find needles in haystacks. The objective was to find fossilized mouse teeth in materials recovered in a previous seasion from one of the Orce sites. This material was quite small (screen was maybe 1-2mm) and required a magnifying glass to look at.
Hopefully Terrence has a good picture of a mouse tooth find.
Microfossil-containing materials
Alex looks for microfossils
El Jefe looks for microfossils
Finds needing cleaning
Many hands make light work8-10 beach
Most days there was a trip to the beach at this time. Most people went, some to walk, some to dip in, and some to play a sometimes vicious form of keepaway. The keepaway teams were usually divided by gender, although sometimes there were, umm, honorary members of the opposite gender on the team to make things a bit more fair.
Now, for some reason this never happened when, say, there were 6 women and 3 men.
Threats were made, but never acted on, to, err, instigate wardrobe malfunctions. People generally tried to play clean, although a few people were, how to say, quite persistent in their attempts to extract the ball from someone else's grasp.
Sunset at the beach
El Jefe breaks up keepaway (time for dinner)10-11:30 dinner by Jose and Antonia
Dinner (and lunch) often featured Jose's wonderful sangria as a drink. The only catch to recreating it back home will be to get high-quality peach juice. This stuff was seriously refreshing.
Two dinners featured paella, the first time I had some. Gotta get me some more. There were three vegetarians (well, 4.5, but the 1.5 weren't picky about it), so there was always something veg provided.
after dinner
After dinner there was sometimes a presentation of some sort. Each of the science staff made a presentation on some aspect of the work that was underway. These were fine opportunities for Alfredo to practice his English, and Josep to not practice his (translation provided by Luis).
The most interesting late-night experience was on the first night, when Luis and Alfredo recreated a Galician custom, a flaming rum bowl.
Luis and Alfredo try to make fire the old-fashioned way.
Finally Jair comes to help.
Only when Bri helped too did fire finally catch.
Trying to keep the fire going, and light the rum.
Success!
Alfredo chants and stirs the rum.
If you think the day was full, you're right. Most people slept well.
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