Digging begins!

After I received my teacher's certification, I wanted to go on a trip overseas somewhere. Originally, I thought about going back to Russia (went to Soviet Union in 1990), but that group trip was canceled. So, I decided to go to the Czech Republic for archaelogical field school. It was through the community college where I took some of the classes I needed for my certification. And, I'm so glad I decided to go, because it ended up being one of the most interesting experiences of my life.

I have already showed a map of where the dig was and where I lived. Now a little about the dig itself.

This is how we found our dig site. Full of tall grass!

We used sharpened shovels to cut the grass down on the dig site. And, then had to section off our dig area into 25 square meters with individual 1x1 meter sections.

We worked in pairs for each 1x1 section.

We carefully removed the sod level and then used trowels to slowly remove layer after layer of dirt. We filled the buckets with the dirt and then ran them through the screens looking for artifacts. We often found pieces of pottery, some stone tools, and occasionally bones or jewelry. My first square was horrible. Unlike most of the others, which had dirt, ours had hard layers of stones. This was difficult to trowel and also difficult to determine what was worth keeping and what was just stones.

Amy, my partner for our first 1x1 meter, looking at the screen with Mike, our instructor.

That was how the dig began. We did switch up partners and worked on different squares. Over the five weeks, we ended up digging two- 5x5 meter areas.

It was hard labor every day, but so much fun!