7 August 2005
But there is always a solution! This is Guatemala!
Carlos and Benito and I took the trip last Sunday. We went to the border and came back, intending to renovar my car papers. When we got there, the computers were down, so there was no way of getting through and come back – we would be stuck in Belize for another day if we actually crossed over. Is there another nearby border I can go to? No, sorry. What is the solution? Nothing we can do, sorry.
After talking with the woman in a fruitless conversation for a while, I turned my situation over to the next guy up the chain. He basically said the same thing – we have to put the information on the computer and give you a printout. And we can’t do that today because the computers are down and the techs won’t come in on Sunday. Come back tomorrow. I have eight days left on my excavation permit. Can you give me a three-day handwritten extension? Sorry, no. The only concession I got was that I could send someone else to renovate the car papers for me, rather than coming myself.
Solution! That could have worked out lovely; Erin(our bone specialist) and her husband needed to go to
Belize to mail bones to the US, and were having to rent a car to do it; they
needed a break because they were out of money, and I needed to get the car to
the border without going myself. They
ended up not wanting to risk it, and so I had to head back to the border today.
The week was productive. I finished up the household excavations in the three residences in my group, drew the plans and called it done. I have a couple of small things that I want to do, and a couple more that I have to do, but the fieldwork is pretty much done. I have some good photos of the eastern structure completed. I had to climb up into two different trees to get the pics, first from one direction and then from the other. The first was pretty high and unstable, but I was not concerned. It was not too bad.
The second one
nearly did me in. I am afraid of
heights, but only when my brain decides that I am. There is no rhyme or reason to my fear. And it hit me in the second tree. Getting to the branch required a quick shimmy
up about ten feet of branchless tree. My
guys had prepped a “ladder” of sticks tied to the tree with vines (only one of which broke under my weight) but had run
out of both a few feet shy. No problem,
I said, I’ll just haul myself up.
I got up and couldn’t. I dropped my boots to try again, by my shim didn’t want to shimmy. At all. And finally, amid a fair amount of laughter, I had to drop to the ground and let them put another rung up there. And when I climbed up again, I still had some scary steps to take. But I got some great shots of my structure, and then got down as soon as I could.
My legs did not stop shaking for an hour.
After finishing that step, one of the things I wanted to do was to put a small unit off the back of the western structure. We had hit the edge of what seemed to be a cool midden – garbage dump – just off the edge of the platform. So I decided to put a 1m-1m unit there, just to see what else we would dig up.
Almost immediately it proved worth it. We came down on large sherds and well-preserved deer bone, and recovered a beautiful whistle in the shape of a dog(see the attached photo) .
I left the excavations to work on the plan view drawing I was doing for the group I had just photographed when the call came across from the unit.
“¡Hueso!”
I went over to see, and sure enough, there was quite a bit of bone in the bottom of the unit. I looked at a couple of pieces, and saw that it was pretty much butchered deer bone, as best I could tell. Still, we articulated as much as we could, trying to get a good idea of what we had. After setting up pictures for a while, and cleaning up enough to see what we had, I made the call. Take the bones out.
So since I was in the unit, I helped, and grabbed a single bone out of the dirt, which I handed over to Don Kike. He looked it over, and asked what kind of bone is this. I took it back, brushed the dirt off of it, and my jaw dropped. Bad call. It was not deer bone. I had a human mandible in my hand.
Everything changes
when there is a burial. You clear,
articulate, draw, photograph. It takes a
long time to do all of the things you have to do with a burial. I was 30cm from the end of the unit, when I
had to stop to excavate a burial.
The first thing I did was to get Elly. She has done it; I haven’t. My only experience in digging burials came when I was on the beach in Yucatán, and we grabbed bone as part of some rescate work. Not the same kind of work at all.
I then had nothing for the guys to do, and so I sent them to wash sherds at the camp. Which was likely a poor decision – the first hint of interesting things, I send them away? Bad call #2. We work at articulating horribly crumbly but intact bones, take the photos, and draw the resulting plan view for about 4 hours.
The more I looked at the bones, the more I was convinced that they were not human. There were simply too many unknowns. I recognized nearly nothing out of the bones we are articulating. So I started referring to the collocation of deer bones with human mandible as the were-deer burial.
Bad call #3. We removed the bones as though it were a burial, so no information was lost, but the next layer of bones included something that was unquestionably a human tibia – a shinbone. There ended up being three layers of bones, taking up two full days of excavation and drawing(my least favorite part of all of archaeology – I really have a hard
time drafting) . And all
for a unit I wanted to do quickly so I could move on.
All the bones seemed to be pointed in similar directions, except for the jaw, which was just off to the side. Everything was pretty heavily weathered, and the remains were fragmentary. I am pretty sure it was the burial of an older male. There was heavy bone resorption in the posterior dentition(bone-speak
for “the tooth holes for the molars had closed over”) , which
only happens when the molars have fallen out long before – usually only showing
up in older people. We also recovered no
teeth at all, and teeth preserve better than the rest of the skeleton.
It all points to a secondary burial. The bones, not the body, were bundled up and placed in a shallow pit. No offerings, no rich grave goods. A little bit of soil to cover him. Then covered over with garbage.
Pure ignominy.
So it set me back, but it is axiomatic in archaeology. On the day when you are planning to pack it in, pack it up, and ship it out, you hit a burial that stops everything. There is no escaping it. So I put everything on hold until I finished it, and then moved on.
Kind of.
After work on
Friday I took Matt out to a site that I had been shown at the beginning of the
field season. It is about a five minute
drive away, and is absolutely amazing.
The quantity of chert flakes is simply astounding. There is a looter’s pit in the middle of the
platform, and in it, you can see at least a meter of debitage, just stacked
up. This is the kind of workshop you
read about in books when you decide to become a lithic specialist, but you only
visit once. And never get the chance to
dig. Now that my season is over, I can
put a unit in, just to have some numbers for comparison. When I claim in my dissertation that they are
producing lithic tools at Trinidad (and I am pretty
sure that they are) , I will put this pit in, just to give it
some perspective. In comparison to
everything else in the area, Trinidad has a huge quantity of chert
debitage. But once I have dug a 1x1 into
a platform that produces more than 10 times the total amount of chert I have
excavated so far, well, that creates a perspective all its own.
The really nice thing(and, at the same time, the awful thing)
about it is that the site is slated for destruction. A subdivision of Nueva San José is planned
for the area, and the site will be destroyed.
It has already started. So my
excavations can be important in terms of salvage archaeology, and I can dig
without too much concern about saving something for future archaeology – I can
just dig what and where I want. As soon
as I get permission to dig. A woman
stopped by to see what we were doing, and informed us that to dig on this land,
we needed owner permission. Which means
we did not start Saturday as planned, and might not start Monday. But it will be done, and I can’t wait to get
started, as soon as we have permission.
Which might happen today, next week, or a year from now. But when I can dig, I will be ready.
We had the despedida yesterday. It is the party we give at the end of the season – it literally means “the firing”, and the project has put out a decent spread for a decade now. But this one, they tell me, was the best one yet. Papatulo showed up with his band and hammered away at tuned cordwood for two full hours. One of our workers works down the road as a cook, and prepared chicken on the grill, grilled vegetables, rice steamed in coconut water. He had wanted the job of cooking for us, but Carlos had forgotten, and had hired Doña Ana instead.
My taste buds may never forgive Carlos. The meal was fabulous, we bought ice cream that everyone loved, and listened to some really fun music for a long time. Not a bad send off for those of our number who are leaving.
Today has been a fantastic day. After a really good night’s sleep, I woke up and took Chris to the airport – she left today – and came back to have a leisurely breakfast with Ingrid and Elly. The food was good and we finally tore ourselves away to actually take the trip to the border and face the dreaded bureaucrazy.
We got there in record time, helped along by a little bit of pirated music we bought in the Sta. Elena market. We arrived at the border, and were going to try to avoid doing anything extra. She had to renew her visa, I had to do the car papers. Five minutes later, I am headed to the car to remove the sticker, having completed the hard part of the business in record time. And Elly is in front of me, headed back to the car.
I asked her what was wrong. She was done. Five minutes later, we were out of the border town, CCR screaming out of my one functioning speaker.
Renewal of the visa requires leaving the country, paying a $30 fee, possibly staying overnight or finding another border to cross. And always is a hassle. But at the “Leaving Guatemala” line, Elly walked right up, handed over her passport, and waited for the next step.
“How long will you be in Belize?”
“Only today.”
“Coming back right now?”
“Yes…”
“Why not just let me stamp the visa? You pay Q70 here(ten dollars) , but if you cross the border, you have
to pay $30.”
You have never seen Q70 exchange hands so quickly. No hassle, nothing.
My car papers were almost as easy. He asked how long I would be staying, took my passport, stamped the old permit cancelled, signed a new one, sent me to the bank next door to pay $40, and gave me my new sticker.
In and out in 10 minutes.
On our way back, I called DJ. In talking to him at the site on Saturday, I had agreed to give him and his wife a ride to Sta. Elena – out of our way, but not impossible. She is going in to the capital for surgery, and was in need of a ride. We were early, and I called ahead to find out if we could swing by and pick him up.
He politely declined, and said they would catch another ride. So we were also saved an uncomfortable ride around the lake.
I am buying lottery tickets right now. Luck like this is too good to waste.
But there is always a solution! This is Guatemala!
Carlos and Benito and I took the trip last Sunday. We went to the border and came back, intending to renovar my car papers. When we got there, the computers were down, so there was no way of getting through and come back – we would be stuck in Belize for another day if we actually crossed over. Is there another nearby border I can go to? No, sorry. What is the solution? Nothing we can do, sorry.
After talking with the woman in a fruitless conversation for a while, I turned my situation over to the next guy up the chain. He basically said the same thing – we have to put the information on the computer and give you a printout. And we can’t do that today because the computers are down and the techs won’t come in on Sunday. Come back tomorrow. I have eight days left on my excavation permit. Can you give me a three-day handwritten extension? Sorry, no. The only concession I got was that I could send someone else to renovate the car papers for me, rather than coming myself.
Solution! That could have worked out lovely; Erin
The week was productive. I finished up the household excavations in the three residences in my group, drew the plans and called it done. I have a couple of small things that I want to do, and a couple more that I have to do, but the fieldwork is pretty much done. I have some good photos of the eastern structure completed. I had to climb up into two different trees to get the pics, first from one direction and then from the other. The first was pretty high and unstable, but I was not concerned. It was not too bad.
The second one
nearly did me in. I am afraid of
heights, but only when my brain decides that I am. There is no rhyme or reason to my fear. And it hit me in the second tree. Getting to the branch required a quick shimmy
up about ten feet of branchless tree. My
guys had prepped a “ladder” of sticks tied to the tree with vines I got up and couldn’t. I dropped my boots to try again, by my shim didn’t want to shimmy. At all. And finally, amid a fair amount of laughter, I had to drop to the ground and let them put another rung up there. And when I climbed up again, I still had some scary steps to take. But I got some great shots of my structure, and then got down as soon as I could.
My legs did not stop shaking for an hour.
After finishing that step, one of the things I wanted to do was to put a small unit off the back of the western structure. We had hit the edge of what seemed to be a cool midden – garbage dump – just off the edge of the platform. So I decided to put a 1m-1m unit there, just to see what else we would dig up.
Almost immediately it proved worth it. We came down on large sherds and well-preserved deer bone, and recovered a beautiful whistle in the shape of a dog
I left the excavations to work on the plan view drawing I was doing for the group I had just photographed when the call came across from the unit.
“¡Hueso!”
I went over to see, and sure enough, there was quite a bit of bone in the bottom of the unit. I looked at a couple of pieces, and saw that it was pretty much butchered deer bone, as best I could tell. Still, we articulated as much as we could, trying to get a good idea of what we had. After setting up pictures for a while, and cleaning up enough to see what we had, I made the call. Take the bones out.
So since I was in the unit, I helped, and grabbed a single bone out of the dirt, which I handed over to Don Kike. He looked it over, and asked what kind of bone is this. I took it back, brushed the dirt off of it, and my jaw dropped. Bad call. It was not deer bone. I had a human mandible in my hand.
The first thing I did was to get Elly. She has done it; I haven’t. My only experience in digging burials came when I was on the beach in Yucatán, and we grabbed bone as part of some rescate work. Not the same kind of work at all.
I then had nothing for the guys to do, and so I sent them to wash sherds at the camp. Which was likely a poor decision – the first hint of interesting things, I send them away? Bad call #2. We work at articulating horribly crumbly but intact bones, take the photos, and draw the resulting plan view for about 4 hours.
The more I looked at the bones, the more I was convinced that they were not human. There were simply too many unknowns. I recognized nearly nothing out of the bones we are articulating. So I started referring to the collocation of deer bones with human mandible as the were-deer burial.
Bad call #3. We removed the bones as though it were a burial, so no information was lost, but the next layer of bones included something that was unquestionably a human tibia – a shinbone. There ended up being three layers of bones, taking up two full days of excavation and drawing
All the bones seemed to be pointed in similar directions, except for the jaw, which was just off to the side. Everything was pretty heavily weathered, and the remains were fragmentary. I am pretty sure it was the burial of an older male. There was heavy bone resorption in the posterior dentition
It all points to a secondary burial. The bones, not the body, were bundled up and placed in a shallow pit. No offerings, no rich grave goods. A little bit of soil to cover him. Then covered over with garbage.
Pure ignominy.
So it set me back, but it is axiomatic in archaeology. On the day when you are planning to pack it in, pack it up, and ship it out, you hit a burial that stops everything. There is no escaping it. So I put everything on hold until I finished it, and then moved on.
Kind of.
After work on
Friday I took Matt out to a site that I had been shown at the beginning of the
field season. It is about a five minute
drive away, and is absolutely amazing.
The quantity of chert flakes is simply astounding. There is a looter’s pit in the middle of the
platform, and in it, you can see at least a meter of debitage, just stacked
up. This is the kind of workshop you
read about in books when you decide to become a lithic specialist, but you only
visit once. And never get the chance to
dig. Now that my season is over, I can
put a unit in, just to have some numbers for comparison. When I claim in my dissertation that they are
producing lithic tools at Trinidad The really nice thing
We had the despedida yesterday. It is the party we give at the end of the season – it literally means “the firing”, and the project has put out a decent spread for a decade now. But this one, they tell me, was the best one yet. Papatulo showed up with his band and hammered away at tuned cordwood for two full hours. One of our workers works down the road as a cook, and prepared chicken on the grill, grilled vegetables, rice steamed in coconut water. He had wanted the job of cooking for us, but Carlos had forgotten, and had hired Doña Ana instead.
My taste buds may never forgive Carlos. The meal was fabulous, we bought ice cream that everyone loved, and listened to some really fun music for a long time. Not a bad send off for those of our number who are leaving.
Today has been a fantastic day. After a really good night’s sleep, I woke up and took Chris to the airport – she left today – and came back to have a leisurely breakfast with Ingrid and Elly. The food was good and we finally tore ourselves away to actually take the trip to the border and face the dreaded bureaucrazy.
We got there in record time, helped along by a little bit of pirated music we bought in the Sta. Elena market. We arrived at the border, and were going to try to avoid doing anything extra. She had to renew her visa, I had to do the car papers. Five minutes later, I am headed to the car to remove the sticker, having completed the hard part of the business in record time. And Elly is in front of me, headed back to the car.
I asked her what was wrong. She was done. Five minutes later, we were out of the border town, CCR screaming out of my one functioning speaker.
Renewal of the visa requires leaving the country, paying a $30 fee, possibly staying overnight or finding another border to cross. And always is a hassle. But at the “Leaving Guatemala” line, Elly walked right up, handed over her passport, and waited for the next step.
“How long will you be in Belize?”
“Only today.”
“Coming back right now?”
“Yes…”
“Why not just let me stamp the visa? You pay Q70 here
You have never seen Q70 exchange hands so quickly. No hassle, nothing.
My car papers were almost as easy. He asked how long I would be staying, took my passport, stamped the old permit cancelled, signed a new one, sent me to the bank next door to pay $40, and gave me my new sticker.
In and out in 10 minutes.
On our way back, I called DJ. In talking to him at the site on Saturday, I had agreed to give him and his wife a ride to Sta. Elena – out of our way, but not impossible. She is going in to the capital for surgery, and was in need of a ride. We were early, and I called ahead to find out if we could swing by and pick him up.
He politely declined, and said they would catch another ride. So we were also saved an uncomfortable ride around the lake.
I am buying lottery tickets right now. Luck like this is too good to waste.
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