What Cinderella Did Next...

[endlessrarities]

The Kilwinning Dig is moving on apace.  It's provoked a lot of local interest, there's a long list of reserve volunteer diggers hoping for a slot in the rota and the first boxes of finds came back to the office yesterday.  I had a brief nosy through the bags, but the objects I saw were all modern...

Meanwhile, the office is like a ghost town. I was holding the fort for much of the day - while my colleagues frolicked in the abbey, like CInderella, I was confined 'below stairs' doing the more mundane tasks that are stacking up in everyone else's absence.  In those lonely hours (while listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, followed by the soundtracks to Manhunter and then The Last of The Mohicans, I managed to achieve the following:-

1) Broke the back of my soon-to-be-married colleague's outstanding data structure report.
2) Checked another of my backlog of council weekly planning lists, thereby reducing it to a managable level.
3) Submitted an assemblage of prehistoric artefacts to Treasure Trove
4) Managed to get more of the now washed-and-dried 19th century pottery & kiln furniture bagged and boxed, which leaves more room for the Kilwinning finds.
5) Sorted out the archive for another of my outstanding projects (four down, two to go, plus another project looming up next week...).
6) Prepared a final report for posting out to Historic Scotland.
7) Caught up with some filing.

AND I did a little task involving calculations for The Boss.  A successful day, all told.

Memorabilia is starting to emerge in association with The Dig.  I am now the proud owner of a very fine mug which features the logo I spent ages drawing a while back.  I'm rather chuffed: I've never had a drawing on a mug before!! 

Once it finally gets home, I'll post a picture of it...

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm keen to see the mug.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I visited an archaeological dig in Virginia last week. They are trying to identify the precise locations in which Thomas Jefferson planted paper mulberries at his summer retreat, Poplar Forest.

(My question is why anyone in his right mind would want to plant a paper mulberry -- invasive thugs that they are.)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

They shouldn't be hard to find then, just follow the trail of invasion back to its point of origin...

Seriously, how do you archaeologically identify the former location of a plant??? The planting area I can understand - garden archaeology can reveal the sites of parterres etc. very nicely. But the presence of an individual species?? Does it leave a peculiar shape of tree-throw which can be identified in the half-section? Pollen grains and mulberry fruits could help you say 'Here there be mulberries - somewhere, in the vicinity' but how could it be more tightly defined than that?

I'm sorry. I'm being horribly skeptical. I feel so sorry for American archaeologists. No wonder they come over here to find work... I'd much prefer to be chasing white gritty pottery than sniffing out Thomas Jefferson's mulberries... Though I suppose there'll be plenty of clay tobacco pipes, which means it's not all bad!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Dunno. They claim they can find some little doodads with a name like *phytolith*, some kind of signature the plants throw out. I took a photo of the current dig as it appeared on a day that no work was going on (not much, a grid covered by a tarp) as well as a photo of some discs they placed to mark some earlier uncovered tree sites. When I get that far in my vacation photos, I'll be sure to post the justification for this wizardry in the text.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Well I never. Whatever next!!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I went back to the brochure. They're tracking them with some combination of pollen and phytoliths (that was indeed the term) Here's some blah blah on phytoliths from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolith

I continue to shake my head at the thought of planting paper mulberries on purpose, but they probably weren't a pest in Jefferson's time.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Can you grow silkworms on the things? Was he planning on starting a silkworm plantation??

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can grow silkworms on those, and he wasn't planning on a silkworm plantation. He liked them because of their fast growth, their velvety leaves, and their dense shade.

[red-trillium.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you were busy busy busy! Congrats on getting stuff done but sorry to hear you were the Cindarella that day :(

I definitely want to see the mug!

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I ordered some finds bags, too! I forgot to mention that!!!

Just as well, we're rapidly running out...