She Sells Seasells by the Seashore

Sorry about not posting yesterday. So we're a little more than half way done with my time here in Albania and the reality that I leave a week from Saturday is setting in. With this upcoming change of scene I think back to home and my brother and parents that I'm missing. I'm living the dream this summer, but it means I sacrifice the summer with the family. I made the choice, I don't regret it, and I'm not complaining, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be a little homesick. Love you guys.

So the rest of this week promises to be an interesting one. I've begun a project with the graduate student from Notre Dame focusing on seashells. When Professor Hernandez digs, he divides the site into "areas", and then within each area there are "contexts." These can be as big as a fill (think dumpsite), or as small as a grave. We're looking at all the seashells from all the areas in an attempt to reconstruct the natural environment during the last centuries before common era and directly after. Some contexts have three shells in them, but one of the ones today had 1000. We divide them first by type, and then get measurements and weight from them to compile in a spreadsheet. We then come home and do research on the various types and explanation for size differentiation, shell condition or shell density. We will then go on and draw some minor conclusions on natural environment based from all of this data, and Professor Hernandez will go on and draw his own conclusions. This is a fascinating study, and it's mind blowing that we can gather so much from so little. In the process today I got to sort ancient animal bones from shells, and that was quite the experience. We're not big hunters, so I have little experience with bones and materials that used to be living, so this was a new experience.

The final members of the team have arrived from the Netherlands and Germany, which brings our total to 14 (three Americans, five Italians, two Albanians, two Hungarians, one German and a Dane). Notably, we've had more people come into town and stop by Tani's (the bar we frequent) from New Zealand and Canada, bringing the nationalities I've met at the bar to three (New Zealand, Canada/Germany, and Norway). Albania seems to be a stopping ground for people and I'm compiling a global contact list. We have a film team from ND coming in on Friday, as well as the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, coming to visit the site, followed by a party hosted by the American crew from Utica. Should be a busy weekend.

I'm seeing the wide range of knowledge required to be a good archaeologist. We're using zoology, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology, math and most importantly Classics in order to put everything together in terms of information, followed by philosophy, sociology, and history to figure out how it all fits together. Truly a wide range of skills required. With that, a shameless plug for Classics. It's the first video I actually like my voice in, so check it out to see how I really feel about my major.

One of our photos from the day

The eggs of the hawk hatched and she's been feeding them lizards ever since