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We finally got my camera situation sorted out (I had charged both my spare batteries at home in Rochester right before leaving - and then left them in their chargers still plugged into the wall when I left) and now have many more pictures of a day in the life of a Bermuda archaeologist: The daily commute. first this:                       Then this: All told, about half an hour to get to the site from St. George's. Today was a bit rough, though, due to the remains of TS Beryl kicking up 15kt winds and a small craft advisory, but we made it.  Yesterday we continued work on the lateral trench we laid out bisecting the house cellar, taking off the surface layer and revealing a thick layer filled with dressed stone rubble, broken bricks, and other detritus from the house's abandonment and collapse, Today we got to the bottom of it: Mike rigged up a tarp to allow better unit photographs and give us shade - a key addition, since ther...

So... yesterday was all about setting up the meter square units we will be excavating: Today we set to work on taking off the first layer. The shade you see here vanished by mid-morning and the roots in the nearest square were ornery. For the most part, the only artifacts were rusty bits that had fallen off an enormous metal tank on wheels used in the hydroponics operation here in the 1970s and 1980s, mixed with bits of plastic tarp - the students were not impressed. But about 6-10 cm down, large amounts of stone rubble began to appear (the top of the next context) and a few 19th c. ceramic sherds and nails turned up. We also worked through filling out the many details on the context register sheets (vital because archaeologists destroy their site as they dig it, and extensive paperwork is the only way to ever reconstruct the stratigraphic relations), using the Munsell book (for uniformly identifying soil colors), wrestling with sifters, and taking elevations using a water level (a las...

A pretty spectacular first day - beyond expectations. After a prompt 8:30 start we cleared an extensive part of the Oven Site of leaves and vegetation, reestablished the grid for provenience and laid out the excavation trench we'll be opening tomorrow. We had lunch at a fantastic beach near a mangrove grove, which featured fresh-baked cookies and biscuits by Jordan - setting a high bar for the days ahead. By the end of the day, we had also managed to remove the backfill from the 2010 unit we excavated.  -...and found an amazing and unexpected discovery under the tarp. It seems that my daughter left a note for future archaeologists when we filled in the square, which she boasted would be worth $1,000,000, because "people will buy anything." She included a story about the Sea Venture 's cat, which Cater, Chard, and Waters (the three sailors who lived on Smiths Island in 1611-12) apparently ate, as well as the following marker flag: A useful marker for establishing a Ter...

So it's Sunday night and the dig starts tomorrow. I've been to the airport a lot these past two days collecting students from hither and yon (thanks Stephen and Margie for playing taxi driver!) and settling them in at Convict Bay. I've also been doing a fair bit of shopping for them, which involves transcending the shock (to an American) that is buying groceries in Bermuda. I could stomach $5 orange juice and milk and even $3.50 small bags of chocolate chips (since we have several bakers among the students), but I balked at $20 per bottle for olive oil! I did really enjoy getting back on a scooter again, so didn't really mind the shuttles between St. George's, St. David's, and Shelly Bay. As the students settled in and sorted themselves among rooms and spaces, the afternoon took on the surreal feel of a reality TV set. They are all pretty amazing and adventuresome, which bodes very well for the weeks to come. Over dinner, one revealed her secret identity over th...

Recon - Day 1 In preparation for the students' arrival, Mike and I went out to Smiths Island today with various equipment - buckets, screens, dustpans, a transit, and many implements of vegetational destruction. It's been more than a year since I was last out and didn't know how active nature had been in reclaiming open spaces. Also, we wanted clear paths for students and (next Saturday) Bermudian visitors to use.  En route out in Rick's boat, we ran into Garth Rothwell, who very kindly let us not only use his dock, but his cottage with a fridge and bathroom as well. This had been a real worry for me: although finding a spot behind a tree was fine by me, I was pretty sure students would mutiny if forced to do this for a month. I was even considering reviving the use of a 19th c. privy as an alternative when Garth came through for us! After landing gear and hiking in, we found the paths pretty overgrown. A few years back I read a book called The World Without Us  by Alan...

1899 Savage Map Welcome to Michael Jarvis's Smiths Island Archaeology Project Website. Most people today know Bermuda for its pink sand beaches, honeymoon suites, offshore companies, and global business centers, but the island has an even richer history: It is the oldest colony in the British Empire and celebrated its 400 th anniversary in 2012. At only 22 square miles, the island is packed with four centuries of dynamic history – a wonderful laboratory for studying the blending of European, African, and American cultures that characterize the Atlantic World. St. George’s (where we will be based) was founded in 1612 and boasts dozens of houses built in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. The sites we hope to find on Smiths Island are even older, dating to 1610. Historical archaeology on land in Bermuda is a mere two decades old; most previous excavations have focused on fortifications, churches, and eighteenth-century domestic sites, but our investigations seek to shed light on the li...