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It's amazing what six highly motivated students and volunteers can do in six hours... We had another new volunteer join us today - Chloe - and we did not do enough to scare Krystl away, so we had two plus the usual crew. Since our working premise is the visible part of Oven Site is only a small back room on a larger timber-frame house, we needed to clear the area to the east of last year's excavations.  I thought this might take a day and a half, but by mid-afternoon the site was completely transformed: Before After "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay..." I n the process of getting rid of the trees we removed, I discovered a round cistern-like feature dating to the 1970s farming era but perhaps much earlier a mere 20 feet from the Oven Site but hitherto hidden under branches and leaves.  Krystl vs. the trees By 2 pm, we had laid out the new units that will extend the exploratory trench east and reveal the house's width. After running through the importance and...

This year's crew, studying ichthyology  It's been a busy few days since Bermuda Day. This year's students - Leigh, Kristina, Jonathan and Anima - arrived Saturday without a hitch and settled into the condo without problems. We got hold of our work boat the following day and sorted out a mooring next to our place. At Leigh and Kristina's firm request (recalling last year's Father's Day incident), we had a thorough boat orientation on line handling, boat handling, docking and casting off procedures, etc. and also circled Smiths Island to see it from the water. Later that evening, Jonathan and Anima had their first snorkel lessons in the harbour and off St. Catherine's Beach - and all involved were quite chilly by the end (except Leigh, who sensibly stayed out of the water). Jonathan loading equipment Today was the big day - starting up the dig. We loaded up all our field gear early and headed over to Smiths in the morning. After stowing most of it in the Forb...

U R history graduates and the Mary Jemison It’s been a busy few weeks getting reading for the 2013 Smiths Island field school. When not replacing the front of my house (long story), planning a U of R graduating history major boat trip on the Erie Canal (a real coup for a land-locked maritime historian!), and officiating at U of R’s graduation, I’ve been gathering supplies for the dig, which commences next week. My UR colleague Cynthia Ebinger has lent me a precision GPS so we can firmly locate the many ruins and potential sites we found in 2010 but are not currently georeferenced on any Bermudian maps  - the venerable Lt. Savage’s otherwise fantastic 1901 survey missed some fairly obvious inland Smiths Island sites – like huge quarries – which suggests he didn’t actually come ashore!  I’ve also been scrambling to obtain artifact bags. The BNT-ARC emailed me that they’re all out, with too little time to order any stateside. Luckily, Wegmans (my fantastic local supermarket) cam...