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Smiths Island seems a long way off and a long time ago, considering the view of snow-covered trees currently out my window, but already I am putting together next season's excavation plan and finishing the 2013 season site report.  This year, the University of Rochester will be opening up participation in the field school internationally. Participants can earn six college credits (undergraduate) in Bermuda actually for less than the price of taking the same course in Rochester, NY, and this includes food and lodging for five weeks in Bermuda, under my expert tutelage ;-)  Graduate credit can also be arranged. Those interested can download an application at my my department homepage . The deadline for applications is March 1, but I will be filling spots on a rolling basis before then, so you are encouraged to apply early. Please contact me (michael.jarvis@rochester.edu) for more information or answers to specific questions. I don't know if any of you wonder what goes on in the ...

Google Map of Smiths Island sites (Green = 17th c.; Blue = 18th c.; Red = 19th c.)  I am now back in Rochester, recovering from a very intense six weeks of excavations, tours, research, teaching, snorkeling, and assorted boon-doggles - for all of 24 hours before we board a jet to Ireland and the UK - but thought it fitting to sum up the 2013 season as a last entry for a while. We had a spectacularly successful field school. By the end, the students were basically carrying out all the routine steps of excavation, from filling out forms, taking elevations and opening photos to digging sensitively and noting layer changes and features on their own. I am confident that they could now join any ongoing excavation elsewhere in the world and fit right in (OK, so our Archimedes water level is a bit on the primitive side compared with the EDMs used elsewhere, but it's tried and true technology and doesn't need batteries). Our volunteers (Krystl, Chloe, Khari, Jillian, Suzann, Sara, Matth...

"She moves through the air with the greatest of ease..." Well folks, the last posthole has been dug and the last rubble layer removed for the 2013 season - how quickly five weeks has flown by! We've been quite busy since Tuesday, finishing off the last units in Oven Site and backfilling the features and finishing up the three units we laid out at the Smallpox Bay site. The latter yielded a wide range of mid-18th to mid-19th century pottery and glass, dating perhaps back to the documented 1731 act when Smiths Island was first mentioned as one of Bermuda's two quarantine sites for smallpox-infected sailors and passengers. Unfortunately, we found no medical-related artifacts but the likelihood of this was always slim. What we did find surprising is that in all three of our (rather small) units, we found a posthole - two large (around 25 cm in diameter) and one smaller (15 cm diameter). Although we recovered no 17th-century artifacts so far, the find does raise the possib...

Walking the (Kristina F. memorial) Plank, about four feet above the house floor   As we enter the last week of the dig, we've had many visitors come by the site - lots to see, actually, since my students and volunteers have moved an INCREDIBLE amount of dirt - more than 70 contexts in nine units and eight test pits at three different sites AND helped discover seven new sites for future investigation. On Sunday, we had two groups of visitors come by as part of the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs' Historic Heartbeats series - this time a field trip instead of the usual lecture. Both groups were very enthusiastic and asked lots of great questions of me and the students. Thanks to Kim Dismont-Robinson for organizing it and making it possible for so many interested students of Bermudian history to get out to this wonderful island! (Also a big thanks to Smiths Island residents who put up with this temporary invasion!) Geoffrey and son Today we had another group of much you...

Sunset tonight, from Charles Island With less than a week left in the field school, we're at crunch time trying to tie up the loose ends at Oven Site and also get some basic dating and function assessments of the new Smallpox Bay site. Except the Oven Site is refusing to cooperate - yesterday we found YET ANOTHER packed limestone rubble layer where a nice firm bedrock floor should be. The layers we had just taken out were classic remodeling material: broken bricks, mortar fragments showing where the bricks had been held in place, and a very dark silty matrix with lots of charcoal - dismantling the lining of the oven for which the site is named. But nooooooo... The layer seals two large postholes in a line and at 12-foot centers, which presumably were the first structural supports for the house before later remodeling shifted the framing techniques AND the packed layer at least one of the postholes cuts through is actually the new compressed rubble layer, fill of a trench about 6 fe...

In our second installment of guest bloggers, Jonathan dishes up the dirt on a student's view of the dig... Jonathan, taking it a little too easy at the end of a long, hard day of digging in N2 E7... Coming to Bermuda has been an adventure and a blessing.  Being able to take a hands-on approach to learning has been a great reward for working hard in the classrooms of Rochester for three years.   On the other hand, observing a new culture, taking part in local activities, and learning about the rich Bermudian history has fulfilled the abroad experience I wished to experience while in college but have been unable to do so during the regular school year.   Slowly, I am learning the theory of archaeology in person and understanding why we dig and what we are looking for. Earlier in the trip I was merely bent on learning the simple mechanics of pulling a trowel and how to see stratigraphy and the changes in soil layers, but have adapted to thinking harder and answer the questio...