Well, I'm home again. It's been just over a week since I've been back in the States and readjusting is far more difficult than I had originally imagined it would be. I got so used to no air conditioning that I'm now cold indoors. I'm sad that dinner doesn't last for two hours and that I can't walk to several restaurants with company tagging along. Most of all I miss doing something that I love everyday. It is far easier to wake up at five in the morning if it's for something you truly enjoy doing and you are willing to put up with far more inconveniences (Such as no AC, really hot weather, and instant coffee. The last one was definitely the worst.) than with work you are not fond of. Now I get up at five looking forward to my morning run (something that is now far easier after six weeks of physical labor) and freshly brewed coffee. And then I try to not look at the clock for as long as possible to avoid the thought of working somewhere that is just to get me through school. Ah, but that is being responsible, right? Working while in college to lower the amount of debt that I'll have after graduation is a financially sound idea. It definitely isn't as much fun, though.

Seeing as how I'm back home and this was meant specifically for my trip abroad, this will probably be my last post unless there are specific requests to continue on. As such, thanks for reading and following me to Greece! Γειά σας! (yia sas- good bye!)

Byzantine jugs and bowls

Well, it is down to my last week in Greece. It seems so sudden, so unexpected. Every day I've been here all I can think about is what the next day will bring, and in a few, the next day will bring a plane trip back to the States. I'll admit to being saddened by this. I really like it here. The scenery is great, the work, while difficult, is good. My hands don't really agree; I did get a blister on top of a callus today, and I'm getting calluses in placed I didn't think I'd be getting them, like the inside of my pinky. I mean, really? The inside of my pinky? But that's what's happened!

Byzantine cook pots

However, having my quarter-century birthday in Athens was awesome. I got to spend it touring the Acropolis, the Agora, and several museums. We went shopping in Placa, which is a market area, and I bought a new shirt. I had rabbit stifado, which was absolutely amazing, and a dirty gin martini, which was not nearly so astounding. With dinner, we had some amazing Nemean wine, although it was an adventure getting to the restaurant. We couldn't find the one recommended by the hotel and we spent about an hour and a half looking for it. In going for the one we did, we definitely had an amazing experience.

Rabbit Stifado, although mine had pearl onions

Sunday we went to the museums we didn't catch on Saturday. Since there was a much smaller group that stayed overnight in Athens versus just the day, we had a lot more flexibility. The Byzantine Museum was especially interesting because that's primarily the material I've been working with, so it was nice to see whole examples of the sherds, rims, and handles that I've been piecing together.

The Parthenon

A temple in the Agora whose name
I cannot remember
but it is dedicated to Hephaistus

The Vapheio Cups
Really my two favorite gold objects ever

Cycladic figurines are the best!

Ancient Egyptian figurines on a boat

This is the real version of the one in Fictia
I have no idea what it is

The Springtime Fresco
From Thera

The Bernaki museum was interesting, but huge, and covered so many time periods that it became overwhelming towards the end. There was just too much visual information on things that I did not know about.

And that's really been it so far. I may have some more pictures; we'll see how good I am about going out and taking them this week. Not much else is going on in the excavation except for the usual moving of dirt. Some weapons have been found, which is pretty rare, and I found the third Mycenaean pot that has been found on site, so that's sweet. Other than that, though, we are winding the season down and heading to a party on Thursday, so we won't have to work Friday. And then it's home. It's a bittersweet feeling, really.

The ibyxes from the Room of the Boxers
From Thera

I found a donkey shoe too!
It's the one in the middle

However, the National Museum was pretty sweet. The Minoan frescoes from Thera were what I most wanted to see and they are just astounding. Everything about them is so incredible, from the color, to the shapes and almost abstract expressionism.

Some sort of Greek Orthodox thing that looked cool

Changing of the guard outside the
presidential palace

Well, if you thought 105 degrees was hot enough to simply be outside in, try digging in 105 degree weather and you will quickly learn that is far worse. Even though Nemea is cooler than Mycenae, apparently it still will hit the triple digits. Once again, however, I was in the much cooler museum, where it stayed in the lower 90's all day.

Well, truth be told, I was outside in the morning when it was nice and cool. Before the sun rises over Tsoungiza hill the Nemean valley is blissfully refreshing, sitting at around 70 degrees, usually with a nice light breeze blowing. Once the sun passes over the summit, however, water can start to boil fairly rapidly and if there wasn't so much dirt flying around we could make quite a bit of sun tea.
My morning projects have been going rather well so far. Before the museum opens I've been working on mapping scarps. Sounds like fun, right? Well, it actually is. What that means is that we are mapping vertically the layers that we can see in a trench.

This is from the Poggio Colla Field School

This is a scarp from an excavation trench in the Poggio Colla Field School. If you're lucky you have four sides perfectly oriented to the cardinal directions. In Nemea, we can definitely do that since where we're working is nice and open and flat. If not, then you just have to draw your maps a bit differently, but it isn't too hard to figure out.

What's nice about this scarp is that it is pretty easy to read. There is an upper layer that is kind of red, followed by a gray sandy color, and then followed by a charcoal gray. Below that is a thick layer of pale yellow-brown, and the bottom is reddish-brown with large stones. In the middle you can see a rust-colored vertical strip. This could be a soil inclusion, or it could be a stain of some sort. Not having excavated there, I couldn't tell you.

So, why bother with drawing this out and mapping it? Who cares? You've already dug through it, you know where the levels were while you were excavating and you're off to do paperwork and museum studies at the end of the season. Why give yourself more paperwork?

The answer's pretty easy. What if you want to dig a trench on the other side of this one? Wouldn't it be nice to have a quick and easy way of looking at what happened in a previous year? Why, yes, it would. And mapping it at the end of the season is nice because you won't have a year's (or multiple years') worth of runoff mucking up your layers. It's like you're getting a preview of what may happen. The second reason is that this is a great way to double check that you wrote the elevations down correctly while you were excavating.

Mapping the scarp is not a quickly done rough drawing. It is drawn to scale. So if you had written down that your first level ended say a foot below the surface, when in actuality it ended a yard below, well, the rest of your levels very well could be messed up. You should catch it, but hey when it gets hot, it gets harder to think clearly and there is far more room for error. Mapping the layers afterward means you'll have the elevations for every layer and you can go back and check to see that everything makes sense.

So that's how I've spent my mornings for the past two weeks. It's been fun, and I'm glad I get to do it. I've been showing some of the other students how to go about it as well, to see the layers and accurately get them onto paper. The ones we've been drawing have not been nearly as pretty and easy to read as this one, go figure. N, in Nemea, we'd just much rather give people the things that are much harder to do first, so when they get to map something that's easy, they appreciate it for how easy it is. We had roads cutting through, clay falling in, an uneven surface to stand on... it was tough work! But we finished the two most important drawings today and I think I'll be starting in another section tomorrow with a new crew. I can't wait!

The view from our seats
in the theater at Epidauros

Well last week was certainly a busy week! Not that this one has been any slower. Last week at the museum we opened up a can of worms and gave ourselves a lot of work, but it was necessary and could only be delayed for so long. At Mycenae we closed the site, and that is a barely controlled level of chaos that thankfully usually only lasts for a day. This week has been continuing through that can of worms and working in stifling heat in Nemea. But more on last weekend. It really is the interesting part.

Just outside of where we had lunch
in Nafplio

Friday we journeyed to the ancient and beautiful theater of Epidauros to see a performance of Oedipus Rex. It's a sad story, and it's amazing how well emotion can be understood even when the language is not. The play itself is an interesting foray into the mingling of fate and free will, and the questions surrounding our lives. If you haven't read it, I heartily suggest it.
That was a rather late night and while I tried to sleep in, I only slept until 7. That did mean I got to enjoy two cups of coffee and a breakfast in silence. It was very refreshing.

A fountain with an Arabic inscription
Nafplio

The rest of Saturday was spent in Nafplio. It is such a beautiful city! It was founded as a Venetian stronghold and was the original capital of Greece after independence was gained from the Turks. It is so colorful and the sea is so blue. Granted, its location also makes it humid, but for the beauty of the area it is totally worth it. We spent the day shopping and eating. Eating a meal here is really quite the affair. It generally takes between an hour to two. It's meant to be enjoyed in good company, with good food and be a pleasurable, relaxing experience. So lunch was almost two hours. When we aren't on site, that's fairly normal. Dinner can take even longer. It's actually a good business plan as it tends to force you to buy more food!

More of Nafplio
The colors on the buildings are incredible!

Shops in Nafplio

After lunch we walked around the boardwalk and saw the fortifications on the cliff. The beach we got to was rather more full of cobbles than pebbles or sand, but the stones were warm and the breeze was nice. It didn't take long to get comfortable and enjoy watching the people. I had not brought my swimsuit and it was nice just to watch. I'm still trying to get used to seeing such small swimsuits on men, especially on the older men, but even those sights could not have spoiled my day!

The rocky shore of Nafplio

And then after we got home and cleaned up, most of us professed an interest in sleep that ended up being delayed until 2:00 AM by good Nemean wine. Go figure. Once you open the bottle...

Temple of Aphrodite, Corinth

However, that did mean that some of us were a bit tired for our whirlwind tour of the sites near to our current home. We visited Corinth, Isthmia, Lerna, and Tiryns, in that order. As the day got warmer, the tours got shorter. We came home to work on our final site write-ups, which were more of a chore. Damn that word school in "field school."

Corinthian Sgraffito
It's what I've been looking at
in the museum in Nemea

All in all, though, a great weekend that capped off a fun week. It was a great time. I cannot wait to visit Nafplio again!

The mighty walls of Tiryns

The Poseidon Mosaic at the baths
in Isthmia

A great weekend went by touring Pylos and the tholos tombs of the surrounding area, swimming in the Aegean, and finally getting to tour the Mycenaean citadel, something that had been delayed due to the Greek elections. It was fun, and busy, and I learned a lot, but I spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon sitting on that Mycenaean bridge just outside of town and reflecting on what I'm doing in Greece.
Really, our efforts to understand the past should be comended. So little is left for us to try to interpret and rebuild our history and it's a rather daunting task. Going through the museum in Mycenae and looking at the information on trade networks, it's easy to see how much we know, but it is just as obvious to see how much we don't know.
For example, what were the names of the people buried in the tholoi (plural for tholos)? What did they take with them into their tombs? Only one tholos has ever been discovered that had not been looted in antiquity, and it was a rich find. Was that always the case? What were the decorations in the tombs?
Stemming out into the larger portions of society we get other questions. What was daily life like for the men and women of prehistoric Greece? Were the women secluded as they were during Homer's time? Did they participate in any battles, or was that a privilege reserved for the elite? How many acres would it take to consider yourself a well-to-do farmer? Or how many olive trees? What else did they put in their olive oil? How did the larger populace spend their evenings?
Some of these questions can most certainly be answered with common sense. Before the electric light bulb, people tended to work around the daylight as artificial light was expensive. Daily life for most people probably consisted of farming and scratching out an existence. Currently, at least at Pylos where the palace is better preserved, there does not seem to be much physical segregation between men and women, although it seems clear that each sex had different responsibilities.
But why is this important? Will it matter 500 years from now what we thought about the Mycenaean civilization, or for any ancient culture for that matter? What will our cities look like in 500 years, and how will they be interpreted? Even today sites that are that old have been reinterpreted as something done by ancient aliens or our European ancestors that somehow, someway made it across the Atlantic for the sole purpose of confusing their modern-day descendants. Just read about the Mysterious Megaliths of New England and you'll see what I mean. It is definitely not what Paul Angel thinks it is.
So while looking at the citadel from about a two miles away, all I could think about was what it was like for a merchant of the time traveling from nearby Tiryns to sell his wares in Mycenae, crossing the bridge and looking up to see the walls for the first time. Even after thousands of years, it is still an impressive sight, and it's humbling to see. I can only imagine the awe and the wonder of seeing something so impressive, seemingly perched on the edge of a cliff.
I came to the conclusion yesterday evening that trying to capture that feeling, that momentary glimpse of someone's life, is what makes archaeology important. Granted, that image may change. Indeed, it should, and that's a part of the scientific process. In fact, what we think of history now will help our descendants to define our parts in history. Any human connection with the past is what makes it interesting and worthwhile, and I think that's what we need to keep in mind in looking at history. It isn't just the big events that define our short time on earth. It's all of the people and their daily lives that are the sum of our existence here, and archaeology is the best way to get into touch with that. Or at least that's what it seemed like as the setting sun cast its warm glow on the stones of the Mycenaean citadel.

Well another day has gone in Mycenae. Soon the sun will be setting over the mountains and I'll be eating ice cream in a cafe. Oh wait, no I don't think I can call it a cafe. It's more like a shed with a freezer full of ice cream. But it is good ice cream, and it's even better when it's warm out, and it has been very warm today.
Working in a trench with no afternoon shade is difficult, to put it mildly. It's hot, your hat does't really help and you're grateful for whatever breeze floats your way, even though the breeze tends to also blow dust in your face, which turns into mud everywhere you've been sweating. The sun is shining so brightly it reflects off the soil and into your eyes and you can't look at white paper without either being in the shade or having on sunglasses, with both of those being the preferred method, but occasionally neither is available. Thankfully this usually only lasts for a couple hours at the end of the day.
Today, though, felt like an oven and I was thankful to be in the much cooler area of Nemea. My trench partner, however, let me hear it, as did those who filled in for me. I feel bad, but at the same time very grateful for having missed it. As much as I love archaeology, there are definitely parts that I am not particularly fond of, and direct sunlight with no breeze at 95 degrees is one of those parts.
I don't know what they dug up today, but I enjoyed being a nerd in the museum again. It was a bit more intensive this time, and my professor and I figured out a worksheet to make our work a bit easier and efficient, hooray! This is while we were drinking fresh Greek (aka Turkish) coffee and looking over the ruins of the Temple of Nemean Zeus in the shade and a relatively cool 80 degrees.
This is also something my trench mate did not enjoy hearing too much of. I know it's friendly banter, and I do wish she could come with, but alas, it'll be another week and half before we work together in the cool museum. And then she'll get her Greek coffee too.

Well, museum work is a lot of fun, and a nice break from the back-breaking labor of the past few days. Today I was sorting and cataloguing, the latter of which entails taking several pieces from a lot that are either indicative of the whole collection or really outstanding pieces that will help to date the finds. Preferably each catalogued piece is both. I did that after sorting out a lot of sherds.
You see, pots break easily. I'm sure everyone's dropped a plate on the kitchen and wham! A hundred pieces. If you were to look at those you could discover a few things. If you were to break one and look at the pieces right now that could be called experimental archaeology and we really do stuff like that. It's a lot of fun. However, the other members of your household might not appreciate you breaking plates for the sake of science.

The Epistel Serving Plate from IKEA. No, this is not an endorsement. It just shows everything I want it to.

But looking at the pieces you can see rounded edges in two places if it's a normal plate: along the upper rim, and along the base. You get a triangular profile for the upper rim, usually identified as just rim, and the base should more or less stand up somehow, but that is highly dependent on the base. This one is probably raised in the middle. If you look at a lot of pottery, they tend to be flat along the bottom, with a vertical edge. The other pieces are body sherds.
The things you can learn from these sherds (remember: pieces of pottery): what type of vessel it is. Here we have an open vessel that is undecorated with a raised base that overall is rather flat, aka a plate. You can also take the base if it's unbroken and get a good estimate for how wide the diameter is.
Sorting is separating all of those pieces to get an idea of about how many vessels could be in the collection.
And there is your archaeology lesson for the day! Now imagine taking away 90-99% of those pieces and putting together that information. That was what I did all day and it was fun. It's like a puzzle with pieces from different boxes all thrown into a Ziploc bag and no nice cover art to help you. You generally have no idea how much of a pot (or plate, bowl, etc.) you have.
This is more like what I was working with today, or at least the pretty stuff. The rest was very utilitarian and rather boring.

Here's where this one is from

And that is museum work for you. It's usually even less glamorous than field work, but also usually a lot less sweaty. Besides, I enjoy the paperwork so it almost felt like a field trip.

Ok, so two days in the field and I am sore. Really, really sore. But it has been a lot of fun. We're digging a deep square hole right now. It started as a joke, because that's what you do in archaeology, but not always, or not necessarily. This time it's really almost a 2 meter deep hole. We don't know what it is. It doesn't seem to have enough stuff in it for a well, and the bedrock is only on three sides, and not four, like a typical well. It also has a vertical concave depression on one side, making it more confusing. Suggestions anyone?

But, at the end of today there are currently several large pot sherds (pieces of pottery) poking out of the ground. As much as we just want to yank them out, we can't. You have to dig in an even and level manner to retain the context and important information that can be contained therein. Say you find pottery from one period in one level, and it changes in another level, it's telling you that you're digging from two separate time periods. It's simple, but important to know. 

And enough archaeology. We didn't get to see the citadel of Mycenae yet because it was closed on Sunday due to the elections. I'll have to truck up there one of these days just for you guys.

By the way, you won't be seeing any pictures of the sites themselves. Sorry! Since none of the work has been published I can't post anything online of what we're doing. Boss's orders.

So I'm sure you're interested in Greece. It's really pretty. There are mountains and shrubs and a few pine trees. It seems like there is constantly wind, but that might be the season. There are orange and apricot groves all over, and vineyards and olive groves cover the slopes. Well, they cover the slopes around different archaeological sites. All of the groves are privately owned and the government owns the land where the sites are (some of the time) so the trees come right up to the tombs. The people are really friendly but the shop owners holler at you to eat at their restaurant over the other guy's. The fruit and food is delicious. It's so fresh! I'll remember to take pictures of the food as I go along. I've just been lazy and forgetting my camera.

Alright, well, I promised pictures and here you are! Tidbits of Mycenae, Greece. I hope you enjoy!

I have no idea what this sign says but it's pointing to a Mycenaean bridge.

Here's the bridge from about 20 ft away

This is the bridge from the road

 

The exterior of the Tomb of Atreus
It is a tholos tomb in rather good condition
This is at the outside of the dromos, or walkway

The interior of the dome of the tholos

These pretty purple flowers are pretty prevalent on the sides of the roads

Baby olives! They are everywhere!

Literally! All along the road and everything!

And there are strays everywhere in town. This one is apparently Barry.
He enjoyed a good pork bone yesterday, courtesy of on of the guys.

P.S. The Tomb of Atreus is not necessarily Atreus's tomb. It's just called that because we don't know who was in it. All of the tholos tombs in the vicinity of Mycenae were robbed in antiquity so we don't even know what sort of grave goods they contained.

Well hey! I made it to Greece. I am now officially a world traveler, even if it’s only been once. The trip wasn’t too bad, except for almost missing my flight to Athens from Toronto because of a security breach and then the guy behind me snoring loud enough to wake up Beethoven two hours into a ten-hour flight. But there was a cute baby boy who kept eyeing me and my seat mate was pretty cool, so it more or less evens out I think.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures up yet. It’s been a long day and while I took some, they still need to be uploaded and its too much work right now. I have Greek phrases running through my head, and pictures of their alphabet dancing behind my eyes. I miss home already, but we’re not doing anything yet, so I can’t complain. I’m sure it’ll lessen pretty soon, and then I’ll be missing Greece when I get back.

I’m so excited to work though! I mean, this is firsthand experience in my chosen field. Butterflies? Yes, like crazy! Excited? Well, of course. I find it odd and confusing when people no longer want to learn. I feel as if something’s missing from my life when I’m not in the process of learning something. I want to continually be growing and to feel stretched outside of my comfort zone. This is probably the biggest test of that.

And seeing as how I’m doing this for course credit, hopefully I pass and enjoy it as much as I’ve hoped I will. I’d hate to change career plans this far in. I don’t think I’m very well suited for business or engineering. I may have a better chance in photojournalism. Hmm… that might mean investing in more camera gear.

The best news so far, however, involves free beer. When one of the restaurant owners heard we were on the excavation team, he offered us a free beer everyday we learned a new word in Greek. I call that a swell deal. And the food was pretty awesome. 

Oh and everything on my blog is showing up in Greek over here, except for what I'm writing. Go figure, eh?

Well, less than a week to go and I still have so much to do! I need to call my grandmothers, my sister, my brother, get a hair cut, sim card, outlet converters and transformers, find another pair of shorts and a swimsuit, and I know I'm missing something. Oh yeah, that's right. I need to pack.

But I'll concern myself with that after some ice cream. There's that part of me that says I should call in sick the next couple days, and then the part of me (my wallet) that says I need to work since I won't be making any money for over a month. Ah Responsibility. Sometimes you get in the way of this thing called Enjoyment, although you are help to Preparation and the Real World. I do believe we have a love/hate relationship.

Well, with the trip being so close, other Real World concerns have been brought to mind, things greater than just myself. Greece is at another turning point in its long history. Already there has been some theft (here) since the economic crisis has left fewer people to guard the museums. We already saw what happened in Cairo.

Is that what could happen in Greece? The situations are very different, and the unrest has different causes. However, unrest is still unrest. It seems like whenever there's a major change in an area, antiquities go missing (Iraq anyone?), not to mention the damage caused to ancient monuments (WWII bomber planes did open up the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste even though they destroyed the medieval buildings surrounding it; the Ziggurat of Ur was also damaged in the First Gulf War; etc.).

Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste directly after the bombing in WWII

Reconstructed Ziggurat of Ur
Source Page

It very well could be what happens, especially if other countries in the European Union head down that road. It's in humanity's nature to take advantage of situations and profit by any means necessary. Again, however, there is also an urge to break away from the perceived causes of the destabilization. In Ancient Greece, after the Mycenaean culture fell, there was a destabilized period called the Dark Age (currently undergoing a name revision by Classicists). During this period iron became more prevalent than bronze, and thus began the Iron Age. This is interesting because iron is much more difficult to work than bronze and is thought to have two causes: the relative abundance of iron in Greece and a lack of tin (essential to producing bronze), and that it possibly represented a break with the Mycenaean culture. After a couple hundred years, bronze came back into fashion for luxury goods, possibly echoing a supposedly heroic past.

So we have people who want to take advantage of a situation, say fewer police and guards, and those who aren't thinking clearly because they're angry and upset at the government. We also have those who are thinking clearly and are looking at ways to increase income to help run their new government. Really, the selling of antiquities in a country full of them is a great way for quick cash, and forget the antiquities laws. Rules get bent and stretched constantly, and it isn't only museums and public collections that wish to acquire. It's far easier to sell to a private consumer. There's way less paperwork and scrutiny, lowering by far the chances of getting caught. Whom wouldn't this appeal to?

I really hope none of this happens. I really, really hope none of this happens while I'm there. I'm sure it won't, and that I'm just over-thinking this. If not, I'll instigate plan B, hop on a cargo boat to Italy and fly out of Rome and back home. Or something like that.

Archaeology, as a field, can aptly be described as one that began as a treasure hunt. People wanted the gold of the past, the great statues and marbles that stirred faint echoes of former greatness. Granted, these adventurers sometimes took painstakingly detailed drawings before they used dynamite to enter a pyramid, but not always. In fact, not usually. Archaeology is generally thought of as becoming a science when excavations were carried out with record-keeping being as much of a priority as finding treasure. The field progressed with intensive record-keeping and meticulous detail work, and went further when the  goal was no longer the glittering gold of ancient kings.
This probably sounds like the end of a romantic dream. Victorian men going out in bucket hats with the goal of finding something, really just anything of value to bring back to the Queen for the glory of their country sounds so much better than looking for pieces of pottery (a.k.a. pot sherds) to be able to accurately date a site. Aren't statues and gold better than dust and stones? Seriously, what gives?
It was slowly realized that a lot of valuable information about the past was being lost, and that many early excavations were the modern equivalent of looting, even if it was done with the permission of the governments involved (and there are times when it was not). Flinders Petrie was one of the first to demand a meticulous approach to excavation. Heinrich Schliemann was part of the note-taking revolution as well. Interestingly enough, neither man was well-liked by the scientific community at first since neither had had any formal training in the field.
Scientists really seem to be stuffy old intelligent fools stuck in their ways. And I want to be one of those? No. I do have my husband, and friends, around to bring me back to reality and knock me down a few pegs when necessary.
So why is attention to detail deemed so necessary? Why can't we just look at the temples, tomb paintings, statuary and gold relics to understand history and prehistory?
Look around your house briefly, and I will illustrate my case in point. Do you see large statues, items of gold laying around, or precious ceremonial objects? Do you see large quantities of them if you see any at all? Sure I have a few pieces of silver plate, and several antiques of small value. Most of us have a few old things. Most of us have a few valuable things. However, these are not what make up our daily lives. This analogy can be drawn to the past. Most of them did not have great status, or the luxury goods that accompanied it. It's hard to fully understand the past when you're looking only at the glitzy obvious parts. It requires more digging, literally and figuratively.
An example that brought this whole topic to mind can be found here. Careful analysis of the bones discovered in the Neolithic graves has revealed what could be the beginnings of hereditary inequality. But the story doesn't stop there. In the strontium isotope analysis of the bones of the women, it was found that theirs differed significantly from those of the men, indicating that they did not originate from that locality. This has led the researchers to believe that this group was patrilocal, or that women moved out of the family group to marry others, and that men brought women into the village to marry. Or, if not marry in the modern sense, at least to bear their children.
That is not romantic archaeology. It's science and investigative research. And it is vitally necessary to our understandings of the past. Let's just not be stuffy about it.

It's interesting how history is always changing. You wouldn't think it would either. After all, what happened, happened. There is no changing an event after it has occurred. However, what we know of events changes frequently.
In a previous post I had mentioned Schliemann excavating at Mycenae. He also found and excavated Troy in Turkey. He was obsessed with this idea that Homer's tales weren't just myths and that they were based in fact. Other scientists at the the time, in fact most all of them, ridiculed him. Schliemann did not have the proper scientific training, they said. If anyone knew anything, these scientists decided, it would be them. Meanwhile, Schliemann just got the permission from the Turks and started digging. It took a long time to convince the scientific community, but he did. Minds were blown. Amazingly enough, he was also one of the first to start actually recording his excavations.
See, when you are on a dig, you are removing information from the ground. The process is irreparably destructive. Once done, there's no putting it back the way it was. This is why note-taking and measuring and map-making is so important. It helps you reassemble the big picture. Sure that gold necklace is super cool, and hey so is that pretty statue. Without taking notes you may never realize that the necklace had at one time been on the statue. So it's pretty amazing that someone outside of the so-called brilliant scientific community recognized this, even if he dug through the Bronze Age Homeric Troy.
No, this is not a Schliemann bio either. I've just been studying early Greek and Minoan history all semester and am reading more about it now, especially on Mycenae. He's just a good example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_fertile_cresent.svg
Cyprus is the island to the left

Now, something about history (technically pre-history since it's before written language) that particularly fascinates me is the advent of farming. Bone analysis has shown that people at the start of farming were not as healthy as their foraging counterparts. Low yields, a limited food base, intensive labor, and throw in a bad harvest or two and you've got a situation that quickly leads to malnutrition. It amazes me that people did it anyway. Granted, it was probably gradual, and possibly even accidental at first. But when we first become farmers, boy was it rough. And it spread so quickly. It started in the Levant about 9500 BCE, and spread. According to the latest research (click here for article on the research, it hit Cyprus only a couple hundred years after that. Archaeologically speaking, that's fast. Homo sapiens sapiens had been foraging for thousands of years, and our ancestors for hundreds of thousands (and millions) of years before that. So, thousands to a few hundred is a major change. This is why the introduction of farming is termed the Neolithic Revolution.
Our understanding of the Neolithic Revolution keeps pushing dates further back in history. Once cereals were domesticated, animals soon followed. The major exception to this is that the dog was domesticated beforehand, but that's a different matter entirely. This completely changed how we were living, and directly led to where we are now. It's such an exciting time in humanity's past, and the field is always revealing new information, new understandings of how we became us. Put simply, it's just so freakin' cool.

Living in the modern world, we are forced to look at the here and now. We have instant access to what our friends are thinking and doing, instant replay on the image we just took, instant communications around the globe. We complain when it takes more than ten minutes to get to the store, and have to reign in frustration at shipping delays. It's the bills, what's for supper, who's online and then streaming video on Netflix.
It makes us forget the enormity of time. Stop and watch the clock for five minutes. It feels like forever right? But chatting on the phone for five minutes with a friend feels like nothing.
Well that nothing is really the entirety of human existence in comparison to the rest of the universe. Looking at the few thousand years of civilization is a speck on the billions of years everything else has been around.
But think about the time that civilization has been around. That's what anthropologists do. We look back a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years and more at our history. We analyze, compare, and absorb the enormity of what humans have done in the time we've been on the earth. It's tough. There isn't always a lot of information to go on. In fact, there usually isn't a lot of information to go on. Seriously, we get excited about pottery and bone fragments. Oh yeah, and chipped stone, and that is generally smaller than a quarter.
But when we look at the modern world, with the emphasis on the current and the latest whatever, we have to put it into perspective. It can be really hard too. After all, this is where we live. As absorbed as we can be in other cultures and time periods, we live in the here and now. Bills are important to us, as are our friends. We need to eat too.
Looking at the world and its goings-on, though, and we can lament that taxes are so high, and that governments don't really listen. But we can look back and see that economic crises have occurred before. We can see that there have been revolutions, deaths from war and plague, entire cultures completely wiped out, all in the last hundred years. However, we can say that at least of the last five thousand years. And guess what? We're still around. We'll just be able to write this all down. Now we can think about it, and hopefully learn from it.

Well, now it's down to the nitty gritty of things. I've started my modern Greek lessons (I can say the boy/girl/man/woman is on the horse, beside the dog, inside/on top of the plane- not that I know how that will actually help me...), I've gone through the syllabus, and have started reading the textbooks and the field manuals. It's like I'm back in school, although this feels as if it requires more dedication because there isn't a class schedule. I'm fascinated by it though. In class we learned that this bronze knife found in Mycenae was made out of bronze, and inlaid with gold, silver, and niello. Here's a picture of it.

Here's a zoomed out view with similar styles.

The silver and gold inlay is pretty obvious. The bronze is the corroded outer edge. Since it isn't an element it tends to degrade much more rapidly. The dark smooth backing to the inlay is what we learned as niello. According to either more recent research or not-so-widely known research, it isn't. It is a black bronze alloy with gold and silver (Mycenae: Agamemnon's Capital, by Elizabeth French). Which really just goes to show you that you need to take even what professors say with a grain of salt. Or several. Archaeology is a constantly evolving field, so information (in theory at least) can change, sometimes rather quickly. Schliemann knew when he excavated that Grave Circle A within the citadel at Mycenae was of a time period contemporaneous with Agamemnon, but it's actually a lot earlier. The Treasury of Atreus, that Schliemann knew was not a tomb (it is- it's called a tholos tomb), is far more likely to have housed Agamemnon's bones.

Treasury of Atreus

Ah well, that's enough of a break. Back to studying for this current armchair archaeologist!

Five more weeks and I will be sleeping on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic right now. I'm excited, nervous, scared a bit. It's a lot like working on my wedding. Months of planning, finding money, figuring the details, buying the details and then a day of excitement. Granted, this will be six weeks of work and not a day filled with cake and drinking, but for all the planning that's gone into it on my end, it feels like I should be going overseas for at least a semester or two.
Really, jumping into this was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done. I mean, really, how often do you say, okay, I'll spend over $6,000 and go almost two months without getting paid? That should be fine. It definitely will not wreak havoc on my finances and ensure I lose plenty of sleep leading up to this adventure. (By the way, thanks honey for making me become a penny-pincher.) But somehow it's all worked out. I was accepted into UCARE, an undergraduate research program at UNL, which is covering about a third of the costs. I got a scholarship. My family's pitched in. Then, just today, I found out I'm getting more grant money from the 2011-12 school year. Okay, well that covers the cost of the trip AND what I would have made working over the summer. It seems as if the universe has decided it does not want me in Nebraska for the entirety of the summer. Alright, I'll go with it. This is definitely something I can dig.
Too corny? Okay, you're right. That was definitely a bit much. There have been, however, several glasses of wine already and I like corny. :)