Hi everyone! Sadly, the time has come to say goodbye to Haltwhistle and Vindolanda. My experience here at field school has been unforgettable and I hope to be able to participate in more excavations in the future. As a final post, I thought I would briefly mention three of the highlights of the experience for me.
1. Finding a shoe
I’m not going to say too much about this one since I dedicated an entire post to it a few weeks ago, but this truly was one of the most memorable moments of the field school. Uncovering a shoe in the first week showed me how exciting archaeology can be.
2. Going from an Antonine road down to Period 4 anaerobic material over the course of two weeks
This might not seem that memorable, but it was really neat to get to work in the same area for several weeks and participate in the archaeological processes of excavating, exposing features, cleaning, 3D modeling, and then dropping down a level and repeating. Our end goal was to get down to anaerobic material, and we finally made it in the final week of field school. All our hard work was rewarded as we had some great finds over the course of the final few days including a shoe and the entire neck of a ring-necked flagon.
3. Working on wattle and daub fences
I spent the first week of field school working on exposing several wattle and daub fences with Myana, and it was a very satisfying and enjoyable task. The fences took several days to excavate; first, we looked for and tagged fence posts, then we traced out the top of the wattle fence, and then we dug down to see how deep the fence was. Seeing the progress we made after each day was really gratifying, and I was proud of how the fences looked by the end of the week.
Overall, I learned a lot about archaeology and the ins and outs of excavation these past five weeks, and I want to thank everyone who helps make this sort of experience possible. A special shout-out to Andy, Marta, and Penny, and their kindness, patience, and willingness to teach us.
Until next time!
Cashel
Western Classics Abroad 