We've reached the end of week two of our four week field-school, and the group has finally gotten into the groove of things. Less time is spent asking Dr. Dumas for guidance and much more work has gotten done. We are growing closer to completing the excavation of the French bake house, and the barracks are staring at us from across the large ditch that cuts through the site. The thought has crossed my mind that there are sure to be countless artifacts washed down into the ravine to the south, but without any sense of provenience, these artifacts would prove to be little more than possible display pieces, adding little understanding of daily life for the French marines. This ravine likely served as a ready-made trash pit for the French, English, and Spanish soldiers who lived in this fort, and this does make it a possible future excavation site. But for now, we are sticking with the oven area, the excavation of which has proven to be very interesting.
I have begun excavation of my third unit, which has proven to be the most artifact-heavy thus far, containing various bits of brick, large bone pieces, a nail or two, and pieces of both European and Choctaw pottery. A concentration of broken chalk rocks that was found in an adjacent unit continued into mine, but its shape is too irregular to be the remains of a wall, leaving me to question what exactly it is, but more will be known soon enough. The exciting news of the day is that we believe we found the actual oven itself in Andrea's unit, south-west of the bake house, given that we found heavily burnt bone and chalk. Further excavation will tell us more and give us the true dimensions of the oven.
All in all, the day felt very slow. After the rainy days we've had, it felt much cooler, which was good, but over all, everyone seemed to be thinking more about the upcoming weekend than the task at hand, including myself. But, Monday starts another week, and I look forward to seeing what's in store.
Diggy Diggy Hole
~Alex
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