Not really though.
I'll be glad to announce to the world that I survived a full week (5 nights) of camping. It was only mildly unpleasant. And as it turns out, I'm pretty great at putting together tents. The other ladies and I were given an "eight" person tent (though it only comfortably fits five) and on the first try it was a hot mess. I don't think even the adorable dogs would live in there.
But once I broke out and interpreted the directions, we all nailed it! But in truth it wouldn't have been possible without me (#modest).
The field work was why I was actually camping, so let me talk about that:
- I was assigned to work in two different sites over the week, E3 and E5.
- E3 is somewhat of a mystery. There's a hearth [an area of the floor that is heavily darkened by the presence of charcoal and carbon (**carbon is important because you can actually get an exact date from when it formed using science. Don't ask me how, Google it or something idk)].
- E5 is thought to be a workshop of sorts. A lot of things have been found to indicate this. Multiple hearths and ceramic fragments specifically. I'm not super sure about the details of why that's the case, but it is, so deal with it.
- Ceramics were found at both sites, of all shapes and sizes and mostly just black and orange color. It's surprisingly hard in a multitude of cases to tell the difference between really dirty pottery and really dirty rocks. Especially if they're both flat and kind of curved. But I found my fair share and each time got far too excited.
The circular things with the hole in them are called "spindlewhirls" which is super fun to say and even more interesting to find! They were used in the production of thread. Kind of like an ancient spools. Neat, right??
- On my last day of working at E5, I was assigned to excavate animal bones that had been found. They were probably the bones of a cuy, or *you know* a GD Guinea pig. My closest friends and family know that I am terrible allergic to these tiny fat rodents. But I wasn't exactly thrilled yesterday when my new friend Mackenzie ordered one for lunch. As for the bones I found, they were almost entirely tiny tiny shards. The only way I could identify pieces was by looking for the tiniest hint of pure white in the dirt. It was simultaneously fun and extremely tedious.
- I was still kinda sick the whole time lol
- I have never had so much dirt under my nails. EVEN THOUGH I had a pair of gloves, they aren't very right around my wrists and dirt finds its way in.
- I forgot the baby wipes I had bought and its really hard to focus on eating when you can see the different layers of dirt on your fingers.
Immediately upon returning from the wilderness (Thursday night), I took a freezing shower. It probably didn't help much, but I slept well and felt clean.
On Friday, we had a quick little easy hike to a site called Marcajirca. Let me show you where it is:
Yes very easy and I looked cute the whole time. Except in real life I threw up at the top and didn't feel well enough to drag myself over to the chulpas (essentially, communal tombs) we had hiked all the way up to see. SHOUTOUT TO ANNE AND TOBI FOR MAKING SURE I DIDNT FALL OFF THE MOUNTAIN/KEEPING ME COMPANY ON MY SLOWER THAN A WORM TREK UP. That was a bummer and my legs still feel like jelly, but I got some great photos on my camera, which you'll see eventually.
Back in Huari, we got a lecture from Anne about the guy and baby that had been delivered to her in a box last week (just their bones, not entire people being stuffed in a box). Turns out that dude had a lot going on. He had broken his humerus (upper arm), multiple ribs, his clavicle (collar bone), and both scapulae (shoulder blades). He had weird cut marks on his sacrum (essentially, butt bone) and some other vertebrae (back bones). His face also suffered a couple blows here and there, before he died, and had healed nasal and occipital fractures (eye bone). My favorite thing about him was that he had a sixth toe on one foot.
I don't quite remember what I said exactly regarding posting photos of human remains, but I've decided against it. If you ever want to see the really awesome photos I have, hit me up in person and I'll show you!!
Yesterday (Saturday) we visited a site called Chavin, which lucky for me required minimal walking/hiking. It was huge and had some awesome examples of early architecture. Again, I didn't really take any photos on my phone, which was dumb of me, but eventually once I'm back in Chicago, I'll get around to making a google folder with all my photos.
Today, I made pasta sauce and I blogged and now I'm going to make pasta. It's been a beat week for sure.
Til next time,
Julia Rose
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