June 11 2013 - Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow.

Today nine students worked on their projects in the lab or at home, and six students came back to break camp.

Last glimpse of the open excavation units.

In the morning, the students on site enjoyed coffee brought in by Richard and some baked goods brought in by Bob,  left over after a meeting at the university yesterday. We got to work at taking apart the shelters and removing the stairs down the steep slope at the entrance to the site we built the first day on-site. Wendy, Cameron, Richard, Stuart, Nadine and Emma began to take apart the large aluminium frames and fold and pack the tarps. We loaded Bob's truck for his first trip back to the University to drop off the equipment at the lab. We finished the morning by doing a full survey of the site and collecting all the coordinate markers and flagging tape.

First step, break down the shelter.

Richard, Stuart, Wendy and Emma organizing shelter storage.

After lunch, Nadine, Wendy, Stuart, Cameron and Emma backfilled the excavation units, while Richard took apart the stairs.  We had to make sure that there was no evidence left behind, and that it would appear no field school had ever been there. We collected sticks and removed the litter mat, filled the pits and then distributed the sifted sediment over top.

 

 

First field day, Richard helps build the stairs. Last field day, Richard removes the stairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to breaking camp and backfilling excavation units, Nadine continued to photodocument surface artifacts and features; and Wendy took more footage of everyone working. In the lab, Tiana worked on cataloguing the newly-discovered artifacts. She cleaned up one of the tobacco tins, assisted by soaking it in Coca Cola for a while, and was able to brush away some rust to see some of the design and writing on the can. It is a "Tucketts" tobacco tin, but more research will be needed before we can get a precise date. Amanda continued taking photographs of artifacts discovered in previous years; Kelsey carried on making line drawings of artifacts discovered this field season; and Erinn and Jenevfa  worked with the collected Japanese bottles and ceramics respectively. Nathan and Kathleen  worked on determining dates of artifacts by using the internet from home.

Almost ready.

No one will ever know.

 

While the six students were all busy tidying up what was left of the archaeology site, several km deep in the forest (with little sign of wildlife), a black bear was roaming the campus of Capilano University, several km away near the forest's edge. It was spotted near the archaeology lab where the rest of the students were working.

The archaeology assembly line.

No big deal.

Thankfully the rain held off all day, and at the end of the afternoon we filled Bob's truck with the last load of equipment and said our farewell to the site we called home over the last few weeks.

Stuart and Richard packing up the last of the equipment,