Wednesday, June 11, 2008

T minus 2 days and counting!

We at PTAP are working in overdrive to get ready for the field session that starts on Friday. Pete and I have been making trips down to Port Tobacco to set up the field office there and get the equipment in place. Once the staff get to the site we are there for the long haul (12 or 13 days) so the field office is doubling as living quarters. There will be a limited number of spots available for volunteers who may want to crash at the site for the night...if you are willing to rough it yet be respectful of your bunkmates and of the town's year-round residents. Sleeping bags and assorted camping equipment should be handed out with any archaeology degree.

Staying at Port Tobacco saves us the drive (and gas) but it also adds to the field experience. There is nothing like living at your site to help you understand the people you are studying through the artifacts they left behind. We will be barbequeing dinner before or after each evening's lecture/workshop/movie so there will be down time but we will stay focused on the main goal - to teach the public about archaeology, history, and Port Tobacco.

If the stress of living and working together gets to be too much, I have threatened to hold a disco night in the courthouse. I have some bad 80's dance music on my laptop...

-April

Postscript from Jim: What, there's good 80s music?
Elsie provided this link to the latest newspaper article on the project: Port Tobacco field session will dig deep
http://www.somdnews.com/stories/06112008/indytop171820_32225.shtml

No comments: