Today was out first full day on site in a week! A few of us left early to dig in the cave trench (Much better than the Bottomless Pit of Despair!). The cave trench is interesting, but tricky as the cave itself has been in use by goatherds for centuries, covering up our relevant strata with goat dung, fires and meals. Consequently we found a lot of Minoan pottery and burnt dirt and sand as well as charcoal. The burnt dirt and sand combines with ash during downpours to make a horrible cement. The upside is that we could see a perfect outline of the goatherds' makeshift fire pit, even if we have to dig through it to find what we're looking for.
After siesta we returned to the field, this time going to the floating station. I have never actually been, so this was exciting for me to see how it worked. The station is a ways from town where a farmer was kind enough to let us tap his water lines for his olive trees. The station is a simple rig comprised of a 50 gal drum, two filters, a heavy-duty hose and spout.
The drum is filled, then the coarser filter placed on a tray near the top of it and filled with the strata dirt. We work the dirt with our hands, picking out anything we can see that's important right off. Eventually the fine dirt and clay sink to the bottom through the coarse filter and are washed away. The water pours out the spout at the top of the drum and through a fine filter that catches any light organic material. The coarse filter bag becomes the residue that I wrote about before, and finer bag the flot.
NOTE: The internet cafe I am using to update doesn't have a place to upload photos, so those will come as soon as I can either figure out another way, or when I get back State-side!
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