Our second day we were blown off of the site -- the wind tore our two sun tents and the sive down. Instead we did some floating of samples from each strata in each trench. Floating separates the lighter things from the heavier, allowing organic matter to rise to the top and lithics to fall to the bottom. The results are two different bags -- the heavier "residue" and the lighter "flot."
The flot can contain any organic material such as bones, seeds, insect casings or charcoal to indicate what the inhabitants might have eaten and details about what their immediate environment might have been like. The residue contains the pottery and microliths that may have been chipped off in the making of tools or in later civilizations, bits of metal that can tell us more about their craftsmanship.
In the afternoon a few of us went out to the site, armed with a camera and a botanical guide to Crete. We took photos of every different plant and (attempted) to identify each. We also counted how many total plants were in a space the size of out site. There were many thistle-like plants with large purple, spiky flowers and a huge amount of wild onions and artichokes. Most of the plants on Crete estuvate -- like hibernating, but the dormant state occurs during the hotter, dry season of summer, rather than winter. This means the flora is relatively brown and dull currently, with the exception of beautiful bunches of purple thyme.
By learning more about the vegetation in the area we can determine what effect the flora may have had on the soil and consequently the artefacts. They can also help us learn what the layout of the site may have been. For an example, A lush plant that grows in damp soil can tell you that water in the area may have brought sediments to create fossils, or, conversely, micro-bacteria to decompose anything organic. A cluster of nitrogen-greedy plants in a site otherwise devoid of them may indicate a fire pit having been located there.
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