Rachael confers with Tomeu in setting a survey point
Pollèntia Directors Miguel Cao and Esther Chávez gave the UP Team three tasks for Week One of the expedition: 1) survey the old farm Ca’n Fanals, site of the Roman era necropolis, and tie the survey to known control points for the current excavations; 2) create a 30 meter x 30 meter grid with 5 meter x 5 meter cells within each grid; and 3) conduct a findings prospection, a systematic walk-through to recover surface pottery fragments, bones, and other archaeological artifacts within the new grid.
Our Friday night Team gathering on July 11 was a big celebration of our completion of all three of these tasks on time. Whew! We were one happy and tired bunch.
Rachael Thurston, UP alum and owner of Thurston & Associates, Inc. in Lake Oswego, is the UP Team member heading up our survey work. She has worked closely with Tomeu, surveyor on the Barcelona team, and UP Team members Ray Bard and Jacob Bard. Rachael is unstoppable! Hours in the sun hardly slow her down. Her enthusiasm for setting points and marking grid lines carried lots of us past mild exhaustion and nominal quit times in order to get the job done.
For the surface prospection, Fr. Rutherford and crew coded all of the plastic bags needed for each grid cell survey. Miguel and Esther gave us lessons on what to look for, how fast to walk, and how to tie the bags according to archaeological conventions (square knots are a no-no!). Three workers from the Barcelona group joined us–and off we went. We found an assortment of fragments from the Roman era to modern roofing tiles; remember this is a field farmed for centuries long after Roman ruins were mined for building Alcúdia and the ruins covered, so there is a big mix of surface materials. We did find a couple of shards of Byzantine polylineal pottery, a type of pottery that Miguel has studied extensively.
All the grids were prospected, the coded bags were tied in proper slip knots, and all the sacks of fragments were hauled back to the Excavation House, where they await our diligent washing and sorting this Week Two.
Photo credits this page: Ronda Bard
Rachael Thurston leads survey of Ca’n Fanals
Rachael & Fr. Rutherford set a reflector
Jacob Bard checks a data readout on total station
Rachael computes survey data using an olive tree as a desk
Fr. Rutherford, UP Team fearless leader, ready for prospection
Prospection for surface findings in Ca’n Fanals
Prospection team reaches the wall in Ca’n Fanals
Ray Bard ties a sack of findings during prospection of Ca’n Fanals
