What will we find today is the question on each mind as we walk to the Ca’n Fanals dig site each morning at 7:30 AM. It’s hot, dry, and extremely dusty but the excitement is palpable as we grab our picks, brushes, buckets, and handtools and receive morning assignments from archeaologist Paqui Cardona Lopez. Some of us will be removing top layers of soil, sand, and rocks with pick axes looking for fragments of bone and pottery as we work. Using small hand tools with triangular heads to scrape each layer of soil, the work is slow going and must be done with attention to changees in the soil color and consistency.
We scan through the soil, sand, and gravel looking for bones, pottery, and other finds. Mostly, we find lots of rocks, snail shells, and small animal bones, but every now and then someone will shriek with excitement and we know something significant has been found. This week alone there were several shrieks of new discovery. The week started out with a very loud yelp as UP student Marissa B. found an articulated skeleton in one of the 36 gravesites believed to be at the Ca’n Fanals site. On Tuesday, a coin was found in one of the excavated sites. On Wednesday, a ring was unearthed in the same area. That same day, something that looks like a button was found. And on Thursday, a piece of pottery with an inscribed “V” next to another as yet undetermined letter or number drew the whole team around it to take a look. Also on Thursday, the bones of a child were found just feet away from where the inscribed pottery shard was discovered.
Everything found on the site is put into a labeled bags that mark the location of the item. Digging stops for the day at 1 PM when the intense sun and heat demand that we take a break. After lunch and a brief siesta, the team (which consists of UP facutly, staff, and students together with students and faculty from the University of Barcelona and other regional universities) remands to the excavation house to wash and clean the pottery and bones. Washing the pottery is a muddy affair but also very communal and convivial as we sit in groups of 6, constantly conversing in very rapid Spanish (some of us just listening to the lively banter) while using scrub brushes and slim wooden scrapers to remove the sand and dirt. Bones receive a more delicate treatment and are not immersed in water but gently scrubbed with a damp brush. This task continues for 2 and a half hours until 5:30 PM. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we have a team meeting to discuss the findings on the dig and the results from chemical analysis with Pollentia Co-Directors Miguel Ángel Cau Ontiveros and Esther Chávez Álvarez from the University of Barcelona faculty, Catalina Mas-Florit, also from the University of Barcelona, and Francisca Cardona Lopez of the University of Granada.
Stay tuned for more images from our Daily Dig.
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- Paqui holds the ring found at the Ca’n Fanals site during the 2015 expedition
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- Is this a button?
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- Coin found in a grave
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- articulated skeleton
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- inscribed pottery
