My first artifact-related activity at my internship to learn was how to wash. Washing refers to the process of cleaning all the dirt and debris off of the collected samples of stone debitage and organic remains. Any pile of stone fragments that appear to have been intentionally created (usually during the manufacture of a tool) is considered debitage. When digging out on the field, each large item is specifically recorded and bagged individually. This type of artifact is called point provenience, which designates that its exact point in three-dimensional space was recorded. Dirt from the dug layer is screened through wire mesh and any pieces of stone, bone, or shell get bagged up to be cleaned and sorted later in the lab. Our job in the lab is to clean the contents of a large bag. This large bag is called a lot bag since it is labeled with a lot number which signifies that all the contents come from the same level of a 1 meter by 1 meter square in the site.
To clean, these artifacts are dumped into a strainer inside a bucket of water to be softly scrubbed with a tooth brush to get the dirt off the surface. All the point-provenience items, once cleaned, are laid on top of their corresponding plastic bag and paper slip to dry, being careful not to disassociate the artifact from its specific information and baggie. Once cleaned, the contents are laid into a wooden framed box with a fine metal screen at the bottom. This screen is lined with newspaper and will serve to dry the washed stone without losing any small pieces through the mesh.
Once all the contents of my lot bag have been cleaned, I check to make sure that each cleaned pile of rocks is either on top of or underneath the bag it came in. I also check to make sure that each assortment of rock is separated by some empty space so that the ¼” stone doesn’t get mixed with the point-provenience stone or with the 1/8” stone. My tray is placed into a large standing rack to be dried over the course of a day or two.
Usually, the bags have screened stones, meaning most of the content of the bag is rocks and flakes and my job is just to clean them off. Sometimes bags are not this tidy and one in particular was mostly mud with a little bit of tiny flakes suspended in there. Something new! Although this bag of mud was dirtier, I found the process more fun. In some ways it made each new flake that got revealed and cleaned almost like a little treasure being uncovered. Not exactly like digging them out of the ground myself, but close enough that I got a kick out of the process and enjoyed myself. There is something deceptively simple and enjoyable in working with dirt and mud with your hands, the feel of it perhaps. It also should be mentioned how funny it is to be an adult in college who is playing around with mud and rocks in order to expand our understanding of the human past. Out of what I can only guess was two pounds of mud, I got a handful each of regular sized flakes and very tiny flakes.
The job during sorting is to separate out the lot bag contents into categories of stone such that each can be addressed individually. Just like in the washing process, it is very important to keep the types of stone together and classified accordingly. Generally, there are about three main types of stone that come out of a standard lot bag. Point Provenience flakes are flakes larger than ½ of an inch or so. If they’re big enough, their exact location in the lot square is recorded and that item is placed into its very own little baggie. It is also given a specimen number to distinguish it from the others. I generally sort the PP items first since they have more meticulous handling requirements.
This internship was a mixture of highs and lows for me, although the lows were almost exclusively due to my circumstances. The people were great, the atmosphere was great, and the environment lent itself to endless learning. Gault is a great lab full of wonderful people doing some truly necessary work to further expand the realm of human understanding. The work was tedious yet important and fulfilling. It was difficult to manage dropping one of my part time jobs to take on this unpaid internship, but in the end I am glad I got this experience and I would do it all again if given the opportunity.
The amount and importance of paperwork was the primary insight I took away from my duties as an intern. The lofty fantasy of Indiana Jones doesn’t exactly capture the amount of data redundancy needed to make sure all the artifacts are traceable and recorded.
At times the amount of open discussion seemed a hindrance, so any students who are used to working quietly alone are in for a surprise. There is a method to this madness however, as the open atmosphere of the lab leads to group collaboration at all times so you are never struggling alone. Anyone who has a strong attention to detail and can understand that tedious work is often the most important will fit right in at the Gault Archaeological Lab.