I had not found any special finds until this Monday. But that changed. First I found a cylindrical stone tool. I wish I had a picture of it, but unfortunately my camera is broken. Then, while wet screening, I found two small shell beads. I was pretty excited.
While I was down wet screening, the rest of the group discovered a burial in one of the sample squares. It seems to be a secondary burial, meaning that it's likely the body decomposed and was moved. The body is not articulated; it's not still connected how it should be. The bones aren't completely fused, which indicates that the bones are not fully matured. We found a huge variety of bones. I won't bother to list them all, but we found everything from cranial bones, jaw bones (with teeth still attached), to leg bones and ribs.
Bones
On Monday during lab, some of the grad students were putting away the material that had been washed and dried. Remember a few days ago how I posted "I found a substantial amount of turtle bones the other day."? Well. They were definitely human. Apparently they were fragments of a tibia and fibula (lower leg bones). So whoever told me in the field that they were turtle bones was wrong. If you're wondering how one can confuse turtle bones and human bones, that's understandable. But human bones really aren't that easy to identify, having not taken an osteology class. They were just bone fragments, so I didn't even have the entire bone to identify. Ben was working in the same square when I found them, and he had no idea they were human either. Someone led us astray. So I guess I found the first burial of the dig, but I had no idea!
Me, Ben, and our bones
Back at the field today we didn't find anything too interesting. I hate that we don't have very much time left here; I don't think we'll be able to finish excavating the next layer. I can't believe I only have a week left here. Time flies.
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