Hi, I’m Site Supervisor Anna Shackelford  and welcome to this episode of Dig Deeper.   Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about  what it’s like just to be an archaeologist   day to day, so we’re going to go around the  site and see what everybody’s up to let’s go. Anna: So now we’re over here at our ditch 8 excavation  site. Where we’re actually wrapping up the dig,

so we have three ditches running throughout  here and we’re testing down into each one.   This is one of our tests right here and  this is archaeologist Natalie Reid. So Nat,   what do you got going on here  today? What are you working on? Natalie: So today, I am testing into  this ditch feature, as you said,   and the ditch is running north-south, so I’ve got  this perpendicular section set up to take a slice   out of the larger ditch feature. And basically,  I’m trying to take out each layer of the ditch separately,

so I want to take things out of the  ground as they were deposited into the ground.   And so, after the ditch was dug it wouldn’t  have just all been filled in at once,   it would have been filled in and re-dug  and then filled in again. And those are   all different stages throughout the life of this  ditch and I want to take out each separately.

So, similar to what we have going on in the wall  over here, a similar thing happening with my ditch over here,   it’s getting filled in at different  levels and throughout different time periods. Anna: We can already see a little bit of  that in the wall here for the ditch too, right?   Because we’ve got your A layer up here, and  we’ve got your C layer coming in down there too.

Natalie: Yep. So the A layer has got a  lot less modeling. It’s kind of a smooth,   even color and then once you get down to the  C layer, that’s got different colors of clay   mixed in with it, throughout the entire layer. Anna: So all the time when we’re digging  out here people will ask us, you know,   What’s your favorite part of your job? What  do you enjoy doing? So what is that for you? Natalie: I’d say for me right now, because I’m  working at ditch 8, one of the main reasons I love

working here is because all of the differences  in the layers are so subtle. It really teaches   an archaeologist how to hone their skills, because  you have to be very, very careful in what you’re   doing all the time.

And I’d say the other reason  I love working here so much, is because we are   just south of the memorial church, we do get a lot  of foot traffic here. So, it’s always nice to have   people be interested in what you’re doing,  and ask you questions, and come talk to you,   and be right there as you’re discovering, you  know, something from hundreds of years ago. Anna: So thanks for talking with  us, Nat. Keep up the good work.

Let’s go down to the seawall and  check out what they’re doing. Anna: We’re over here at our seawall  excavation site and our westernmost unit   with Staff Archaeologist Nicole Roenicke. So  Nicole, tell us what you got going on over here? Nicole: Good question Anna.

Well, what I’m  working on right now is I’m just finishing   up the excavation of a ditch, that’s in  this corner of the unit. And we actually saw this ditch from previous excavations to  the north, around 20 years or so ago.  So, I am just finishing taking out the rest of the ditch  fill and then I’m going to photograph it,  work on some notes that I’ve got to do, and then I’m  going to draw the profiles, so the side walls   of the ditch, to see the different layers that  I’m going to encounter in the rest of the unit.

And that’s really important, because you can’t  re-excavate anything twice and everything can’t   be put exactly where it was before.    So some of the tools that I’m going to be using for this are this trowel.

This is an archaeologist’s best friend basically and we’re going to be,   I’m going to be scraping with it to clean the  dirt up. I know that sounds kind of funny,   but it actually helps us to be able to see the colors  a little better and see the layers we’ve got going on.   I also have this dust pan right here and this  will be what I use to collect all of the dirt and   then I’ll put it in this bucket, which is half  full right now and I’ll screen it for artifacts.

All right so, what I’m doing basically  is cleaning, like I was talking earlier,   so I take this and I just scrape the dirt and you  see how it kind of brings out the color.   I’ve got this intact midden down here. That’s what I  took it down to, because that’s where they   stopped digging the ditch. So you can see it’s  got some charcoal in here, some bone up there.

We’ve got lots of clay and brick in there and  there’s some random intact mounds in here, as well.  So I’m just going to scrape and clean it  up like this for photos.   So you’ve seen my little midden in here, that I’ve shown you, and actually, the same midden is in Ryan’s test unit over there.

Anna: Oh, no way! All right, thanks  for the heads up. Let’s go take a look. Anna: So we’re still at our seawall excavation site,  but now we are in our easternmost unit with   Staff Archaeologist Ryan Krank. And so recently we’ve  been coming down right on top of the midden layer.   Anna: So Ryan, what do you got, what do you  got going on today? What are you doing? Ryan: So above the layer that I’m digging through  right now, was a layer full of bricks.

These were larger pieces, mostly bats and full-size  bricks, as well as some cobbles. But now, in this   transitional layer, it’s giving way to artifacts,  as I get closer and closer to that midden. Anna: So you mentioned artifacts, so yeah,  that means you’re already finding stuff, right? Ryan: Oh yeah, I’ve been finding a lot, especially  digging through just this section alone.

I’ve actually filled up all of my buckets and I’m  about to go screen and look for some more. Anna: Oh, let’s go take a look. Ryan: Sure. Anna: So Ryan, walk me through  screening. What are you doing here? Ryan: So when we screen, it’s similar to sifting  for gold, basically what we do is we push the dirt   through the screen, it goes down into  the wheelbarrow, and all the larger   items will stay on top.

From there,  we can figure out which artifacts   are there that we want to keep. Now keeping in  mind that an artifact is anything that was made   by somebody in the past, so even though this tiny  little brick piece is technically an artifact,   that doesn’t mean we’re always going to hold on  to it.

We’re going to hold on to things that are   generally a little bit more interesting, are  going to show us something. Such as this bone,   that’s actually sitting right on top of the dirt.  Right now I’m using a quarter inch screen.  I’m using that because I’m still in a transitional  layer.

Once I get down to the actual midden,   the size of the screen holes is actually going to be reduced, and that’s so that we can pick up smaller and smaller artifacts. Once we get down into those layers and they’re in stasis,   we are likely going to be finding really small  things. This could go down even to the small   beads that the English brought over, when they  first arrived here in Virginia back in 1607.

Anna: So this is awesome Ryan. You’ve got a  whole lot of great material coming out of here. Ryan: Yeah. Anna: Yeah, thanks for showing us what’s going  on. All right, so now over here we’ve seen a   little bit what happens.

You know, after we dig  stuff out of the ground, before artifacts are   taken into the lab. So now, let’s go take a look  at what happens before we actually start digging. Anna: Hey Caitlin. Uh, that’s not  a shovel. What are you doing? Caitlin: Yeah, so I’m running  ground penetrating radar,   which is allowing us to see what’s underneath the  ground, without actually putting a shovel in the ground.

So what this does is it sends radio waves down into the ground and different types of soil  or other buried objects reflect those radio waves  back to the machine a little bit differently. Anna: Do you guys have an idea of  what you’re looking for in this area? Caitlin: We have an idea of one thing that we’re  looking for.

We’re looking for the Greate Road,   or this section of the Greate Road, and that’s  a historic road that connected Jamestown   to the mainland. We’ve also had other  excavations take place in this area,   so we’re looking for anything else that we  might be able to find right underneath our feet. Anna: So what do you have on  on your screen right here? Caitlin: So on my screen right here, actually  a really good example of how different objects   reflect differently. This really long line  is actually our metal USGS marker down there.

And all the other little  parabolas might also be features,   but those are most likely more of a  soil composition instead of metal. Anna: That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see what the  data looks like once we’re done with the survey. Caitlin: Yeah. It’ll give us,   actually a 3D image, so this is only a 2D  image.

Once we put it onto the computer,   it’ll give us a 3D image, which gives us a  little bit more clarity about what’s going on. Anna: All right, that’s really interesting,  but I don’t I want to keep you. Caitlin: Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Anna: Every single day we’re out here, one  of us gives the 11 o’clock archaeology tour,   starting up at the monument.  Today, Sean has the tour.

Sean: Hi. Anna: And we all kind of put our own little  individual spins on the tour. You’re getting a   different one each time you take it, but  let’s see what he’s doing for his tour today. Sean: Yeah, so one of the nice things about  our tour is that they’re very unique, person to person.

We all draw on different experiences and things we’ve excavated, both here and and elsewhere. So I’ve been digging for a little over a decade and one of the things I like to talk about is, not only what we’ve been finding here at Jamestown, but how we understand the archaeology. Right? How do we know what we know about the  past, based on what we’ve found? And so often   I take people through the fort.

We go look at  the palisade, we go look at the 1608 church,   and I’d like to explain how those features can  be recognized and tell us about human activity in the past.   Now, one of the things I like to do  to prepare for this, is kind of to go back through   what we’ve found, review the older reports,  talk to some of the rest of the staff and   see what is new on the site.

And then kind of  flip back through our publications and that way   I get really familiar with what’s been going on here  at Jamestown and I can tell everybody about it.   So you know the tours are really important for us  and I think, you know, most of the staff really   likes doing them, because it gives us a chance to  really interact with the visitors to Jamestown   and tell the story directly.

One of the most  important parts about our job is explaining what   we’ve found, disseminating that information,  because it doesn’t really mean anything if we   don’t tell people about it. And so, the tours  are a really great chance to do that and I’ll   be honest, my favorite part is at the end  of the tour, we do a little Q &A session,   where visitors can ask about  anything that I didn’t cover.

And that’s always really fun, because there’s  always some really interesting questions and   sometimes some really challenging ones that I  have to go and do some research on afterward. Anna: So our archaeology tours start  at 11, and oh man, you got to go. Sean: Oh, all right. Well, see you later.

Anna: All right, so that’s been y’all experiencing  the day in a life of an archaeologist.   Thanks for tuning in for this episode of Dig Deeper.  Come by the site at some point to, you know,   see what we’re doing in real time.  And again, thank you for viewing.