{"id":3844,"date":"2026-07-26T06:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T11:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/?p=3844"},"modified":"2026-07-26T06:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T11:26:13","slug":"lost-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/2026\/07\/26\/lost-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the past two weeks, I have transformed from a landscaper to an archeologist. Initially, I was very disconnected from the land I was working on. Pulling roots and moving rocks creates a hostile relationship with the environment. As we have begun excavating more contextual layers, this relationship has changed. I have begun to think of my unit as less of a square of land where I am digging, and more as a time capsule. Every layer we uncover reveals more information and questions. Even though much of our work still involves pulling up large rocks and moving large quantities of dirt, I now do this with a new intentionality. I think about how and why a rock fell where it is. I question every soil change that appears. As we dig physically deeper, I find myself being more immersed in where I am, a historical space. Even though we have no idea what the space is, every find places me back a thousand years ago. In the next two days, I hope we can uncover more clues to what\/where our unit is. Due to the location of our unit, I am always wondering if what we are finding is even in its original context? Are our findings giving us clues to the historical use of this space, or did they simply fall down the hill to our unit?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we uncover more and more, I get more confused about where our unit could be. We are digging on the interior side of a wall that may be an exterior wall. While its direction matches with the other traces of the wall, it is about half the width it should be. Is it the same wall or are we further into the settlement than we originally thought? On Friday, we may have uncovered a partial wall feature in the southern corner of our unit. As we dig deeper, we find more rocks from possible wall fall, but less pottery and bones. Between the rocks and the depth, I would have thought we would find more findings the deeper we went, but the opposite seems to be true. I am really having trouble visualizing the space in a greater context, and truly have no idea where we are digging. The possible wall feature and large pottery sherds lead me to believe part of our unit could have been a small, narrow storage space. I think it will take several more excavations in the surrounding area to truly understand this section of the settlement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This unit continues to raise questions for me, and unfortunately I don\u2019t think they will be answered by the end of this internship. What I want to explore for next week is why we are finding less the deeper we go, and what is underneath all the rock.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While my understanding of my unit continues to complicate, in the past two weeks I have gained a stronger grasp on the different subfields of archaeology. The two I find the most interesting are ceramics and bones. While I still have an elementary understanding of ceramics in terms of archaeology, it seems to be one of the strongest ways to learn about the daily life of people in the past. Ceramics can tell you about ancient peoples’ economics, social values, social standings, and the common practices of daily life. Before this internship is over, I hope to learn more about ceramics’ role in ancient societies. While I have never been very interested in forensics before I got here, bioarchaeology has caught my attention. I am particularly interested in human remains and the ethics that surround their study.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, this has been an incredible experience that has opened my eyes to many new opportunities. Despite our unit being extremely confusing, I am enjoying all of the work that goes into uncovering this ancient city. Our group has come up with many wild theories as a result of the strangeness of the unit. Including the existence of serial goat murders, a group of animal pirates, and a mysterious coin hoard that lies beneath the layers and layers of rock fall. Maybe we\u2019ll get lucky and find that coin hoard in our next pass, but I have a feeling the goats would have hidden it better than that. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the past two weeks, I have transformed from a landscaper to an archeologist. Initially, I was very disconnected from the land I was working on. Pulling roots and moving rocks creates a hostile relationship with the environment. As we have begun excavating more contextual layers, this relationship has changed. I have begun to think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5728,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Iz8A-100","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5728"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3844"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3853,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3844\/revisions\/3853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}