Fayum Dig Diaries

packing up the office

We are finished the fieldwork for Fayum 2010! Today we are in the house packing up and most importantly backing up. We have built a GIS during the course of the season but there are always clean up jobs to do at the end of the season. We spent last night going over the structure of the GIS making sure that the symbols we use to represent the various types of data we have recorded are consistent. Kane established a symbol set for the codes that we used to describe the surface sediments on the transects that we recorded. Tash reset the photo names for the transects so that we can implement dynamic links in the GIS. Josh took photos every 20m across the transects both EW and NS before logging began. These are filed for each transect along with all the other data we recorded at that location. The dynamic link means that anyone using the GIS can view these photos just by clicking an icon. It helps when we are back in NZ, the US and the Netherlands (project members come from all three countries) and need to remember what the locations we recorded looked like.

Because team members will be working on the data we gathered throughout the year it’s important that the GIS and associated folders of data are very well structured otherwise it will be a continual headache finding where we put a particular record. We have adopted an ‘object orientated’ approach. We have a small set of types of units that we have recorded in the field: the survey transects, hearths, grindstones, geomorphic sections. These are individually numbered and the data is structured so that every data record (total station survey, photo etc.) relevant tot that object is stored within the object folder. We use the GIS to integrate the different data types that we have collected – exploiting the database management function of the GIS. Because we are dealing with such a large area (the X1 region we worked in this season was 3km wide EW) a GIS is also essential for understanding spatial distributions.

Photographs are a critical part of our data acquisition and are one of the reasons that we amass such a large quantity of data during the season. We save high resolution photos because sometimes it is necessary to look at images in detail. The downside is that data backup takes some time – the master data files for 2010 are around 20 gigs. We also keep copies of the data that was downloaded from the various instruments we use. This means that if for some reason we found an error we could track back to the original data file where the error occurred. But we hope that we have found and fixed any errors in the field!

We backup onto several different machines and portable disks. The danger of data loss is an issue but can be overcome by making sure that there are lots of copies. We send the data back on a variety of different machines with people flying in different directions. Back in our various home universities the data is backed up again onto servers. This minimizes the threat of data loss to acceptable levels. We really have little alternative – given the type of data requirements needed for this project a ‘paper record’ would be impossible to create.

- Simon

Have you ever got the feeling that time is moving past you at the speed of light so that events from only a few weeks ago seem like yesterday but that time is also moving at a snail’s pace, so that you can’t actually believe that the event in question was in fact only a few weeks ago? Well I can’t believe that I have been here for a month already, yet on the other hand I can’t believe it has only been a month. Time is bent like the light in the desert – the cliffs at the edge of the Fayum basin can look so close, and yet they are in fact far away.

analyzing artefacts

I reflect on the bending of time because we are winding up in our last days of field work before we all go our separate ways. Tomorrow we will spend the day in the desert once more, finishing the nailing and analysis of our last transect. Thursday we go on a little trip to Seilah, are the Nile Valley, the source of the raw material of the artefacts we have analysed. For me it is a fitting end to the season, a chance to understand what we are here for. I have enjoyed my first field experience immensely, admittedly helped at times by a bar of chocolate. At first I felt completely overwhelmed and inexperienced.  But now I feel confident in my abilities to use the equipment, even when Bex is firing artefact measurements at me at breakneck speed.

sunrise in the desert

I will miss the beautiful sunrises glimpsed above the sands. I will miss the gorgeous view from my workplace. I will even miss Simon’s rally driving to get us out to the field – nothing wakes up a sleepy student in the morning than driving through one of the numerous potholes. But most of all I will miss the crew. Tash, Shezani, Josh, Kane, Bex, Stacy and Simon, you are all wonderful and I hope to be here again with you all next season.

- Anna

tripod minus total station in sand storm

Well it’s blowing sand and wind and even rand (sand/rain) out here with a mighty fury! It started to pick up yesterday morning as we drove out to the field. We groggily noticed the clouded nature of our surroundings and as the sun rose we came to realise that the clouds came with a sand filled wind… At first we tried to complete the analysis of X1T38, with some of us nailing out artefacts and labelling them with their unique ID; others were analysing these artefacts, recorded using our netbooks. The Leica Total Station was also beeping around recording the spatial provenience of each artefact. All the while the horizon grew darker and closer. We strapped down the Total Station to prevent her from falling over and sat braced on our seats while continuing analysis.

trudging back to the land cruiser - if only we could see it!

By second breakfast (10am) the wind and sand picked up to such a speed that we had to cease analysis and shooting lasers with our TS for fear of the abrasive sand destroying all our electronics. After huddling in the rocking car to eat second breakfast it was decided that the least we could do was redraw the transect lines (now covered by a layer of sand) and survey the rest of the transect with coloured nails for different artefact types. We managed to do this until 2.30pm (usually we finish at 3pm) with another attempt at analysis and TS recording, but the wind and sand resumed its fury well into the night.  Sleep was a little difficult, with some tent-walls blown up from where they were buried in the sand, leaving their hosts shivering and sandy throughout the night. Waking up this morning I realised it was decidedly colder than yesterday and if it’s cold at the house then it’s colder in the field!

camp - check out those date palms for wind force/direction!

The team pulled their thermal underwear on (some didn’t and some forgot their gloves >.<) and we attempted another day of freezing (-10C), windy, sandy (did I mention windy and freezing) work in the desert. We managed to push through from 6.30am to 11am, the mornings seem less sandy so we were able to analyse, shoot-in and log the artefacts in X1T38. Once again second breakfast gladly took place within the shelter of the rocking Land Cruiser and the sand began to lift. It’s become a constant force of wind and sand since. I’ve just come in to the house from shovelling more sand on to the outer base of my tent walls (just in case)…

…Now for a hot cuppa and some desktop work. Let’s hope tomorrow will be merciful and field work a little more productive :/

Tasha

As Rebecca mentioned in her last blog entry, we have entered the second major phase of our survey. Artefact assemblage composition analysis is a crucial component to the data which we collect. As I’ve worked with our current research design in both the WNSWAP project, that Simon directed in western New South Wales, and the initial season in Fayum 2008, I thought a description of the well-oiled machine, meaning our team, and the lengths that we go through to collect data during intensive assemblage analysis was in order! At this stage, my fifth season applying the strategy in the field, there are a number of roles which I’m now experienced enough to assume in the course of assemblage composition analysis: running the total station, logging data for assemblage analysis, and analysing the artefacts themselves.

survey area over Caton-Thompson and Gardner's 1934 map

The research protocol is crucial for maintaining the integrity of our data. Each of our sampling units are selected, surveyed, and sampled in the same way so that we have spatially and analytically comparable units. This season we are targeting a number of scatters along X Basin (most recently around the northernmost ‘arm’ of the spatial distribution of survey transects), one of four large basins identified by Caton- Thompson in the mid-1920s, which border our survey region from east to west. This is a significant basin to target, as it is situated just southeast of Kom W. Also, according to our large scale (and might I add painstaking!) survey of the four survey corridors, which targeted areas of the four different basins, the spatial patterning of hearths and grindstones (identified and recorded by both Rebecca Phillipps and myself) demonstrates and sometimes concentrated distributions along the shores of Z and X basins.

This year we did further work to ensure this spatial distribution was not an artefact of our 2009 survey extent. Surface exposure and visibility heavily influence the preservation of artefacts. We also wanted to assess whether these surfaces were related to behaviour of Neolithic people, or if what we see on the surface is an artefact of particular natural processes. And so, also important for our assessment of the surface archaeological record is the work which our geoarchaeological specialists Annelies Koopman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Professor Glen MacDonald (UCLA) conduct, to understand the natural depositional processes which took place in different areas of X basin. These investigations provide control for the taphonomic processes that affect different parts of the basin, and by extension, the variable assemblage composition which we may observe “on the ground”. For example, slope wash may size sort artefacts in high energy areas, so that only large artefacts remain on the surface when we survey.

We analyze everything in the field, we don’t collect a single artefact which requires specialized logistics.  On the ground, what the assemblage composition analysis looks like (apart from a bunch of crazy Kiwis shoving thousands of nails into the ground and picking them up again!) involves a lot of fancy equipment, a well trained team, a lot of problem solving and patience! Some of our fancy equipment includes a Differential GPS, Handheld GPS units, netbooks with E4 (an artefact analysing program designed by McPherron and Dibble), the ever-present Leica Robotic Total Station, in addition to “lower order” equipment, which nonetheless is crucial to our intensive analysis: digital callipers, cameras, weighing scales, and goniometers (an instrument that measures angles).

Once the transect has been laid out, Annelies has mapped out the geomorphological surfaces, and we’ve put silver nails with unique ID numbers on metal tags beside each stone artefact, we then run three analysing teams while another team records each artefact’s provenience with the Total Station. One person analyses a number of attributes for each artefact while the other logs the data into the netbooks. We collect a large amount of attributes (20-30) which are linked spatially to each artefact through all the thousands of points we shoot in. Our 2008 survey at E29H1 also followed this research design. We recorded a similar suite of attributes during that intensive survey (see screen shot below).

artefact database

Shezani and Rebecca analyzing artefacts at E29H1

Attributes such as the type of artefact, flake, core, or tool, breakage (how complete the artefact is), maximum dimensions, direction of flake scars, and how these are oriented on the artefact can tell us a great deal – and the program means we can collect this data quickly and in a systematic way (note the thousands of artefacts we actually analyse!!).  Over the last few seasons we have amassed a very large database of artefact analysis (approximately 40,000), although this is restricted to a small number of locations.  Data from the larger landscape we have begun to acquire this season is crucial to answering the questions we have about the nature of human-environment interaction and socio-economy in the Fayum during the mid-Holocene.

- Shezani

panoramic view of transect during analysis

This weekend we visited Wadi Al-Hitan (The Valley of the Whales), a UNESCO World Heritage site, where we camped out under the stars and enjoyed a stroll through the wadi in the morning. We finished up work for the day a little earlier than usual, packed up the truck, and off we went. We traveled around lake Qarun from our dig house, through the Wadi el-Rayan to the Wadi el-Hitan, which contains ancient whale fossils dating back 40-50 million years, and reaching the site just after sunset. Our usual camping spot was occupied so we went to another one just beside the valley that we had to ourselves. Immediately after exiting the truck we all saw an amazing view of the sky:

western horizon

Hamam, our camp manager and driver, made us kofta for dinner, which none of us could get enough of, and we had some success in building a small fire:

Hamam stokes the fire

our camp fire

After dinner we all retired for the evening in our own ways, some went straight to sleep, others stayed up talking, while others stargazed for the entire night. I was in that last group and saw many shooting stars and took some shots of the night sky:

eastern horizon

The next morning we all awoke in our own times and some of us went for a stroll around the immediate area:

Angela, Rebecca and Josh enjoy the view

And then had to find a creative way down again:

Angela, Rebecca and Simon racing down a dune

We packed up camp and then headed to the valley itself, which houses not only the whales but also amazing scenery:

Wadi el-Hitan

After a stroll through the site we all went back to the truck, bought some souvenirs, and then drove back to the dig house to relax for the rest of the day and reminisce of our fantastic night off under the stars.

- Josh

Flagging artefacts for analysis

We are now in the second major phase of our fieldwork.  This involves carrying out very detailed analyses of stone artefact on the surface in selected areas.  Our general survey allows us to target particular locations that are dense in artefacts or associated with other archaeological features we would like to investigate (e.g. hearth and grinding stones).  Differences in assemblage composition may tell us about formation processes that affected the archaeological record, but also how people interacted with difference places on the landscape.  Most of our stone artefact assemblage analysis relates to technological aspects.  Past analyses have focused on tool typologies which may tell us about connections between groups of people in the past, but we also have questions that relate to human-environment interaction, economic change and settlement.  We are very interested in how people moved around the landscape within the Fayum, or possibly beyond to other regions.  Using stone artefacts provides a useful way to measure past human movement in the archaeological record because they are portable.  Refit analyses have been used in the past to do this, but it is very time consuming to carry this out over large areas.  A method of stone artefact analysis has been employed (see Douglass et al. 2008) to determine whether all products of core reduction are present, if they were removed, or if artefacts were imported from elsewhere.

Projectile point

For my PhD thesis I analyzed about 20,000 artefacts (flakes, cores and tools) from Kom K and Kom W which produced some very interesting results when compared to other regions (preliminary results in the Antiquity paper).  Now we would like to compare these locations of very dense occupation remains with other surface scatters on the landscape.    We will begin sampling the landscape this year and hopefully in the coming years we can increase our understanding of the spatial variability in Neolithic stone artefact assemblages across the north shore through continued analysis.

- Rebecca

robotic total station

…and more are all absolutely vital to the goals of the project. However, collecting the appropriate data in the field is no easy task, especially in desert environments. Sand gets EVERYWHERE (our food is no exception). As a result we have to constantly monitor and clean our equipment. What is more, the sun and the wind can also take their toll. Although nothing has quite melted or blown away just yet, where the consistent and reliable operation of the equipment is at stake, it always pays to be safe rather than sorry. The desert environment not only takes its toll on the equipment, but also those who operate the equipment. Sometimes we make errors. There are times when the error can be traced back to a particular moment when somebody made an inevitable mistake and/or these errors may occur for what seems like no reason. Some can be fixed in the field while others do not become apparent until we begin the download later on during the day. Tash and I ran into this problem recently, which Tash describes to you below……

Downloading!

I can’t really think of a better title, but it says it all really…

Each night the survey team arrives back from the field and downloads the data that was collected for the day. Either Shezani or I usually download the Total Station data, which includes spatial information on the transects (sampling units) we layout for our survey and analysis areas together with the artefacts, pottery, bone and geomorphology identified within these transects. Downloading is a fundamental part of data collection, management and analysis. By going through this daily process directly after field work we minimise any errors made that day and can prepare for the following day, as well as presenting the up-to-date work to the rest of the Fayum team that night. Just to give you an idea of what might hit the fan: The other night Kane and I had to put our heads together and come up with a fix quickly, before the evening meeting took place at 6pm. What I found when I imported the TS data into Leica Geo Office Combined was a stray transect that had made its way south (by several 1000s of metres!) from where it was actually surveyed and in the process had completely flipped itself! By going through the TS field book Kane and I were able to find the source of the problem – a number was missing from the station northing. This was fixed in Leica Geo Office Combined by checking the downloaded data against previously set GPS points for that transect. This goes to show that despite our repetition in checking over each stage of recording (including noting down and reading back each coordinate for each station) mistakes do happen. By taking notes systematically of the key steps of set-up, recording and downloading each evening the integrity of the data is increased. Phew!

Tash and lizard

…….. There are also times during in-field data collection where, despite the need to proceed, equipment gets tied to an area and can’t do the job it’s supposed to do because a certain task has not been completed which needs to be completed before the data collection can proceed. One such situation occurred just the other day when Tash and I were on total station duty but could not proceed until the geomorphology was outlined (totally true I swear!). While we waited we were presented with the opportunity to hang out with the local wildlife. A local lizard approached us. Considering we have very rarely been able to chill out with the desert locals, we were stoked. The lizard, however, appeared to be unexcited by this chance encounter and was more interested in eating the flies that pester us day by day….

-          Tash and Kane

It is now our 14^th day in Egypt, the weather has been variable, the truck horns loud in the mornings, and the temperature is slowly getting colder (it is winter here after all)… in other words: Awesome. This season is going much too quickly and even though I am excited to take part in another project after this one, I still wish we had more time here.

The tour group from the UoA Ancient History department visited our camp and were given a tour around Karanis. However due to transport issues they were not able to visit our work around Kom W. A few of us did meet up with the group last Friday night and they all seemed to be having a great time on their trip, which will take them from Alexandria to Abu Simbel and everywhere in-between. I went on this trip in 2008 and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

I have been taking many photos over the last two weeks, many of which you can see on this blog and our Facebook page. In the past few days I have also been experimenting with creating time-lapse videos, the first successful one of which you can see below. Enjoy! (also try not to be jealous that we get this spectacular view from right outside our office every night )

Josh