Excavation square

Simulation exercise
You are on the Kruger 2 site in Sherbrooke. You have to excavate a well that is 1 m x 1 m and 40 cm in depth, well 40N-47W. You must be precise, meticulous, and patient.
Good luck!

Preparation
Take out your equipment:

Then, divide the well into four 50 cm x 50 cm quadrants.

The excavation
You must dig the first 10 cm of a quadrant before moving to the next quadrant. The excavation is done by scraping the soil with a trowel in a method that keeps the walls vertical and the floor flat. Begin with the north-east quadrant. Using the trowel, remove soil and put it in the bucket.

Discovery of flakes
After scraping 3 cm of soil, you come across two blank New Hampshire rhyolite flakes.

Take them and put them in the bag labelled Flakes NEQ 0-10 cm for further analysis.

Continue your excavation!

Discovery of a tool
At 5 cm deep, you discover a magnificent base of a Mount Kineo rhyolite biface.

As it is a tool, you must fill out the information sheet before storing it in an individual pouch. Begin by measuring its depth and location in relation to the north and west walls.

Documentation of the discovery
Take a photo of the biface.

Then, store it in a bag with its sheet.

Full bucket
After removing 5 cm of soil, you have completely filled your bucket. Now you have to pass the soil through a sifting screen.

There are over 100 blank flakes revealed. Store them in the Flakes NEQ 0-10 cm bag for further analysis.

Continuing the excavation
Using your trowel, continue digging. After removing 1 cm of soil (6 cm in total), you find two blank chert flakes.

Store them in the Flakes NEQ 0-10 cm bag for further analysis.

Continue your excavation.

Discovery
After removing another 3 cm of soil (9 cm in total), you find a small bleached bone, meaning a bone which was subjected to heat without being completely burned.

Store it in the Bones NEQ 0-10 cm bag for further analysis.

End of horizon 0-10 cm
You remove the 10th cm of soil, but don’t find anything of interest. Your bucket is full, you now use the sifting screen. Sifting reveals almost 200 blank flakes. Store them in the Flakes NEQ 0-10 cm bag for further analysis.

As you have reached 10 cm in depth, you must record your discoveries in the field book.

Overview
An archaeologist’s work demands a lot of patience!

In fact, digging this 40 cm deep 1 m x 1 m square requires two days of work by an experienced excavator. The more artifacts a site contains or the more complicated it is (roots, rocks, etc.), the more time is required for its excavation. This step only represents a small piece of an archaeologist’s work. Making sense of the discoveries through research and analysis is ten times longer.

In the Summer of 2015,
• 37 tools
• 148 bones
• 12 656 blank flakes
were found in the 40N-47W well on the Kruger 2 site’s area 3.