Maybe not blood or tears, but there sure is a ton of sweat!

Whoops, another long silence. Heh sorry. But I've been thinking that the reason I haven't been posting as much as I did last year cause well, I have a lot more responsablities. Not only am I technically the person in charge of the rescue of a rescue project at the Casa Mixteca, but I also have my own project I'm trying to work on. This personal project is going fairly well--the ethnography is great. Yesterday I went to a partido de pelota mixteca and did 3 interviews!

Anyway, I thought I'd give a little peek into what I'm working on at the Casa Mixteca. Here is a portion of my field diary. This is an excerpt from the first week. Cheers!

24-6-09 Miercoles
Clime: hace sol y calor
Trabajadores: MS, PGRC, Felipe, Julio

1. Finished taking the photos of the E & S walls of CN/P3, as well as the entrance to CN. Took detail photos of estuco.

2. Julio continued with the desyerbe, clearing plants in the CN and the other places missed earlier with the weed wacker.

3. After discussing procedure with Memo, decided to dig pozos/postes in the corners of rooms 3W and CN of P3 to find the piso first, to know at what depth we need to take everything else down. Decided to start MS with Felipe in 3W/P3 while Memo starts with Julio in CN/P3.

4. Felipe  esquina SE de la extension este de 3W, MS  esquina SW of 3W/P3

5. Soil is wet, café in color, feels Sandy.

6. A few centimeters below the erosional fill, Felipe found what could be the floor or fallen estuco. Decided to open another cuadra next to his to see if we can find more or if its just fallen estuco. Opened up the cuadra immediately to the right of the one already opened.

7. Determined that it was estuco from the walls. Took 2 photos on personal camera to document and told Felipe to continue going down to the piso.

8. Piso found by Memo in the SE esquina of CN/P3 about 16 cm down.

9. Piso found by Felipe in the SE corner of the eastern extension of C3W/P3 at a depth of 15-20cm below the superifcie (13cm). Took pictures:
016 – SE corner C3W/P3
017 – same

10. MS found piso in SW corner, C3W/P3, about 18-20cm down.
018 – SW corner, C3W/PS
019 – same
020 – same

11. Directed Felipe to look for piso in the east extension 3W/P3, NE corner. Found floor.
023 – NE, EXT E, C3W/P3
024 – same

12. Took photos of piso found by Julio in esq. NE, CN/P3 at depth of 30cm.

13. Directed Felipe to dig in the NW corner of C2W.

14. Found piso in SW corner CN/P3  took photos.
025 – NW esq, C2W/P3

15. Depth of erosion in the wall from the foundations is 15-30cm.

16. In the NW corner of CN/P3 went down to 30cm but still have not found piso, may have to take it down another 10-20cm to find the floor.
027 – SW corner CN/P3
028 – same

Welcome to my Casa Mixteca

Hey everyone...I moved to a new house and we finally have a decent internet connection in the house! Actually, it works great. I gotta get ready to go decir despedidas (say good-bye) to Lindsey, the physical anthropologist who worked this year for the same project as I did last year, but just wanted to give a quick update and let everyone know that I am doing very well.

We started excavations at the Casa Mixteca, a Mixtec house site that is near the "collective" site of Monte Alban (a 20 minute camioneta ride away) and is of course Post-classic and awesome. Right now there's just me, the person technically in charge of the project, a student from ENAH and a worker. We are working in the north room of patio 3, one of the larger rooms, and we hope to finish up tomorrow with that and move onto the next room. Its taking a bit longer, not only cause of the lack of personnel (or human labor) but because its a big room with a lot of erosional fill. Its a lot fun though, and I will post pictures shortly.

In the mean time, here is a great pic of me relaxing during the lunch hour.