Home Stretch

Gamarjobat,

Only one week left in Georgia. As year three comes to a close, we are inching closer towards a completed database. I am approaching the 1000 bone mark.  To put that in perspective, that is roughly 10% of the collection, which is growing bigger everyday. To put our collection in perspective, I was recently reading about the La Brea tar pits and their excavations, and they have over 3.3 million bones. Our task seems a lot less daunting after reading that. I have looked at many interesting bones, from all different species (even Paleotragus, which is a short-necked giraffe that we have very few of so far but the numbers are growing).

This year has been very different then the past two years. By next week, I will have spend only 1 week at the site and have yet to touch a trowel, although I did use a brush to clean a few bones. I feel really dissociated from the excavations this year, which is really no surprise, considering our time spent in Tbilisi. As much as I enjoy the city, I really miss the solace of the countryside. Dmanisi, as different as it is from America, really does remind me of home. The simplicity of the countryside (and the silence, of course) has a soothing effect on my psyche, probably because I spent so many days in the stillness of the forest and so many nights staring into the vastness of space during my tenure in Balsam. And it was as desolate as that sounds. Ha. I do owe much of who I am to where I grew up and am happy to find that other places in the world are not so different.

Anyways, we have had a pretty productive week. We went to Dmanisi for a night and saw some of the new test pits, M12 and M13, the latter of which didn't pan out. We will be heading out tomorrow afternoon and staying until either Thursday night or Friday morning. The lab workers are out there already prepping the bones and removing the sediment, so we will have plenty to look at for a few days. The field school has also kicked off and the students are all really nice. It will be fun to spend a few days and get to know everyone better. We will come back and work over the weekend and then mentally prepare for our long journey back to the States.

I had a good time this weekend at the market and looking at all of the odd and interesting things for sale. I could have bought hundreds of Soviet medals or a large painting of Josef Stalin or any number of random electronics, but I refrained. I did buy some nice skewers so I can make so shasklik when i get home, and so we have nice skewers instead of the weak and small bamboo ones that we currently have. I also bought some gifts and enjoyed the selection of art that was available.

Well, bed time is drawing near and my eyelids are getting heavy so I will leave you with a shorter post this week.

Tune in next week for my final thoughts.

Nakhvamdis,

Reed