კარგია საქართველოში (kargia sak'artveloshi)

Gamarjobat!

As my title states 'it's good in Georgia.' I just returned to Tbilisi from Dmanisi and had a great time in the field. I returned because there is limited space at the dig house due to the new class of field school students, which is 15! This is the biggest field school yet and is a mixture of students from all over the world, including the USA, Switzerland, Philippines, and Georgia. I was able to meet them, but in limited capacity as I took the bus back to Tbilisi a few hours after they showed up.

It was a great weekend in Dmanisi, and it started off on a great note! As you may recall from my previous post, there is a shortage of wild animals in Georgia and what I have seen has been limited to birds and reptiles. Well, I am happy to report that I can now add mammals to my list. I rode with Reid to Dmanisi after he lectured at the museum last Wednesday and we saw a roe deer and a jackal on the way. It was nice to finally see some animals endemic to the region.

While I was at Dmanisi, I got a chance to excavate. Reid is opening up new test pits around the promontory in order to fully understand the geology of the area, so I helped excavate M13. It was a fun experience, especially the first day because one of the archaeologists had too much to drink the night before and had to take a nap after lunch for the rest of the day. We found a lot of pottery and bones, including great find in the photo below.

A medieval ქვევრი (kvevri), which is a pitcher for mainly wine, but also grain, milk, and other liquids.

It is pretty amazing to find something that large, laid on its side (Which is unusual, since they were usually buried standing up) in the exact center of a test pit. Reid has a knack for finding them though, since this is his 4th kvevri in his test pits. Luckily it wasn't filled with wine, because the local detox was full with drunks by noon!

Dmanisi detox

Thursday and Friday nights at the site were pretty quiet, but we watched some movies on the projector in the lab. I watched the second half of the new GI Joe movie in Russian (and believe me, you don't need the language to get the gist of the plot) and they found a movie in English for us to watch on Friday, Olympus is Down. Not a bad movie, but the company and conversation over beer and hookah was the best part of the evening. I spent most of Saturday reading articles and writing up the methods section of our journal paper, but I did get a chance to meet another paleoanthropologist who came out to the site for the first time. He was only out for a few hours, and after that, there were only four of us at the site, as most of the Georgians went to Didi Dmanisi for the night. Needless to say, it was pretty boring, so I decided to make some backgammon pieces for the board at the site. I found a great stick and started cutting it with my Leatherman, and soon after I felt my hand stinging from the nettles that were right next to it. The pain was only momentary though. While I was gathering, I noticed Reid was starting a fire, which I assumed was for hot water (since that is how we heat the water for showers), but he was actually on a mission to fix a broken plastic lawn chair with wire and string. We were both in the business of wasting time, and he posited that he could waste more time than me, to which I replied 'how much you wanna bet?' It ended up at about a tie, and I created all thirty backgammon pieces as well as two dice over the course of an hour and a half. Unfortunately for me, the dice rolled mostly fives and sixes, but only when my opponent (Teona) was rolling.

After being destroyed in backgammon, Jimi, the medieval archaeologist, returned and was eager to test out the new toaster/panini press that was purchased for the field school. Much to my delight, he made some delicious Georgian 'burritos' using some Armenian tortilla-like flat bread and some spicy concoction for a filling. They were delicious, and very filling, and we ended up staying up late, having some wine and beer, and discussing many topics from the Russians to Georgian wine to the intricacies of the Georgian language (which I am beginning to understand more and more [about time after four years!]). It was a fun night.

Sunday was pretty boring, and I read some more and worked on some things. I was waiting for everyone to arrive so I could take the bus back to Tbilisi.

I worked again at the museum today and looked at a lot of bones. I have gone through all of the horse bones that we haven't looked at, and am happily on pace to look at over 1000 bones for the summer.

Martha arrives on Friday and we will be going to Dmanisi again next week probably.

This week, I have decided to spend more time learning Georgian and brushing up on my Spanish, because I really want to be fluent in another language and I need to push myself to get to that level. Spanish will be the attainable goal for the near future, since I have six years under my belt and can read it fairly fluently. I really wish I could speak Georgian though, so I could talk to everyone who doesn't know English well. My goal for this summer is to finish my 'Learning Georgian' book and be able to understand more of the conversations around me. Speaking is a whole other issue that will come around with time and practice, but actually listening for verb conjugations and common words is an attainable goal. I had a makeshift conversation with the taxi driver last night, but I wish I could have explained things better. Katie and I also have aspirations to learn German, which started last fall, but we will try to pick it up again this fall.

Anyways, this reminiscing and rambling is thanks to some Konig Pilsener ludi and some Saperavi dry red wine, so I hope it is coherent! Ha!

I will report again soon.

Nakhvamdis,

Reed