Baby Steps

Gamarjobat!

A lot has happened since the last time I updated everyone. Martha's time here has come and gone already and I am once again the lone occupant of our (my) spacious flat. I am in Tbilisi (unseasonably cool and windy Tbilisi) for a few more days and spent today working in the museum and ended by grabbing some drinks and a meal with Dr. Philip Rightmire prior to his departure tonight. He is one of the foremost experts in the world on Homo erectus and the early Homo species and I have had the chance to get to know him over the last few years, since he is a valuable member of the Dmanisi team. I have picked his brain about many things this summer, from paleoanthropology and politics to fishing and Boston area beer (besides Sam Adams), and it is nice to see familiar faces in the midst of a sea of new ones (i.e. the field school). Tomorrow, our wonderful Spanish team member Mark will be departing in the wee hours of the morning, but we will have a few more laughs in Tbilisi before he leaves. It is that time of the summer, where the team starts to break apart and return to their normal lives.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day in the museum, and then hopped on a museum bus to Dmanisi for Dato's birthday party. The table, which is about 50-60 feet long, was packed from end to end and topped with all of the delicious Georgian fixin's; khachapuri, mtswadi, badrijani, among other things. Oh, ghwino too! And it wouldn't be a supra without a tamada (toastmaster), singing, and toasts aplenty. Great conversations were had in Georgian, English, and Spanish (I only partook in the latter two, but with all of the laughs, the Georgian stories must have been great). I took the museum bus back to Tbilisi and arrived around 11PM.

Speaking of conversations, I managed to have one with a cab driver in Tbilisi, in Georgian! It was very simple, but I could understand most of what he was saying/asking and could reply by conjugating verbs and stringing words together to form sentences, like a real person. He asked where I was from, said he had relatives in New York City, asked if I was working or traveling, and what I did for work, and recommended that I find him for a cab ride down the hill from the apartment, which I did today. It was a conversation using basic vocab, but it was a step in the right direction. My pronunciation is so-so, since many of the sounds are not used in the English language, but I can be understood most of the time. The most speaking I seem to do is with cab drivers, maybe because I have no choice. Most of my colleagues here speak English very well, so it is easy to only use English. I can understand more and more, but in very small increments. I can now say that "I speak Georgian, but poorly" (ვლაპარაკობ ქართულად, მაგრამ ცუდად [vlap'arak'ob kartulad, magram ts'udad]). Although, that is not really true, since I can only say a few things.

In any case, both my research and my language proficiency are progressing, but the former much quicker than the latter. I looked at all of the rabbit bones today, and have been finishing up the small deer and bear bones. We have such an interesting collection that it is hard to decide what order to look at everything. My next mission is to survey all of the elephant bones in our collection for cut marks and carnivore gnawing. We have some big carnivores at our site and they are more than capable of feasting upon an elephant. One animal is a large saber-toothed cat called Homotherium, which is not a true saber tooth, but its teeth are large and have serrated edges, like steak knives. There is a site in Texas that is thought to be a Homotherium den where they were preying mainly upon baby mammoths. It is a very interesting site, and shows what large carnivores are capable of. Anyways, the Dmanisi elephant assemblage should be interesting, whether it be butchery marks, carnivore marks, or nothing, but let's hope for one of the first two!

That's about all that is happening here. I will hopefully return to the site at the end of this week and participate in the Paleolithic games, where we test our skills in spear throwing and other similar activities in which our ancestors needed to hone their skills in order to survive.

I hope to report back with lots of good news about the latest finds, or at least ones I can talk about, and more excavation shenanigans.

I hope everyone is enjoying summer in their respective locations.

Nakhvamdis,

Reed