Yay Digging!!!

Today we went to Aguacate again and got eaten alive but it was a good day! Everybody is getting into a routine and I feel like I don’t have to ask my supervisor, Eric, any dumb questions anymore. Well, for the most part. I’m digging in a 2 by 2 meter unit with Mandy where our goal is to find out the purpose of a structure’s relationship to another structure. We call the structures A2 and A3, I’m digging on A2. The professors are debating the possible purposes for these structures and so far they think it could have been an ancient Maya ball court or perhaps an entry into the site. All we have found so far is little pieces of lithic and ceramics. But today I found some obsidian and yesterday a shell that could have possibly been one of the Mayan food sources. There are four different stations around the site where people are working and at one station they found a really amazing pot inside a room! Wow I probably sound like such a nerd but it’s so rare to find an almost complete pot or even half of one! Hopefully I will find something interesting in the next few weeks before I come home...
We have to do a big research project and I think I know what I will do it on but I’m not sure yet. I’m thinking something on the lines of Mayan food ways through agriculture such as terracing. I think I’ll join forces with the Foothill group next week to go farming where I can work with some professors that are experts on food ways. From there I can take that knowledge and go survey with Eric around Aguacate to see if we can map out any terraces. This is a rough idea of what I might do but I’m excited to do my own project and help out the Foothill professors by surveying for possible terraces!!!
This weekend we have three days off so everybody is really excited. I decided to go to the ancient site of Tikal in Guatemala. Yes I know Guatemala is kind of scary but don’t worry! We will be in a huge group of people and were staying in a pretty nice hotel! I’m really getting into archaeology especially after being in the field for a week. It’s crazy how much time and effort archaeologists put into excavating these sites and to see a site almost fully excavated is incredible, especially because Tikal was one of the main Mayan centers during the classic period. It’s going to be huge and a lot of exercise to get to the top! Tomorrow is my roommate Tori’s birthday so we are all going to Faya wata(only good bar in town) to celebrate! I’ll try to catch you guys up on what I did all last week too soon because we did a ton of cool stuff!