Day 3 - May 14th: Makkara Wednesday!

I'll just jump right into it today, not a significantly large amount to report, except some interesting van and mud issues.

Over in trench T108 at KKN quartz flakes were still coming up all over the place in addition to signs of decaying pottery. Some good charcoal samples were also located to be removed tomorrow for carbon 14 dating purposes.

Trench T208 over at the Thing didn't really yield a whole lot today, but that seems to be the trend at the Thing unless you find what could be palimpsest fire pits interesting....wait, that is pretty interesting. Today, as with every Wednesday, Katie Grundtisch (an undergrad from University of Buffalo) got to get in some practice guiding procedures at the site, as Jen is occupied on Wednesdays. This is Katie's second year attending the Nocuso Field School here at Oulu University. She expedited the drawing of surface feature maps and there was a complete lack of mutiny at the site...this is a good sign. As far as the slag goes, it is still hanging out in the lab, we will know soon. Moving on.

Now for an update on the business over in trench T308 at the Pits with dear old Sam. The interesting feature from yesterday was pretty much confirmed to just be a coincidental pattern of charcoal as it was deposited. Other than that there seems to be a large similarity between the pits of charcoal here as at the one being excavated over at the Thing. Coincidence? I honestly don't know yet, we will let you know of any possibly important relationships as they pop up.

Some interesting news came our way from the survey team as well today, they found a small site along the 60 meter coast line, which can be dated to roughly 5500 years BP.

We had to do some rescuing today. While Dr. Ezra Zubrow and Eva Hulse (a University of Buffalo PhD student) were driving around looking for good roads to use for survey, they somehow managed to get the van stuck in the mud. Very stuck. Tires all the way down to the water table stuck. It took a few strong bodies, a lot of digging, and some strategic gas pedaling, but eventually we rescued the property-of-Oulu-University van.

Today was also makkara Wednesday as indicated in the title of the post. This has become somewhat of a tradition here at the Nocuso Field School. Every Wednesday we get some campfires going and throw some makkara (Finnish sausages) on some sticks and eat them for lunch. Very tasty. I think I like this tradition!

On a much sadder note, Dr. Andre Costopoulos (the man with the Heavy Metal plan), spent his last day on site with us today. He has to head back to Montreal to deal with other professorial work. We wish him well and his presence will be missed.

Here are some pictures from the day.

The epic rescue of Eva and Dr. Zubrow's van from the Yli-Ii river quicksand.

Dustin Keeler (A PhD student from University of Buffalo) and Panu (an Oulu University student) roasting Makkara over an open fire.

WWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYY!!!!!????

Trench T308 over at the Pits.

That's it for this post!

Cheers,
The Field School