Recap after 7 weeks of chaos-dig, or how to be an archaeology-potato

I thought I´m gonna do this once a week, but here I am after almost two month down the line and this is my second posting *bad-girl*. But what can I say, I never ever noticed these weeks gone by :-).
Being placed at the find-reception, my work is supposed to be washing finds, let them dry for a couple of days, preparing special treatment for ceramics, metal or leather, cataloging/identifying the different types and writing tons of lists of all the small bits and pieces that get discovered outside by the rest of the dig-crew.
Sounds real nice, right, even if you get annoyed by picking teeny-tiny pieces from the mud (see picture 1 for a bunch of debitage) and not loosing them

But it is mostly fun, cause not only can you see, feel and wonder about all those fabulous findings like arrowheads (see picture 2 and 3) or shiny rock-crystal pieces (se picture 4), but you avoid getting soaking wet, cold and grumpy while drinking coffee/tea inside.

But don´t be fooled, a dig amongst vast amount of stones like ours means damages to knees, back or other rather essential body parts. Weather as hazardous as 3 degree (celsius) combined with 15 m/s wind and heavy rain paired with snow is not really helping, so the sick pour in and when nothing else can be done, they get my job, cause it´s safer to work inside.

That´s how I end up being "a potato", cast from dig-team to dig-team and good for almost any work to be done. Deturf is one of the favourites because it´s rather heavy and boring (okay, I have to confess, I rather like it, but only done with a shovel and rolling the turf off, then using a hatchet-thing following the excavator dressed in a helmet and a neon-vest).
Cleaning the surface with a shovel is a classic activity for cast-arounds like me, because you cannot demolish anything by digging too deep (you just stop whenever the turf stops and something else shows up), you rarely find anything and it´s practically the second most boring assignment you can get. But alas, sometimes there are some pretty findings right under the turf, or you, as a matter of fact, discover a new structure, like I did last week.

While cleaning an area that was if anything uninteresting, I found a stone-formation close to an hearth with the tiny difference of the charcoal laying around it rather then in it. Maybe, time will show that it´s an production area?

Another nice advantage is the breathtaking nature you get while being outside for seven hours a day, just take a look:

Soon, I have a week off, and this time I´m gonna bring my camera which I foolishly enough forgot to bring for the first two month of the dig. Hopefully, I will be a more reliable blogger as well, and you can get more updates on the progress of the dig since my time at the reception will be done as well, and my life as an outsider will continue for good.