Preparations continue for start of field school next week

Today the supervisory crew for the Pensacola Colonial Frontiers 2010 field school spent their first entire day at the Escambe mission site, and worked many long hours to re-establish the site grid using the total station and previously-mapped datum points from last year's dig. The weather was clear, if a bit hot in the afternoon, though regular breezes kept conditions on the pleasant side overall. Unfortunately, the total station proved remarkably stubborn, and after a morning on the mission site itself, we had to move back to our original site datum (a permanent brass marker with known elevation) and work our way slowly back across an open field toward the site. After many tries, the crew was finally able to re-establish the mapping grid for the site, and we spent the rest of the afternoon working our way toward the mission. Now that this task has been accomplished, we will be able to lay in new shovel test units for next week's start of field school.

On another front, rapid success was experienced in our first attempt to bring water from a flowing artesian well to a location near the edge of the site where we plan to conduct waterscreening for specific samples from the site where fine-screening will be necessary (and which would be virtually impossible with dry-screening the clayey soils). The video below shows the moment when the water finally made its way through several long sections of fire hose and began flowing at the waterscreening location. We are very grateful to the site's owner for his considerable help in bringing water to the site.