The same day that C Team was formed (see my previous blog post titled C Team), I also helped clear the wall. Dr. Olson arrived on site and his focus for this season was to excavate part of the fortification wall that is on the Vigla site. The other four trenches are right next to each other on a relatively flat hilltop. The wall is on the hillside, which means all of the terraeing, clearing, and digging happen at an angle. C Team’s task was to help clear a 2 by 5 trench to excavate the wall. This is quite small compared to the five by five trenches, and of course it is on the side of a hill. So, we carefully walked up and down the hillside as we cleared the wall. Gravity was very helpful when it came to clearing off the brush, but very unhelpful when it came to walking buckets of dirt off the hill to be sifted. After clearing it, all of the C team stayed to work on the Wall. There are two contexts for the wall. There was a lower trench on the outside of the wall, and a trench closer to the top of the hill which was on the inside of the wall. The bottom trench was closed quickly, as after digging and sifting 90 buckets the floor was found and only a single piece of pottery. It was known to C team that we probably would not find the cool intact pieces of pottery that were being found in the main dig area. After what happened on the bottom trench, we thought we might not find anything. I was assigned to the top trench. It is a small area, so really you can only have two people in it at a time. So far, it has been a round of pickaxing followed by a round of sweeping up all of the dirt so it can be sifted. We have found a lot of shards of pottery, which is a good sign as it illustrates that the top of the wall had a lot of human activity. For those of you wondering, the wall was where C Team parted ways. Both of my C teammates went back to the main trench. This is because they are way more likely to find something on the main trenches. I have stuck on the wall. Although I will likely not find much here, I like being in a smaller group of people and the wall itself is exciting and challenging. I do not think I would have ended up at the wall without the formation of C Team. So, for that I am very grateful.

Madi Barber