2016 Blogs & Photos

Week 8 (March 14 – March 19, 2016) (Read the entire post)

The final week of the field season was involved in finishing the laboratory work, the drawing, and the photography that needed to be done. Some excitement this week was the midnight collapse on Monday night of a ramon tree behind Hut 3; the loud crash woke almost everyone up although at least one i...

Week 7 (March 6 – March 12, 2016) (Read the entire post)

The week started out on Sunday with the celebration of Baron Bliss Day with our traditional chicken barbeque. Baron Bliss was an individual who never set foot in Belize, but who anchored his yacht off Belize City. He died on his yacht and left his entire fortune to the country of Belize, which now ...

Week 6 (February 28 – March 5, 2016) (Read the entire post)

This was the wrap-up week for the field season excavations with the attempt being to reserve the last two weeks for backfilling, laboratory work, and drawing. In general, it was a very wet week with rain in the afternoon on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, resulting in laboratory work being carried ...

Week 5 (February 21 – February 27, 2016) (Read the entire post)

In general, the week was cold and wet, although all excavations moved forward. In the Via Group, Amy continued excavating in the front tomb of Structure 118, which by week’s end had produced at least 5 individuals and 9 vessels. In C195F, Angelica supervised a deeper excavation in the front...

Week 4 (February 14 – February 20, 2016) (Read the entire post)

The week started off with the celebration of Valentine’s Day on Sunday, meaning that everyone got a pack of M&Ms with their lunch (something much appreciated when there are no stores around). The bulk of the week had rain on and off during the days or evenings – never very hard but always e...

Week 3 (February 7 – February 13, 2016) (Read the entire post)

The third week of the season was exceedingly cold; Caracol received a cold blast of Artic air that dropped temperatures far below anything normal. This was combined with a drizzle of rain on several days. But, regardless of the climatic conditions, the excavations have still proceeded in the five a...

Week 2 (January 31 – February 6, 2016) (Read the entire post)

Sunday, January 31 was a day of unpacking and organizing the laboratory. On Monday, Amy and I defined all of the excavation locales. In Central Acropolis, we reopened the central 4 m by 3 m excavation that found the tomb last year and started going deeper in the northern half of that excavation wit...

Week 1 (January 15 – January 30, 2016) (Read the entire post)

Caracol camp officially opened on January 15 when 6 Belizean workmen were brought into site to begin camp repair. The four ladies that command the kitchen went into site on January 22 in order to get that part of camp up and functional and to relieve the 6 workmen from having to cook for themselves...