Summer Excavations in the Caribbean!

It's official: I will be staffing a dig at Betty's Hope on the island of Antigua from June 5-July 3, and then from July 3-early August, I will part of the team excavating at the William Carr Estate in Little Bay, Montserrat! Both sites were early sugar plantations dating to the mid-17th century which have continuous occupation sequences up until the 20th century. I'm thinking the Caribbean will be a nice change from the Andes. For one thing I actually will get to wear shorts instead of packing extra sweaters. Plus, I'm super excited to work on some historical sites and try my hand at something new.

As usual, both projects will require me to teach; Antigua is a college field school for USC Chico and Montserrat will involve educating secondary school students about archaeology and excavations. I'm ridiculously excited for the teaching aspect though; there's just something very enjoyable about getting others excited about digging and dirt.

Links to the sites are as follows:

Montserrat- Beaudry's BU Page

Antigua USC Page
Antigua Site Page
Antigua AIA Listing

In other news, work is going well. I went up to Harrisburg, PA to check out the Pennsylvania State Museum's paleo collections from BLM land. Had a rather informative guided tour of the facility with the lead paleo researcher and his assistant. The museum is amazing, and I highly recommend the drive out there to anyone interested in Paleontology, Archaeology, and Pennsylvania state history; it is a very well run, well designed museum. Definitely worth the 2 hour drive from DC!

Other than a trip down to Charlottesville, VA to visit my sister and friend, R.R., this weekend, not too much is going on. This upcoming week I'm co-leading a BLM table at the National Historic Preservation Advocacy Day Conference run by NCSHPO, going to see the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit at the NatGeo Museum, and hopefully attending the WAPA meeting on Tuesday about teaching religion in science classes. I'll let you know how all those go next weekend.

Hope all is well with everyone else. Enjoy your next week!