Blast from the Past I: First Time on the Field

My path in archaeology might not have been a very long one, but it has definitely been eventful and memorable. In this series of posts, I will introduce my journey on the field from the very first excavation until the start of this blog almost a year ago.

Early Comb Ceramic potsherd.
It was October 2016, when I noticed that archaeologist Jan Fast was organizing an excavation in Raasepori with local archaeology enthusiasts. I had barely studied a month of archaeology but I was already eager to try my hands on the field, so I immediately contacted him to ask if there happened to be an extra free seat in the car – and luckily for me, there was!

A few days later our car turned onto a dirt road towards a site that’s called Långåmossarna. The site had seen multiple years of excavations in the past, mainly at an Early Comb Ceramic dwelling site by an old sandpit. However, earlier that year, Jan and his team had discovered another area with finds including potsherds attributable to the Corded Ware culture. Our task for the weekend was to extend the area of trial excavations and see what truly lied beneath the ground. Some of our group also continued with the Comb Ceramic site, discovering big pieces of beautifully decorated pottery.

It was my first time on the field, but thanks to the friendly guidance of Jan and his research assistant Janne Soisalo, I was soon lead into the mystic arts of archaeology. After spending a while getting accustomed to what we were trying to find – mostly tiny potsherd that at the time seemed almost impossible to spot from the sieve – it was finally time to get my hands dirty!

Oh, and what a joy it was! Digging into the clean sand felt almost meditative and the childlike enthusiasm to see what would be uncovered made me feel like this was really my place. At least for a while. Soon I noticed that the square I was digging had less finds and much more large stones than anywhere else – a typical start to mid-excavation jealousy. As we were digging in thin layers, digging carefully among the stones slowed the process, but I wanted to be precise and keep the context intact.

Cleaning the hearth.
Luckily, soon whatever frustration I felt turned back into joy, as it became evident that I had dug into a Stone Age hearth. While this also meant the halt of all excavations at the current trench, I was delighted with the joyful task of cleaning the trench and especially the hearth for documentation. It was the first time I got to polish what I had uncovered myself, so I made sure to do it well and got thumbs up from Jan in the end!

We continued the second day by opening another trench nearby and while I found every bigger potsherd very fascinating too, nothing made as big of an impression as digging into a hearth for the very first time!

Since then, the hearth has been excavated and thoroughly researched, ending the further field work at Långåmossarna for the time being.
Location: Raasepori, Suomi

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