Excavating Polish site

After a long absence, we are proud to announce that 2010 Fall Season has already started. Permits obtained, funding received and team all set up, we had decided to go on with our surface survey, completing an area of 60 square kilometers (2009 plus 2010 seasons) of the Krakow site, which would allow us to generate a regional settlement patterns perspective. Apart from that, we are also opening excavation pits at two different sites! Dr. Yin traveled with a team of assistants to the site where the liberation army had their offices before they were bombed; it was speculated that the Brass Teapot might be buried under rubble there.

Regarding surface survey, we selected an area of 44.8 square kilometers which we will walk in transects separated by 10 meters. We separated our surface survey area in different segments:

• Segment 0: 2009 Surface survey area • Segment 1: 10.8 square kilometers • Segment 2: 12 square kilometers • Segment 3: 12 square kilometers • Segment 4: 8 x 1 kilometers • Segment 5: 4 square kilometers

We continued applying the same method we used last year (GPS mapping and surface material collections), with a very light variants. Instead of collecting 100% of the mounds (our unit), we recovered materials from 30% of them; so that field and lab schedules wouldn’t take forever!

Unfortunately the five segments proved to be disappointing. Dr. Yin worked tirelessly and found that there was no teapots made of brass or other metals; he did find some lovely examples of 19th century pottery, though most were in ruins.