While working on and archaeological excavation along the Texas Coast, a team of archaeologist as well as a rotating group of volunteers came out to the site 7 days a week. That was about 30 people each day that had to be coordinated so that all the work needed got done. The volunteers were supposed to work at the screen stations on top of the cofferdam wall. This kept them in one location away from the most precious artifacts. At these stations, the volunteers were tasked with screening each bucket of mud that was dug from the excavation floor below at the base of the cofferdam. They would dump the mud onto the stacked screens and wash the mud through. Because the screens were 4 different sizes, they would catch different sizes of small artifacts as they were flushed through with the mud. Anything found was then bagged, tagged, and recorded.
Screeners
To say this type of work was hard would be an understatement. 8-hours of very monotonous work. It is wet, dirty, and well, very boring. So, keeping the volunteers focused was always hard. Everyone wanted to be down on the excavation floor especially when something significant was found. The volunteers were always leaving their station and peering over the edge to see what was going on below. This delay backed up the screening process which meant work on the excavation floor had to slow down so the screener could catch up. We knew this was not going to work long term. So, we had to come up with an incentive to keep the volunteer moving. We decided to allow one screener to come down into the pit every hour to help out but only if the screeners were keeping up with their work.
One Fateful Day
On one particular day, it was one volunteer's turn to come down to the excavation floor to help out and the first thing we did was orient them to the excavation site. We directed them where they could walk, where they couldn't, what they could touch and what they couldn't. We wanted them to understand there was very little they could do without an archaeologist directing them. We just didn't want to take a chance that something historically important could be broken or destroyed.
Little did I know that I would be the one to break something historically significant.
To protect the site, we had "pitboards" laying across the site. These were long/ wide plank-like boards that stretched across the site from side to side. These boards allowed the team to walk over the site and work in the center of the shipwreck without having to stand on the shipwreck itself. They could easily be moved up and down depending on where we needed them.
So, on this particular day, the one volunteer who was down in the pit never seemed to remember to use these boards. We found him several times standing on the shipwreck itself while excavators were recovering artifacts. He never wanted to stay where we put him, which was generally off the site. He always wanted to be close to where the most important recovery efforts were happening.
Time and time again I told him to use the pitboards to cross the site or to watch what was going on, but time and time again, I found him standing on the shipwreck site itself. The last time I talked to him, I took him off the site behind the stern of the wreck. There I was having a very direct conversation and letting him know that if he didn't use the boards and stay off the site, he would be asked to leave and not be allowed back down on the excavation floor. I could tell he was a little upset and either didn't care or didn't understand why it mattered.
What Have I Done
Apparently, I too was frustrated. As I walked away from him, I was not thinking about where I was walking. I just starting walking, and I was walking directly over the shipwreck itself. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a loud "POP." I was mortified and I just froze. The noise was loud enough that others heard it as well, including the volunteer.
At first, I could not tell where the sound came from, but looking down, I saw a few dark objects coming out from under my foot. Very slowly, I bent down to take a closer look, as I did, I realized it was glass. I had stepped on a glass artifact. My stomach sunk. I could not believe it. I carefully walked over to where we kept our tools and I grabbed my archaeology kit to dig the remains out. Piece by piece I excavated the pieces. Their position was recorded, they were photographed, they were drawn, and they were all removed. In all, there were 10 separate pieces. I collected them all. As I sat on the side of the excavation site, I tried to piece them back together, I was fairly certain what it was but I wanted to be sure. Once I had the last broken piece in place, I saw that it was a 17th-century glass case bottle.
This was during the early stages of the excavation and all I could hope was that others would be found. We never did. That was the only one found during the 9-month excavation, and I had broken it. The only positive thing that came of it was that the volunteer who I had talked to, never walked on the site again. I think he then understood why you never walk on an archaeological site without knowing what could happen.
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