The End of the Cave and the Start of Our First Free Days

Cave week has come to a close and I’m sad cause in reality we only got to work on the on the actual site for about 7 hours. Our first day was comprised of hiking and viewing the different caves in the vicinity. The second day saw me working on an archaeological drawing with a few other students. It wasn’t until the third day that I actually got to lift up a trowel and peel back the layers of dirt at the site.

Maria, our instructor, has split the cave diggers into two groups; so that there are always three people drawing and four working at the site itself. If you’re part of the drawing group and you finish early then you can come back and join the excavators for an hour or so, but other than that, your digging time is short.

The site itself has three open units, two outside the cave and one inside the cave. The two units outside the cave consist mostly of debris and broken bone fragments that were dragged/dumped when looters desecrated the cave looking for goods. We’re painstakingly going through the topsoil trying to recover as many remains as we can. The main goal is to get an idea of the minimum number of individuals (MNI) that were buried here. It’s hard though cause you’re basing it off of how many bone fragments can be identified to a specific bone and then how many of those can be sided (left or right) and then based on that, how many should there be in a human body and… you get the point. It’s not the most accurate method, but it’s the best you can do when working with fragments that range from a few centimeters to a bare handful of completely intact remains.

Day four was an entire day spent in the lab washing the remains that we found and then attempting to determine what is what. I’m realizing just how much I’ve forgotten of my human anatomy in the last 8 years. Most of the other kids in the group have just taken human anatomy and remember the names of all the protuberances and processes and muscle attachment points and I can pretty much tell you whether it’s a long bone, short bone, or flat bone. Makes me want to go back to school. The good thing is at least the long hours in the lab are allowing me to distinguish what fragments of bone look like. The rule of thumb is if you think it’s a rock, it’s probably bone; if you think it’s a piece of pottery, it’s most definitely a bone.

Day five saw me drawing again and day six was back to digging but in a different unit.

Day seven was excursion day. This is the one day of the program where everyone is loaded into vans and driven to different sites on the island. There are over 2500 different archaeological sites on Menorca and most of them are free to wander around; you just need a car to get to them. We were supposed to head out at 10 am to view some places, but a misplaced key and a dead battery on one of the vans put us back an hour. We saw two sites: the Talayotic village of Son Catlar and the Necropolis of Cala Morell.

Son Catlar is a prehistoric Talayotic village that was believed to have cropped up in the Bronze age and then expanded right before the Romans conquered Menorca in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. The site contains an 870 meter long rock wall that encloses the entire village. During the expansion, Talayots (watch towers) were added to the villages to allow the inhabitants pre-warning of any approaching parties.

The minimal excavations that have been done at the site show that the village was inhabited until at least the end of the Roman occupation of the island. The site contains a hypogeum (underground burial chamber) which was slightly unusual for the time, as during the heyday of this society most people buried their dead with lime in caves or cremated them. Also of note was the large taula that was found. Taulas are created by two stones sitting one atop of the other, creating a “T” shape. Taulas are usually found in what archaeologists believe are temples or meeting places due to the finds that are recovered during excavations at these locations. There also appears to be a correlation between the size of the taulas and the size of the village or city from which it comes. The taula at Son Catlar is one of the largest ones found to date on the island.

From the village of Son Catlar, we headed to the Caves of Cala Morell. The Caves are used as the necropolis for this area. The site is on the North side of the island and comprised of 14 artificial caves. It is believe that this cemetery was in use from the pre-Talayotic period until the 2nd century AD.

Another cool thing about this area is that all of the houses are white. It’s a style that’s modeled after the homes on Ibiza built by architects Luis Rey and Enrique Ventura. The white house with the small streets, spectacular views, and clear waters create a picturesque sight that gives you an idea of why people have been living on this island for many millennia.

The weather and cries from the students directed our van from sight seeing to beach chilling. When you live on an island in the middle of the Mediterrian sea, there are no shortages of beaches to chill out at; and all of the beaches here are beautiful. The water is ten shades of blue, and pretty freaking clear. It’s also got a fairly high salt content that allows for some floating if you don’t want to have to tread water constantly. Our group got to hang out for a few hours, splash around a bit, and soak of some rays. It was a nice way to end the excursion.

From the beach it was a dash back to the residency to shower and get ready to head to Mahon for the festival. September 7th was the one of the nights of the Festes of Sant Joan (The Festivals of Saint Joan). I’m not a hundred percent sure what this festival really is about, but it usually takes place over the course of three days and involves horses. There are many riders (that represent the elite and nobles) who ride their horse through the streets of Mahon that are thronged with people (the peasants). When the riders get to the various squares around the city, the “peasants” run up to them and attempt to get the horses to rise up onto their back legs and charge forward like a motorcycle popping a wheelie. It’s the weirdest thing and pretty dangerous because there are thousands of bystanders and here are all of these giant horses rising up, kicking out their hooves and charging forward. It’s like being in a giant mosh pit where the goal is to push towards the center and touch a horse or get it to rear up (both are considered good luck because the horse have been blessed). The riders do three separate circuits around the town and range in age from about 14 or 15 to their mid-50s. It’s a really weird experience and definitely something everyone should checkout at least once in their lifetime. It’s supposed to be on par with the running of the bulls.

Now we have two days off to do as we like. I’ll write more in a few days. Hope all is well with everyone back home. I'll leave you with some quotes from people on the dig that I found humorous:

Jeanne to Sara:
“I don’t want a Facebook Account!”
“But how will I keep in touch with you?”
“Send me an email like a normal 20th century person”

Jeanne:
“Everyone loves getting handwritten letters, even if they’re written on a typewriter.”