2017 Season: Week 1
καλή μέρα! If you’re reading this, thanks so much for tuning in!
From the town of Vivlos (Τρίποδες) on the Greek island Naxos (Νάξος)—we’d like to welcome you to our project! It’s always really exciting for us at SNAP to talk with people all around the world about the work we’re doing and what it could mean beyond the trenches and classrooms.
So, who are we?
We are officially known as The Stelida Naxos Archaeological Project, a.k.a. SNAP (let’s just say it sounds a bit snappier).
SNAP is directed by Dr. Tristan Carter of McMaster University. (Some call him Stringy.) But we work under the auspices of the Canadian Institute in Greece and with a whole host of partners and institutions.
We started in 2013 as a survey (before excavating, we had to walk around a lot and look at what’s on the surface). In 2014, we continued that survey. In 2015, we had our first excavation season (where the digging finally happened), which continued in 2016 as well. This year, in 2017, we’re starting our third excavation season with a continuously growing international team. We’ve also got team members from all over the world, including Canada, France, Greece, Germany, Serbia, United Kingdom and United States.
What do we do?
SNAP is a geo-archaeological excavation of a chert source (chert is a type of rock). We say geo-archaeological because we borrow methods from the Earth Sciences (like geology) in order to help solve archaeological problems.
This site is associated with early prehistoric stone tool workshops—places where what we call lithics were created. It was first used as far back as 260,000 years ago, with some of its early visitors likely including Neanderthals. Awesome, right?
This is an exciting time to be working on the earliest history of human activity in the Aegean. We hope to conduct a detailed survey and excavation of Stelida because it has the potential to teach us a lot about the earlier prehistoric Cyclades, specifically how early humans and Neanderthals moved around this region.
The Journey to Naxos
Packing for an archaeological excavation is a big deal! The first thing we all did was to make sure we had all the things we’d need for the six weeks here.
We then had to get all those items into a suitcase or bag (the hardest part). Check out one of our undergraduate team members Mackenzie in action below. What a champ.
After the bags were packed and passports ready, we said bye to our cats and caught our flights to Greece!
Many of us landed in Athens, which meant that we had to then take a ferry from Piraeus over to Naxos Island.
Coming into the port on Naxos, we were welcomed into the beautiful town of Chora (Χώρα). For the next several weeks, we are calling this island ‘home’.
But our true home—lovingly named the dighouse—is actually located in a smaller village, further away into the island, called Vivlos (Τρίποδες).
First Team Meeting
We had our first team meeting back at the dighouse, where everyone was introduced to each other.
Re-opening Trenches
At the end of last season, we’d thrown in hundreds of sandbags and wooden crates into our trenches to protect them from erosion or animals. Time for a throwback:
Arriving back on site, we spent some time re-opening the trenches before we could start digging—but such a feat couldn’t have been accomplished without teamwork. #TeamworkMakesTheDreamWork, am I right?
Basically, there were a lot of sandbags, but we got them all out in less than a day!
Also, comment below on how many sandbags you think we took out.
Back in Action
After re-opening all of the trenches, we officially started digging all across the Stelida. Our field director Justin Holcomb captured this pretty spectacular #AccidentalRenaissance moment on the north-east side of the hill on Tuesday. (I mean, come on, look at that Golden Ratio in action.)
Recent McMaster Anthropology graduate, Laura Savoie, shares her first day of work below:
Future Archaeologists
This week we also welcomed back a special group of young aspiring archaeologists to visit our site. Last year, (now 10-year-old) Alexis Gupta and his family flew here from London just to see our work.
This year, we were happy to have them back and show them around again. How amazing are these #FutureArchaeologists? We are thoroughly inspired.
Signing off, for now!
Everyone is getting settled into the routine and lifestyle here in Vivlos, and we’re looking forward to our first weekend off.
We’ll be posting more next week about the specific kind of work we’re doing! For now, please give us a like if you want to follow us on our adventures for the next few weeks. And if you have any questions at all, please ask.
Have a great weekend!
