The Smith's Island Archaeology Project

S IAP is my therapeutic spa, a mid-Atlantic oasis for digital detox where the world shrinks to the manageable size of a few students and supervisors and enthusiastic Bermudians curious about archaeology and the straightforward surmountable practice of clearing ground, laying out meter squares, digging layers, and being surprised and challenged by the artifacts that emerge. The downside of stepping outside ubiquitous digitality (no WiFi on Paget Island and limited data) is that it is hard to regularly post blog entries to keep you, dear reader, updated... Today is our first proper day off, a week into the season. I have a great team of four students - Lexi, Andrew, Rebecca, and Rosa (a great change from 2024's two dozen) - and three awesome supervisors, now firing on all cylinders after a bumpy start. The logistics of starting a dig are invisible to the public, but require a lot of well-timed coordination and energy. A cancelled Delta flight put me a day behind before we even began!...