In the previous five weeks we sieved, washed and sorted over 450 buckets of sediments. All the artefacts had to be cleaned, labelled and sorted. We worked on refittings and plotted the progress of the excavation.

Cristina and Nico washing sediments

Kristin at the refitting table

Even now with most of the team already gone there is still a lot of work left and our analysis and documentation continues on.

Adrian and Radu back at Bucharest and still at work.

Thank you Peştera for making us feel welcome over those last five weeks!

Part of our group left by train to various next locations, while some took the cars with all our gear back to Bucharest.

On the way back we made some little stops though. The abbot of the Dervent Monastery had offered us a tour of the Monastery and we gladly took him up on it. He even gave each of us a bottle we could fill up with healing water from the holy spring.

Dervent Monastery

Next we drove to the Bulgarian border, parked our cars, took a nice walk across and had a drink in a Bulgarian café as well as a look at the city centre and of course the archaeological attractions of Silistra.

Radu and Nina in Silistria

After we walked back into Romania we took a ferry across the Danube and drove straight back to Bucharest,were everything we brought with us had to be unloaded (Adrians office looks quite packed right now.)

View from the ferry

We all had a great time during the last couple of weeks, we met new people and gathered new experiences. Though, by now, most are already back home or on their way there will be one more post to come, so stay tuned

Tanti Geta in the kitchen

However, we want to thank our cook not only for preparing a delcious dinner every day, but also for washing the dishes, providing us with home made Pálinka and important information about life and people in Peştera: Thank you Tanti Geta! Sărut mâna pentru masă! Mulțumim pentru tot!

Tanti Geta and Nico, stoked by the amazing meatballs

P.S. Tanti is a common Romanian affectionate name used by children for adult women.

The local press covered the event. Find the article here and feel free to look for familiar faces of LoDanS participants in the pictures.

In church

Illuminated by rays of light

Aeolian transport of loess

Update:

A cloud of dust as seen from Dealul Guran

Searching for lithics

However, in some instances this approach only raised more questions. At two locations single lithic artifacts have neither been found on the ground below the loess outcrop nor embedded in the sediment itself, but “on” the profile. No further artifacts were observed on the surface, but sondages also did not reveal an in situ archaeological horizon. We suspect the already mentioned ground squirrels – popândău – to be responsible for this situation by carrying single lithics along the long tunnels they use to dig, meaning that the site we are looking for is much further away from the profile where we found the artifact.

Near Ţibrinu

Right now we are exploring a location in the vicinity of Peștera which is rich in surface finds. In this case the geological setting of the site and the processes by which the sediment has formed are of particular interest. Since our team so far only consisted of archaeologist we are glad to have a geologist from Germany with us who arrived yesterday to support our work.

Heavily bioturbated loess

Survey locations in our GIS

The excavation team not only deals with the problem of having to dig in sometimes very hard sediment, but also has to set up a tarp every day to protect them from the hot sun, and to carry equipment as well as the above mentioned sediment samples up and down the hill. Furthermore having lunch on a steep slope is far from being easy.

The tarp providing shade.

Radu shooting. Peştera in the background.

During this entertaining and eventful hours we realized that the people of Peştera are somewhat proud of the fact that they now can date human presence at this very location to at least Marine Isotope Stage 11 (see Iovita et al., in press, Antiquity) which to many proves it to be “the oldest village in the country”. This impression later got confirmed when we found out that a local newspaper covered our project. If you can read Romanian, have a look at the article.

In fact we feel very welcomed here. Not only do we buy milk and eggs from our neighbours, but locals also assist us in various ways. The first day they built a shower for us and recently a helpful resident sharpened our tools.

Sharpening our tools

Thank you Peştera!

Check back for soon to be posted updates on the excavation and the survey!

A look on what once used to be the road in front of our house

And it’s raining again right now.