With the recent fire, our access to the last two caves has unfortunately been blocked off. Sounds ridiculous, but the burnt trees and shrubs are still smouldering! Helicopters were seen above site carrying water from the ocean to put out the remaining fires.
Fortunately, access to Laird’s Stables, a smaller cave near the other Covesea Caves, is still open to our excavation team! Passage to this cave is slightly easier than the other given the shorter walking distance, but there’s still a good amount of climbing involved! Luckily, we have our amazing mountaineering expert Kevin Rutherford with us to make sure we climb safely up and down.
Due to the smaller size of the cave, it was a bit of a tight fit for an excavation team of six people. I ended up in the very back of the cave to help with sieving; it was cold, dark, and small…yet somehow slightly cozy?
As this is our last week of excavation, we will most likely finish up with Laird’s Stables, so fingers crossed we recover some interesting things! At least, other than the bones I ended up collecting off the beach – as the team’s zooarchaeologist, of course I’m going to add to my reference collection when I can!
Today’s Find of the Day is yet another amazing example of worked animal bone: it’s a bone pin.
The Covesea Caves Project 