My brother-in-law, Dr. Larry Barham, is an archaeologist and professor at University of Liverpool in the UK, and his wife, Mary, is an Oxford-degreed historian and owner of Western Academic & Specialist Press, which is publisher of Before Farming, a journal started by Larry about hunter-gatherers.

Nearly every year they travel to Africa during the summer months when school is on hiatus.  For the past several years, they have been traveling to the region just outside South Luangwa National Park.

Part of being a good archaeologist is being able to pick a good site.  That requires some foreknowledge of an area, studying that area and thinking about how one would make a living there as a hunter-gatherer.

The area Larry picked was a high spot near a water supply- perfect dry ground near where the food gathered and grew.  You can see it above in the picture, where the Land Rover is parked among the trees.

Next, you mark out some pits to dig in, and carefully with sextants and GPS (nowadays), measure their precise locations.  The pits Larry's team (his students) dug were exactly 1m x 2m in size.  From there, you start scraping very carefully, removing the dirt millimeter by millimeter across the entire 2 square meter site before continuing downward.

In addition to his students, the Zambian government provides their own specialists, which help both with any local issues, and have a good understanding of the people and also of archaeology.  Zambia being a poor country, relies quite a bit on people and funding from outside to do the digging and analysis, but sensibly, wants to keep tabs on what is found, and of course, grant permission for anything that is taken out of country for further analysis and carbon dating.

For a day (and for that day we are grateful to have had the experience), Larry let us help him dig.  Probably more accurate to say it was just an afternoon.  We had fun, though, even for a short dig.  Gail and I both took trowels, and under the watchful eye of Mary (to make sure we followed procedure), we scraped and scraped, approximately 2-3 mm, maybe maximum, from the pit.

The picture above and to the right was our pit (there were three of them, plus a fourth "slice" into the mound from the side).  You can see many shards (Larry hit pay dirt when he selected this site), and some shards that formed the rims of pots.  These were the important ones, as by this time so many shards had been recovered that they were no longer marking the location of every one- except for decorated pieces.

Since we had found a decorated piece, it's (x,y,z) location from the corner of the pit was recorded, which when combined with that corner's coordinates, gives the exact location.

Of course, the exciting find was the next pit over (left), a complete pot turned upside down.  When we arrived earlier in the afternoon, only the top part had been uncovered, but due to the importance of such a find, they decided to accelerate the dig around it and extract it that very day.

You can see on the right more of the excavation and the tree roots that had grown around the pot and had to be removed, carefully.

Naturally, after having been in the ground for up to 1000 years, the pot was in fragments, even though they were still all together.  The completeness of the pot meant that it had purposefully been put there, not just shards of broken pots discarded in a trash heap.

Over the years, dirt had seeped in through the cracks with rain water, and the pot's inside was full of dirt as well, helping preserve its shape.  All dirt was carefully removed and sifted for any artifacts, and the pot shards were numbered in bags for later reassembly.

To the right, Larry is holding two shards together before cataloging.  These two belong to the top and have a decorated rim.

Something Larry had found out from interviewing nearby village elders- valuable sources of information on ancient customs- was that in the days of old, an infant burial was capped with an overturned pot.  This was certainly intriguing, especially for me.  I haven't heard the verdict yet on what was found under the pot, as that was the last thing that day before sunset.  However, Larry and his students had nearly two more weeks left in the area to unearth more, before filling in the pits and hiding the location for next year.

The same two shards are shown on the left showing how elegant the pot was, for its time.

Pot shards were not the only artifacts found in the area.   Tools were found as well, such as this spear point that Larry is holding below, to the right.  I think that Gail found this one and asked Larry about it.  Larry's got a seasoned eye, and can tell you a lot of things about an artifact with a quick study of it.

At the end of the day, all the artifacts that have been individually bagged and labeled, plus the unmarked shards they find by the dozens, are all taken back to camp for sorting on a day off.  Well, there really aren't too many days off, as they are pressed to learn as much as possible during the six week visit.

So, on a non-digging day, the shards are spread out on a blanket and further sorted, cleaned, and catalogued, shown on the left.

It's an endless effort while here to keep it all straight, so they can make sense of their findings in a methodical way.

Really, archaeology is all about being methodical.  Just like any serious science, you have to keep clear records and remove as much uncertainty as possible, for when you publish your results, they are peer-reviewed and other scientists are merciless in picking apart your work.  It's demanding work.

You can see on the right how each shard is marked and cataloge- "Rimmed Pot", "2L12-H7-3", etc... each one with a coordinate (or now only the major ones).

To the left is a nice example of a decorated rim.  This is not from the pot detailed above, but from an earlier dig.  Also, cleaned and in the bright sunlight, it's got a nice earthen color to it.

And to the bottom right is the same shard with a matching piece on it's left, giving some idea of the pot's size and shape.

It was fun being able to spend a day with Larry and Mary, seeing them do what they love best.  In addition to learning about the past, Larry & Mary are very active in the present as well, taking DNA samples from different tribes, and encouraging education and cultural preservation as well, by working with other influential people (including the folks at Chipembele- see the link on the main Zambia page).

As an avid reader of Scientific American, I can very much appreciate the scientific process and diligence needed to make even a minor discovery, let alone a major one.  I know that year after year, Larry will press on with his work, helping fill in missing pieces of history in the region, and helping paint a more complete picture of African heritage.