I am happy to say that after a summer hiatus, Archeology labs at the Native American Studies Center at USC-Lancaster, have resumed.  It was so nice to return to lab and see all my lab buddies.  The last time I saw Professor Judge was in late May at the Copperhead Bluff dig.  We greeted each other with hugs and warm smiles and picked-up right where we left off.

Well, sort of where we left off…

The exception to that statement is in the fact that artifacts we were washing, were under the soil at Copperhead Bluff for hundreds and thousands of years before late May of 2023 when they were unearthed at the dig.  We settled in with our two bowls of water, our baskets of artifacts and rocks and toothbrushes.  We scrubbed the artifacts clean and laid them neatly on newspaper lined cardboard box lids for them to dry.  While we scrubbed, we caught up on each other’s lives and summers.  I was able to share the updates from my visit to Morocco which was awesome.  I heard about the various digs and events I had missed over the summer, talks given, history unveiled, and life lived.  I love that we all are different ages, from different walks and places in our lives and we come together on Thursdays to chat and do some work.  

I realized that I missed that time with my lab friends.  Labs are therapeutic in a way.  They allow me to just shut everything out for that two hours a week and focus on the simple task at hand, no phone, no school, just chitchat and friends.  I will share more about the artifacts later, but for now I wanted to memorialize how thankful I am for the time spent in the company of friends.  It washes my stress away just like dirt from the surface of pottery sherds.