Updates and Observations

Things are going well here. The dig is awesome. I spent Tuesday wet screening down at the beach. We were in the really shallow water, and then a squid came right up to us. It was adorable.

Wet Screening

Squid! 

The dig this week was fantastic. We hit the burial layer in all of our trenches, and there are so many burials. We spent the week excavating this one, gorgeous, rock lined burial. He was tall, but fit just perfectly in the units we excavated. I was lucky enough to work on it Thursday, and it was really amazing. Thursday we were lucky to go out to the site at all. It stormed all night Wednesday night, and a ton in the morning. It rains most days here, but these were severe thunderstorms. But we were lucky, and I had a fantastic day excavating.

Excavating!

Then Friday in lab, Kelsey and I were working to package up some of the bones so that they can be transported. And I had a temporal bone (side of the skull) and I noticed a small hole above the external auditory meatus (ear hole). And I saw something in it, so I turned it over, and out fell a malleus. One of the tiny, inner ear bones. A 3000 year old inner ear bone. It was incredible. 

So here are some of my observations here. Palau was under US control for a long time, and because of that, the US had a large impact on its infrastructure. So Palauans drive on the right side of the road, like in the US. However, cars are so much cheaper to bring over from Japan, that the majority of cars have steering wheels on the right. It was strange to get used to. The van we take out to the site is a stick shift. I’m glad the guy driving it is ambidextrous, since now he has to shift with his left hand instead of right. There aren’t traffic lights and there aren’t road names here in Palau. I’m guess it’s a small country, so people find their way around.

Rainbow over the staff's apartment

When you order tea at a restaurant here, they bring out a big glass of unsweetened tea, and a mini pitcher of a sweet sugar water/syrup thing to sweeten the tea yourself. Brilliant.

Palau is really loud. And the US is really loud, but it’s city noise- traffic, sirens, and talking-noise that I’ve been around my whole life, so it doesn’t bother me. The jungle here is incredibly loud- especially the insects, but also the geckos. There are a lot of stray dogs around Palau, but surprisingly they don’t bark much at all. It’s almost eerie. The roosters, however, are another story. There are tons of roosters and chicken and chicks running around. And they’re so loud. All day. Every day. Roosters crowing. But it's beautiful and amazing, and entirely worth it.