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Today was another early day, arriving at the cemetery at 6:30 am along with Texas State University. After arriving, our group wasted no time in unloading equipment and getting our day started by excavating a smaller area that was obstructed by trees and headstones.

Sammi and Leann started on a more complicated part of the smaller section that involved what appeared to be one burial with three small plastic markers. The markers were for two known burials and one ‘john doe’, obviously a situation that needed more investigating. As Sammi and Leann proceeded with excavating the first grave, it was quite the difference compared to the day before. The dirt in the area we had worked on the day before was comparable to cement while the soil in the smaller, shaded area was softer making it more easily excavated, or so we thought. Turns out there were pockets of cement-like compacted soil that made it slightly more difficult but was still better than the day before. Sammi and Leann quickly found the known burials, which were located close to the surface, but noticed that just below them was an anomaly in the soil. What they found was the unknown burial located beneath these two known burials. If it were not for Leann and Sammi’s attention to detail, it is possible that the unknown burial could have been missed.

While Sammi and Leann were working diligently on their first excavation, Jordan and I started on a small area just north west from their location. Jordan was in “beast mode” and dug two feet while my back was turned… well, maybe not that quick but it sure did seem that way. In what seemed like no time at all, Jordan and I were able to uncover our first burial. After having Texas State digitally record the location with their RTK  (aka – magic stick) our team took measurements by hand, and then we were able to remove the unknown burial and back fill the area. The final depth measurement for our first excavation was 98 cm below the ground surface.

Before noon today, our group was able to remove all four unknown burials from the smaller area in our quadrant. After a delicious lunch we started in the larger area, Jordan and I teamed up again to work on an area that we originally had thought was one unknown burial. It didn’t take us long to realize that we actually had two unknown burials with Jordan’s burial extending underneath the wall. Jordan and I refocused our efforts on the area I was excavating and thank goodness because the soil surrounding the burial was hard like cement and I definitely needed Jordan’s assistance with breaking down the area around the burial.

At the end of the day, our group located a total of 9 burials and recovered 6 unknown burials (3 were known). Unfortunately, the area that we will be working in tomorrow appears more complicated than we originally had thought. On day 1, we were told that there were 5 unknown persons buried in the area that Joe and Louis had excavated. At the end of the day today, we have located a total of 7 areas of interest that need to be investigated further. The tradition of ‘expect the unexpected’ appears to be holding true again this field season.

Jessica

Today we arrived at the cemetery at 6:45 am. While this was quite an early start (especially after a rather late first night), we had quite a beautiful drive from our hotel as we watched the sunrise against endless fields of wind turbines. The air was a chilly 32 degrees F on arrival, but the absence of wind made the morning much more pleasant than day one; in fact, our team began stripping our outer layers rather early in the morning as the rising sun brought much desired warmth topping out at a high of 64 degrees.

When our supplies arrived around 7:15 am we promptly hauled out our tools and hit the ground running. To begin our team split between the trenches we had started on day one with the goal of cleaning up their walls,  extending their lengths in either direction, and deepening them to find more potential burials. Basing our trench depths on the depth of the first body bag found in day ones test pit (~60 cm), our trenches were looking rather swell. Jessica, however, was not satisfied with the depth at her end of the western trench insisting that she had a feeling that something lied just beneath the floor despite the concrete-like soil we were encountering.  Following her gut, Jessica dug to a depth of about 70 cm uncovering the edge of another bag!

With this new depth info. on hand, we began deepening our trenches even further to ensure we weren’t missing any burials; but Jess still wasn’t satisfied and, following her gut, began digging even deeper. Call it intuition or whatever you please, Jess found the second burial of the day at a depth of about 75 cm. At this point it became clear that we could not expect uniform burial depths, nor could we trust that rock hard dirt meant undisturbed dirt so we all began digging deeper based on the combination of logic and instinct. By around 10 am Leann and Dr. Latham had discovered two more burials at depths of about 85 and 95 cm respectively. Obviously our 70 cm test pits and trenches from day one were severely lacking.

Three of the now four located burials lay in the western trench and (luckily?) they aligned with the rows of gravestones belonging to known individuals in the cemetery and occurring about every other stone. This spacing potentially left room for additional burials in between the three located burials, so we explored these areas as well and discovered an additional two burials bringing our count to six. Up to this point, we had been more concerned with locating burials than uncovering them and, as we continued to extend our trenches, Dr. Spradley from Texas State University delivered great news. The backhoe operator was just finishing up in Texas States’ southern quadrants and would have time to move dirt from our quadrant if we needed. And boy did we need it!

Armed with this new information, we changed our game plan. Cleaning up the gear from in and around our trenches we prepared our quadrant for Joe, the backhoe driver, and his brother Luis, his spotter. Fortunately, we had a bit of  time to do a bit of mapping before they headed over, so out came the tape measures and grid paper. Plotting each of the located burials as well as the trenches themselves, Leann, Sammi, and I knocked out the mapping in no time. In fact, we had enough time that we began to shovel shine and dig test pits in some areas of our quadrant that the backhoe would not be able to reach due to trees and headstones.

Joe and Luis made it to our quadrant with about an hour of daylight remaining, and Jess was placed in charge of overseeing their efforts. As we watched the backhoe work each of us remarked at how efficient it was compared to our hand dug trenches. Within 30 minutes or less a mound of dirt larger than what we had accumulated all day had arisen. The backhoe was, in short, a godsend.

As the sun began to set, the area within our trenches was sufficiently cleared and a total of 13 burials were located. This leaves a ton of work for our team to complete in the coming days but with our amazing teamwork and communication, as well as Jess’ killer instincts I am confident that we can get it done in a flash.

Jordan