Cangahua and first excavations

Hello again!

I've arrived in Cangahua and started teaching archaeology for the season. The town has changed so much, it's strange. They completely redid the plaza with lights and benches and these statues in the middle of a man decked out in chaps and other fiesta gear and a woman with a spool of wool. There are now 2 internet cafés, bringing the total number of computers in town with internet access to 9. They´ve built new houses, new two-story buildings, and prices have gone up: a 12-case of double-size beers was $7 in 2007, $8 last year, and now costs $11. Damn inflation. The showers don't get hot anymore which is a bummer, but it feels good to be clean whether the water is hot or cold.

We're excavating the hilltop behind the Hacienda again this year, the site where I did a quick survey last year and above which I excavated that damn "watchtower" that had no artifacts. My unit is at this pit that we call the "well of souls," an ovular impression in the ground about 4 meters long and 3 meters wide covered in fallen stones. Some of these stones line up into what turned out to be a wall, but the rest are just scattered in there. We started excavating it today and while we didn't get all that deep, we have found pieces of what is likely colonial ceramic roof tiles, an obsidian scraper, and a bullet. Only the scraper dates from the time we had been thinking the site was occupied, which either means that we were wrong or that it was occupied for a long time, into Spanish colonialism.

I have to go to dinner, that's all for now. Will post more later.