Archaeology and bears

Yesterday was a tiring day hiking and doing archaeology. The team was: Me and Fran, a man named Dan - one of Fran's close colleagues - and another volunteer lady (much older and more experienced than me). Oh, and Dan's great big doggie: Cargo. Here’s Cargo:

Anyway, we went out to a site where they suspect there may have been some prehistoric settlements – they have to check out its historical significance, because there’s a huge new prison planned to be built on that site. We had to hike for ages, all the way up these steep hills, and through swamps and dense, thorny bush... There's this horrible spikey stuff called "Devil's club" which is everywhere. Here I am taking a rest in the grass:

When we finally got to where we were heading - a high point which looked out over a large area, a good possible location for any prehistoric houses – we used a shovel to dig a couple of holes called "test pits" to see if there was anything around indicating a settlement.…and I found something again! Just as we were about to give up and fill our pit back in (it was full of boring old rocks), I felt something chinking against my trowel. It was only just poking into the side of the pit; I thought it was just another big ole’ rock, but I wanted to get it out anyway. It took me about ten minutes of carefully digging around it - the whole time I was thinking "why am I bothering wasting my time digging a dumb rock out?!" But eventually I pulled it out and this is what I found:

Unfortunately I forgot to took a picture of it OUT of the hole... (Archaeologists take pictures of things while they’re still in the ground, and try not to disturb them until the last minute). We did take it back with us, but I didn't get another photo. It's actually about a foot long, obviously some kind of big tool. It had notches all down one edge, where it had been used to chip away at something. So it was exactly what we were all looking for.

But here’s what I think is the most interesting part about yesterday: we were right in the wilderness, unreachable by car – so we were in BEAR territory! Bears are incredibly dangerous, I have come to learn. There are stories all the time of people being killed by bears. They don’t attack viciously, only to protect their cubs, or if the bear is taken by surprise - bears usually avoid humans, but if you surprise one, it will attack. So the best way to defend yourself in the first place is to make sure they KNOW you’re there in the first place – that way they can mooch on by and avoid you. Ironically, this means calling the bear! All day, we had to yell “Yo, bear!” and “Helloooo bear!” at the top of our lungs, as we were moving through the forest.

Of course, we had to take other precautions. Dan carried a shotgun with him, and we all carried something of our own… Guns are actually not very good against bears because they will continue to attack even after they’ve been shot – and that’s if you manage to hit them in the first place: they can run at 40mph and you only really have around 2 seconds to react. So what WE carried (and I thought this was hilarious when I first heard of it) is “bear spray”! It’s actually just high strength pepper spray in a big can that can be released quickly – you can’t buy it in England because it’s considered a firearm!

It made me laugh because it reminded me of something funny I saw a while ago – an old 60s Batman fight scene with a shark. Batman asks Robin to hand him the “Shark-repellant Bat Spray”, which subsequently causes the shark to explode. I wonder if the bear spray would work the same way?

Here I am in the wilderness with all my tools, you can see the bear spray in a sort of leg holster: