We always seem to have good luck on holidays and this year was no different. Thanksgiving, our third day of survey, was glorious (clear and mild), and we mapped about half of a large site that was situated under and around the modern village of Xi Si ('west' 'temple'). By Friday, we learned that the ancient occupation was roughly 50 hectares in area, and that it mostly dated to the Longshan period (c. 2600-1900 BC). As an aside, for those of you who tend not to think in metric, a hectare equals 100 by 100 meters (or 10,000 square meters). If you then consider that a meter is pretty close to a yard, a single hectare is roughly equivalent to a square football field. At 50 hectares the four thousand year old Xi Si was approximately ten times the size of the current community with the remnants of the ancient settlement visible on the surface of what are now vegetable gardens, winter wheat fields, and an apple orchard next to the modern village.

We are focused on the Longshan through Han periods, and one wonders how pottery used roughly two to four thousand years ago lies on the current ground surface. But it does, and on each of the six days we have been out surveying we have found at least a half-dozen locations with ancient sherds. A key thing that serves to bring old pottery pieces to the surface is modern farming. Farmers today plow their fields, pull up tree stumps, dig pits to store their cabbages over the winter, build agricultural terraces and irrigation canals, and excavate wells. Each of these activities can cut into archaeological deposits below the surface exposing artifacts that were deposited in the ground millennia ago.

Over the last six days, we have surveyed three days south of Rizhao and three days far to the north in Jiao Nan county. The latter area, I have previously referred to as 'cabbage country' since the region is known for its cabbages, and seas of green cabbages grow in the fields. In fact, the cabbage grown in Jiao Nan is so famous in China that it has its own name: jiao bai ("jiao" from the name of the county and "bai" from the word for Chinese cabbage [bai cai]). We made this quick foray north in order to cover an area that borders (is adjacent to) where we surveyed last winter. Our colleague, Professor Fang Hui, had been told that there was a significant site just beyond where we had drawn our survey boundary last season. So we wanted to investigate and map that site to get a fuller picture of the pattern of settlement in this northern sector of our survey region. Our findings at Xi Si support what Hui had been told. In a cut, just outside the modern village of Xi Si, a deposit of cultural material well more than a meter in depth was exposed, so this site was apparently occupied rather intensively for an extended period.

Surveying in Jiao Nan as compared to around Rizhao (where we will be for most of this season) has its advantages and disadvantages. In the former, the survey conditions are near ideal. There is little development or paving, not much garbage, and the sites are numerous. Yet the daily drive from Rizhao to this survey area is well more than one hour each direction. With lots of notes to take in the evening and long rides in the car, the day feels short and compressed. In contrast, surveying around Rizhao means much less car travel, but there is more building and development and so more obstructions to our view. So far, we only have found one really nice site near Rizhao this season and it was about 50% under a modern town. The adobes in contemporary house walls were gray (instead of the usual yellow) and full of sherds, reflecting the use of sediment from cultural deposits.

On the long car rides, we discuss many things. Fang Hui often peruses our driver's newspaper, leading to various items to discuss. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is very popular in China, and even the local paper often has NBA scores. But the team names in Chinese often provide a chuckle. For example, instead of the Denver Nuggets, the translation of the Chinese is the Denver Gold-diggers. The Memphis Grizzlies are the Gray Bears, while the Los Angeles Clippers are the Fast Ships, and the Dallas Mavericks are the Dallas Baby Cows.

When we do begin to survey, one of the great privileges that we have experienced is to see the daily practice of rural lives in contemporary China. We are surveying in a region that only opened up to foreigners around two decades ago. So many of the people who live here now never saw a European-American in the flesh, and I would hazard a guess that few Americans have visited the places that we are able to walk over the last eight years. Since rural life in China is changing very quickly, some of the practices and customs that we witness likely soon will disappear. I will write more on this as we go along, and when possible we will include Linda's digital images to illustrate some of what we see.

Perhaps, you are wondering how we celebrated Thanksgiving besides finding an important site. Because we were still tired from jet lag and the acclimation to the physical rigors of survey, we decided not to go out for a large meal or to a restaurant on the other side of town. So this year, we did not have Beijing duck as we did several years back when we were in China for an earlier Thanksgiving. Instead, we had (among other dishes) roasted chicken and fried pumpkin cakes. Both were rather tasty, although the chicken was served in a manner (with the head and feet left on the plate with the meatier pieces) that left no doubt that we were not sitting down for a traditional American Thanksgiving.