Over the last few days, we have had some time to readjust from those heady times surveying at Yao Wang Cheng. One morning while walking over that big site, our crew collectively came across ten fragments of polished stone tools, an exceptional number. Yet once we completed Yao Wang Cheng, we had to pay the price, in that we had to fully connect the site into our previously investigated region. In this case, that has meant surveying along the coastal plain immediately east of Yao Wang Cheng. This low-lying area is not exactly a surveyor's dream in that it is used today for shrimp/crab ponds and rice paddies (often planted at this very moment in winter wheat). Both the paddies and the ponds are typified by lots of water, not a lot of sites (although we have found many more than I would have thought when we began in this flat sandy and water-logged zone), and their own unique hazards and challenges.

When walking through rice paddies covered with a budding winter wheat crop it not only is difficult to find surface sherds, but the fields are sloshy so one's boots quickly get drenched and laden with mud. In the shrimp ponds we find more sites. The shellfish ponds are dug out like giant earthen bathtubs and the sherds often can be easily noted eroding out of the pond walls. But the ponds present a hazard because it easy to get trapped on their walls with no way or path to move in the designated direction of the survey transect. One faces the repeated challenge of crossing ditches filled with green sludgy water, either by leaping (when possible) or by crossing makeshift stone or wood ramps or earthen dams. It is the closest thing that I ever had done to "walking the plank," although there is the wall of another pond on the far end. Anne ended up crossing one ditch on a rounded concrete drainpipe that she only felt comfortable shimming across on her rump. In another hair-raising episode, Hui used a bamboo pole (actually 2 poles that a local farmer lashed together for him) like a long cane that he stuck in the ditch to help balance himself as he walked across a very narrow wedge-shaped concrete beam.

Fortunately, no such excitements were ongoing when we were met by a local Rizhao news team in the field on two occasions this year. The TV folks are preparing a documentary on our survey, which they plan to air next season to commemorate what we all hope and plan to be our tenth field season. The crew filmed us having lunch, walking through the fields, and then did a series of brief interviews. The principal news reporter, who has spoken with us in prior years, wondered why we all wear the same clothing year-after-year. Such is archaeology, especially when you have to hand wash all of your own clothes and when much of what you wear does not necessarily ever get totally clean after tromping through the fields.

We have been very fortunate to have a number of students from Shandong University help us on the survey this season for several days each. Since a key overarching goal of our project here is to help encourage more regional settlement pattern survey in China, the more students we are able to train in our methodology, the better. Since the students come from different provinces around China, I also enjoy finding out about local customs and foods from their home regions. For example, rice is a key economic resource and food along with wheat in the coastal area of eastern Shandong Province where we are studying. Based on the findings from the excavations that our international team did at Lienhchengzhen, rice appears to have been an important food in this area for several millennia since the Longshan period. Yet in western Shandong, on the other side of the mountains, which divide this state, rice is neither grown nor a large part of the diet (especially in the villages) even today.

Most of the sites that we are finding right by the coast are from the Zhou and Han periods. According to the findings from our entire survey zone, sea trade and the exploitation of coastal resources appears to have been more important in those eras (when we have more people living by the coast) than in the preceding Longshan period. According to Han period written records, this area of coastal Shandong was also known for salt making in the past. Today, the salt pans of yesterday have largely been converted into shellfish traps. In today's national and global market, a greater demand exists for shrimp and crabs than for locally made salt. At the same time, the opening up of the Chinese economy has created a lucrative niche for the production of shellfish, which the village producers sell to restaurants and in the expanding markets.

Many of the modern villages along this coastal zone have expanded in size. In contrast, salt has been a government controlled commodity in China for millennia, and its current manufacture in this region is less significant than it was several decades ago. While there have been changes in those commodities, the demand for rice remains as great as ever.

Today's words are "dian shi tai ji zhe," which translates as 'television reporter.' But it is fascinating to break down the root meaning of each of the five characters. 'Dian shi' together is 'television,' with 'dian' referring to 'electric' and 'shi' meaning 'box.' 'Tai' means 'platform,' but 'dian shi tai' jointly refers to 'television station.' 'Ji zhe' signifies 'reporter,' with 'ji' meaning 'record' and 'zhe' referring to 'person.'