Day 8: The Hill Saves the Best for Last

WeatherHot, not a cloud

Plaster rounds3

TrucksMonday

Every dig has a rule, says Filippo Bertozzo: the best finds wait for the last days of the season. Day 8 did its best to prove him right.

It was the hottest day yet, without a single cloud over the hills. The only shade on the slope came from the tarp, which became the most sought after real estate on the hill.

At the first site, the team took the last blocks down to the fossil layer and photographed every one for 3D models. Then came judgment day. Each block was sorted: going home, or staying behind. 2 or 3 are still awaiting a verdict, kept in suspense by unexpected finds. The rejected blocks were rolled out of the way without ceremony, and the first fully jacketed blocks lined up for the trucks like passengers at a gate.

Then came 3 rounds of plaster. By evening, Klara Gerken and Miguel Marx were wearing almost as much of it as the blocks.

2 smiling team members with plaster covered hands and arms giving thumbs up beside plaster splashed buckets on a dirt track — Klara Gerken and Miguel Marx after the third round of plaster. Photo: Ignace Nerinckx

A team member in a sun hat pressing burlap over a foil wrapped block on a gravel slope — Wrapping a block in foil and burlap before the plaster goes on. Photo: Luís Domingos

2 team members under a white tarp on a hillside, one crouched with a plastic bag, the other with plaster covered hands beside a bucket — Wrapping a block in foil and burlap before the plaster goes on. Photo: Luís Domingos

At the second site, 3 big blocks were waiting. One came out. The other 2 are plastered and drying for tomorrow. The trench dug around them turned up no new bones, which in the last days of a dig counts as good news: nothing gets left behind. One block holds a thin layer crowded with tiny remains, maybe skin or fish scales. Another is packed with bones.

And then there are the finds no one will describe yet. Both sites turned up bones the team is very keen to study, and the scientists would rather keep the mystery until the lab can check. On a dig, a scientist who won’t say what something is usually has a theory. If it’s right, Filippo says, it will be one of the best finds of the season.

An opened plaster jacket lined with foil, holding a slab of gray green rock on the ground — A jacketed block, opened to show the rock inside. Photo: Filippo Bertozzo

The best finds always show up in the last days of the season. Good things come to those who graze.
Filippo Bertozzo, field team

The site had visitors too. Paulo Lobato Correia, a professor at Técnico in Lisbon, came out to see the dig. So did Ryan Hockley, sanctuary manager at The Pangea Trust, who didn’t stop at watching: he got down in the layer with João Neves.

2 men seen from behind leaning over a gravelly fossil layer, one in a sun hat pointing with a fine tool — Ryan Hockley of The Pangea Trust works the layer with João Neves. Photo: David Isserman

That night the team traded the hillside for one long table and a good dinner. For once, nobody was wearing plaster.

About 20 smiling team members around a long dinner table in a restaurant with white walls and wooden beams — The team at dinner, plaster free. Photo: Dave Finnegan

Tomorrow the last blocks come out and the jackets get their final coats. On Monday the trucks take them to the Sociedade de História Natural, where preparation begins. And if Filippo’s rule holds, the hill still has 1 day to show off.