Moving around was a bit like trying to navigate inside a cardboard box.
“Remember,” Eddy warned, “these bones and artifacts have been buried here for thousands of years, so go slowly and be gentle.”
Okay, now that actually made me nervous.
I knelt and brushed away a thin layer of dirt dried by the sun. The bones were yellowy-brown, and I could see that some of them were badly cracked and crumbly.
“You’re doing fine. And remember that an archaeologist needs to be patient.” Eddy bent down and pointed to a spot near the top of the skull. “You see this here? I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of a stone tool. It might even be a woodworking tool.”
I could almost feel the pulse in my fingertips and had to resist the temptation to rip the stone out. My hand trembled as I scrapped around the artifact, then scooped and dumped the black earth into the bucket.
“Aha! You see, you see!” Eddy was crouched over the hole with her nose practically in the dirt. “It is a burin! Good job, Peggy!”
The object looked like any run-of-the-mill rock to me, except for the fluted edges that came to a point. “What’s it for?” I asked.
“It’s a tool we think was used for carving or engraving. You know what this means, don’t you?”
I stared blankly.
“This is the first bit of cultural material that tells me this individual was quite likely a craftsman or a woodworker.”
I was a bit confused. “That seems like a waste. It’d be like us burying a perfectly good skill saw with some guy just because he was a carpenter.”
“You’ve got to remember, Peggy, that early people had a belief in an afterlife — much like people today. But in their case they wanted to make sure their friend or loved one had everything he or she needed for the next world, like tools, food, even jewellery. We call these grave goods.”
“It sure would be nice if Peggy was as interested in keeping the floor of her bedroom as clean as this hole.”
I quickly turned to see Aunt Margaret standing behind us. I had no idea how long she’d been there listening.
“Peggy, maybe Dr. McKay will let you borrow her broom and dustpan later. You never know what neat artifacts you’ll find under all that dirty laundry.” Even though she was smiling, I could detect a prickle of annoyance in her voice. “And before you come into the kitchen, make sure you scrub your hands with soap and water.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Randall, this is the cleanest dirt you’ll ever find. And if Peggy keeps up the way she’s been going, we may have ourselves a future archaeologist.” Eddy gave me a thumbs-up.
“To be honest, I think she’d do better pursuing something else,” Aunt Margaret said. “I don’t imagine there’s a big demand for archaeologists. By the way, I hope having her help you isn’t slowing things down. Because I don’t mind telling you that I can barely sleep at night knowing this ... this ... thing is out here.”
Her nose wrinkled and her top lip curled as she wagged her finger at the bones in the ground. I wondered if Eddy had noticed how red my face had turned.
Eddy smiled at my aunt. “Well, that’s just because you don’t know him. Why don’t I tell you a bit about our friend here?” Aunt Margaret’s pinched face didn’t relax, and Eddy must have sensed she had a lot of convincing to do. She bent over and gently picked up some of the bone fragments.
“You see, an archaeologist reads bones like someone else might read the pages of a book. They tell us quite general things about the individual, like gender and height. But often there are other details etched into the bones like a primitive code that can tell us more intimate things — perhaps about a person’s childhood, whether he had enough to eat, or what caused his death. It’s a bit like being a detective who finds it’s the tiniest details that can tell the most.”
Some of the bones Eddy held were the size of a Tootsie Roll. But one was a sickly boomerang shape. “You see here? These phalanges or finger bones show a terrible case of arthritis. It must have made doing handiwork difficult. And the vertebrae in this spine are fused into a single carious bone, so it must have been pretty tough walking with a crooked old back like this.” Eddy smiled at me and placed the curved spine in my hand. It was so fragile that dry fragments fell off and settled in the crease of my hand like crumbs of toast.
“We know that everyone was needed to contribute to the survival of the whole village, and for this poor soul, carving or basketry would have been difficult. But this burin here tells us that somehow he did it. The arthritis also strongly suggests this was an individual who lived a long life. Maybe he was an elder, a keeper of clan stories, perhaps a grandparent like me. And while he struggled to do his share of the work, all along he was probably in pain.”
As the gnarled backbone rested in my hand, images flashed through my mind of an elderly man struggling along the sandy shores or down rooted forest trails.
“I know there are many differences between us and these ancient people,” Eddy continued, “but I’m pretty sure we have a lot in common, too. They must have laughed at silly things, cried when someone they loved died, squabbled occasionally. But even during the tough times, every member of the village had an important job to perform, whether it was bringing in the fish, making baskets, or preserving food for the winter. So there wasn’t much time for feeling sorry for yourself.” Eddy took the fragile bones and put them back in the pit ever so gently as though trying not to cause them any further suffering. “And like everyone else, this poor dear had his place in the clan and his job to do.”
“Hmm, that’s very interesting, Dr. McKay,” Aunt Margaret said without a hint of sympathy. “But it doesn’tchange the way I feel. I’ll sleep better at night when it’s out of my yard.”
Blink! Her words had the same effect as a sudden power failure.
That evening I tried to call Mom on the phone to tell her about the excavation. I was desperate to talk to someone who cared about what I was learning. But her voice sounded tired, and she asked me to call back the next day. It wasn’t like her to hang up without some kind of encouraging word.
After that I hid in my room. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to Aunt Margaret complain about the mess in the yard, so I decided to organize my shell collection. At first I arranged them on my bed from largest to smallest, then reordered them into shell families. When that didn’t seem right, I placed them in groups according to shapes. The tusk shells were the only long, thin shells in my collection. As I held them in my hand, I was reminded of the burial in the backyard. Eddy had talked about those old fragmented bones as if the man they had belonged to was someone deserving of respect. Then I recalled the stone tool. Eddy had called it a burin and had said it was used for carving. To her it was another clue, something to help her understand a prehistoric old man whose hands didn’t work the way they used to.
I sat on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes. There, in the darkness of my mind, I began to see him. He had long grey hair that cascaded past his shoulders and down his bent old spine.
Far beyond the village the sun rests for a few moments on the mountaintops just before it slips behind them and into the sea. The people are getting ready for sleep inside the dark clan house. Many small pit fires burn low, and embers give off warmth and light. Some of the elders are already asleep on their cedar-bough beds. A few
