The few, the hardcore, the insane - extreme archaeologists in the Badia

Come for a holiday at Maitland's Mesa:
See camels, who are just passing through the area on their way to who knows where??
Live in comfortable tents amid the ruins.
Cook out in the open using the back of a truck as a food prep area. Drink warm yucky beer. And give up showering for 20+ days!

Eat unidentifiable meat from cans.

Experience sandstorms, and flies (1000s of flies) - desert living is brutal.
Usually the sky is blue - not sand coloured.

The archaeology was great!

50+ Cairns - the tail of a tower tomb

We recorded 300+ structures associated with a "landscape of the dead". We still don't really know the dates for this site but we are working on that angle of investigation. Prof G. found a bunch of PPN (pre-pottery neolithic) lithic scatters and manufacturing sites and we actually found some pottery (less than 10 pieces) that may or may not be Chalcolithic (4500-3600 BCE).

Yo spent a lot of time as the stick monkey (the guy standing around deciding where to put the prism for the total station to read) and Mo spent a lot of time drawing rocks.
Looks kind of like a pile of rocks . . .

Student L spent most of her days pushing the button on the total station - we are pretty sure that she has decided that archaeology is not her calling. In the end we were defeated by two days of sandstorms, which collapsed our shade. We returned to ACOR in Amman - to showers, to cold beer, to fresh food and to a nice bed courtesy of our very good friend BAP.

After a brief visit to Petra we crossed over to the other side and are now prepping for our next adventure.