17 Degrees

Archaeology should be done in the summer, preferably someplace sunny and mosquito-free. Then you should spend the winter in your salubrious office in a noble old brick or stone building, surrounded by books and ancient artifacts, going over your finds and occasionally glancing out the window at the elegant quadrangle below.

But in my business things generally don't work out that way. This morning I found myself pulling on my coveralls and boots at 17 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 Celsius), joining my crew for some explorations along the Potomac. Brrr.

I walked for a while in a forest that looked exactly like this for hundreds of yards, the sort of featureless place where one could wander in circles for days.

But we found some good stuff, including this out-of-focus spear point, and we got a close-up view of a majestic barred owl.