Hans Hansson – Surprise – an Extra Cave! – Ian

Cumberland West Bay and Carlita Bay

After a refreshing couple of days ashore at Grytviken Museum looking through their sealing collection and discussing our work on South Georgia, we sailed North around Sappho point into Cumberland West Bay. Dion Poncet, who knows South Georgia seemingly better than any living person, had seen a cave at Carlita Bay years before that we were aiming to investigate. Cumberland West Bay sits at the foot of the Neumayer, Geikie and Lyell Glaciers, which provide an incredible amount of sea ice and bergs. Eugenio expertly navigated the zodiac to shore through the ice. After a small search around, we found our cave up a short but steep climb above the beach. The 6-metre-deep cave contained a few new finds for the South Georgia Archaeological Project: a box spring mattress and a candle. We moved away the recent material and started setting up our plan drawing of a small hearth and a wall of tussac at the cave mouth.

After lunch, we split the crew – with three going with Marcus and Dion, and two with myself and Andrew. Team Marcus, Alex, Nadina and Cinnamon excavated another rock shelter (surprise unexpected find!) with a small hearth, while Team Ian, Vanessa, Chip and Andrew dug in the original cave.

The main goal for this site was to dig a small test pit to understand the cave stratigraphy and hopefully find evidence of sealers. Our secondary goal was to sample the hearth for geoarchaeological analyses, primarily micromorphology. At several other sites, we’ve been seeing hearths with a strange concreted cap covering the rest of the burnt material. By taking an intact block of this deposit, we can create a thin section microscope slide to better understand the composition and deposition of the material. The working theory of the concretion’s origin is a mixture of seal fat and ash, but this will be tested.

The archaeology in our test pit wasn’t the most exciting, though a fair amount animal bone turned up in a 15cm occupation layer. The location and setting, however, was incredible. Ice bergs were calving and the sun made an appearance to light up the opposite side of the bay. We also welcomed the dry and shelter offered by the cave – in stark contrast to the exposed, wet and windy sites we’ve been working at since.

After backfilling the cave and cleaning our kit, Dion expertly harvested sea ice from the zodiac journey back which chilled gin and tonics for the team after a good day of work.

– Ian