So this is what I've spent most of my last three days thinking about...
Fortunately that one actually looked like this:
One of my team members has put this on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkmnRR1y2Mk
(for your viewing pleasure)!
It turns out that the snakes are lower down in high grass fields. There's an interesting news article that talks about how there are snakes in the two areas that my team is surveying... That was fun to read. The title says: Snakes Found in Didi Dighomi and Lilo. The first line? "Snakes are in Tbilisi."
Some of you know how I feel about snakes. Well, it turns out that screaming is not helpful. Especially with aggressive, poisonous ones. Like these (both of which we've seen):
(courtesy of )
(courtesy of )
Anyhow... other than the life-threatening wildlife, it's been an amazing week. We've gotten a lot of ground covered on the survey, finding ceramic sherds in new places (none from the period I'm looking for YET, but I'm still hopeful). I have a team of variable size daily, but this actually works quite well as we are able to cover wide stretches of land when there are 7 of us and focus on smaller areas, confined by bushes (and snake fields), when we have only 4.
If anyone in the future reads this... it's best to do survey in March, April, and October around Tbilisi. Not just because of the snakes, but because the vegetation, which is low for most of the year, pops up suddenly in early to mid May, making visibility hard in areas that are less hilly. Fortunately, I'll still be around in October! I wasn't expecting to be ground-truthing my own survey, but I'm glad I'll be able to.
We've ended up doing 20 meter transects over the entire survey area (broken up by river gorges, roads, and villages), and collecting ceramics in a 20 m square area when we discover more than 2 sherds within 10 meters of each other. One challenge I'm having is that 20 meters as the crow flies is sometimes much larger than on-the-ground. It's important to observe that while our transects are straight, the space between them is quite variable. When we're on a hill, we are quite far apart; when we are on flat land, we sometimes end up quite close to each other.
In fun news, I had a real dinner at home last night, thanks to my first house guest. I'm looking forward to having a lot of visitors over the next few months and it's so much fun to be able to share my apartment with such lovely people!
Fortunately that one actually looked like this:
One of my team members has put this on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkmnRR1y2Mk
(for your viewing pleasure)!
It turns out that the snakes are lower down in high grass fields. There's an interesting news article that talks about how there are snakes in the two areas that my team is surveying... That was fun to read. The title says: Snakes Found in Didi Dighomi and Lilo. The first line? "Snakes are in Tbilisi."
Some of you know how I feel about snakes. Well, it turns out that screaming is not helpful. Especially with aggressive, poisonous ones. Like these (both of which we've seen):
Anyhow... other than the life-threatening wildlife, it's been an amazing week. We've gotten a lot of ground covered on the survey, finding ceramic sherds in new places (none from the period I'm looking for YET, but I'm still hopeful). I have a team of variable size daily, but this actually works quite well as we are able to cover wide stretches of land when there are 7 of us and focus on smaller areas, confined by bushes (and snake fields), when we have only 4.
If anyone in the future reads this... it's best to do survey in March, April, and October around Tbilisi. Not just because of the snakes, but because the vegetation, which is low for most of the year, pops up suddenly in early to mid May, making visibility hard in areas that are less hilly. Fortunately, I'll still be around in October! I wasn't expecting to be ground-truthing my own survey, but I'm glad I'll be able to.
We've ended up doing 20 meter transects over the entire survey area (broken up by river gorges, roads, and villages), and collecting ceramics in a 20 m square area when we discover more than 2 sherds within 10 meters of each other. One challenge I'm having is that 20 meters as the crow flies is sometimes much larger than on-the-ground. It's important to observe that while our transects are straight, the space between them is quite variable. When we're on a hill, we are quite far apart; when we are on flat land, we sometimes end up quite close to each other.
In fun news, I had a real dinner at home last night, thanks to my first house guest. I'm looking forward to having a lot of visitors over the next few months and it's so much fun to be able to share my apartment with such lovely people!
