Today was our first day of fieldwork and it was hot. In the image above Brendan is looking over a new well that fed into a check-dam, supplying water to a few small houses some 1200 years ago or longer. It's exciting to get an image of how simple farmers lived in the past. The week we'll also start working in the newly discovered Group I, which is the opposite end of the spectrum, likely housing elites who had their own ballcourt. It's a huge area and we'll spend two months digging there.

Over the weekend my friend Norman Hammond visited from London. He also worked at Uxbenka and nearby Lubaantun in 1970 and 1971. We had a nice visit and he brought along a good bottle of imported rum for the entire group to enjoy. Norman just retired from Boston University. Despite his status, and his age, we still walked him up and down some pretty big hills. Good fun.