For two weeks now I have been working on a commercial excavation near to Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital city of El Pais Vasco, the Basque Country, so I´m afraid finding the chance to update has not been easy. The site is a medieval settlement, spread across two sides of a valley, with terracing on one slope and a number of buildings, burials and pits on the other. I´m trying to learn as much as I can about archaeological practice in Spain while I´m here, and I´m sure I´ll post more about that later, but for now I thought I´d share a small glossary of nouns useful for archaeologists in Spanish which I´ve been compiling in my site notebook.
TOOLS
El pico: pick
La carretilla: wheelbarrow
La pala: shovel
El cepillo: brush
La hoja: sheet
FEATURES AND FINDS
El corte: cut
El relleno: fill
El muro: wall
El canal: channel
El silo: pit
El natural: natural
La unidad estratigráfica: context
La muestra: sample
El esqueleto: skeleton
