2024 dig - it's a wrap!

 Once again we are at the end of another successful dig! We:

• determined that the Eagles Nest site is not a deep rich vein and is better suited to prospecting than quarrying;
• discovered that Twin Reefs is a great new site with enough good rock to dig for a few more years (a special call-out to Melissa for finding it!);
• catalogued 114 bones/teeth, 1 set of fish scales and 5 plants;
• uncovered several vertebra in association, something that did not happen at Flat Rocks.

Some visualisations of our bone counts:

Total number of bones found by day

Bones from our two dig sites by day

We have a lot of people to thank this season.

Firstly, we acknowledge the Bunurong Land Council, the Traditional Owners of the Country on which we lived and worked, for their generosity in allowing us to uncover prehistory of the lands they have watched over for millennia. Always was, always will be.

We also acknowledge Parks Victoria and ranger Brian Martin for trusting us to protect the beautiful Bass Coast beaches upon which we collect.

But mostly we want to thank our team of volunteers, for doing all of the jobs that needed doing, through storms, wind, power outages and crazy hot days. A special thanks for their cheerfulness through all the jobs that didn't seem like fun:

• enthusiastically volunteering to carry rock and equipment up a lot of stairs;
• leaping up to do the washing up after dinner;
• breaking up that terrible rock that John found in Lesley's shed; and
• scrubbing our dig house clean on the last day.