Feild Walking For the Uninitiated

Perhaps some of you have been wondering what it is exactly that I am doing here in Turkey? No? Well it is not exactly the most exciting thing in the world so I suppose I don't blame you. But anyways, what I do is something called feild walking the job is what it sounds like: walking, through fields. Simply put a bunch of people line up along the edge of a field each one 15m from the last and begin to walk at a perpendicular angle to the edge of said field. Each 15m they stop and record what they have found in that area. Fascinating is it not? This goes on for six hours from 6am until nooon when we head home for lunch and we cover, on average twenty some feilds ranging in size from fields a lone person can walk in a few minutes to fields over half a kilometer long.
The most exciting part of this is of course the artifacts that are found, these consist mostly of pottery. Pieces of pottery are called sherds (not shards, sherds) and can be of many different types the most common type is a body sherd that is a peice of the pot from any section other than the rim the base or the handle these are left on the ground unless decorated or otherwise unique as their eight would drag us down and they provide no diagnostic information anyways. Those that do provide diagnostic information, that is to say a rim base or handle are kept and brought back to base to be cleaned (With a toothbrush) weeded (some stones still manage to get by us) and marked (with a steel-tip pen) and then drawn. Lithics (stones) are also found most commonly chipped stone blades, cores from which the blades were chipped, or ground stone which was carved for use in a building. These are some of my favorite finds as the blades can be beutiful translucent stone of varying colors. An obsidian blade was found last week and casued quite a stir as the nearest source of smoky-gray obsidian is on the Western coast of Turkey some 8-hours drive West of here.
While I participate in all of the jobs above I have been selected to draw pottery along with another student, I would like to say it is because of my artistic skill but in truth I am merely competent and was trained on the first day before the pottery experts were too busy to train new people. I do enjoy it though and I have heard that the pottery expert (Top Five in the mediterranean and the est in her own field, very big in pottery circles) said that I was very good so hopefully I will have a chance to work with her again someday. When drawing I take the piece record it as faithfully as I am able and then extrapolate what the pot would have look like as much as the piece allows me to.
So that is an overly drawn out account of my job here at Mecitozu, "walking along feilds and then drawing what I find" would perhaps have sufficed but where would the fun be in that?