“No stone left unturned” is a phrase often used to describe the quality of thoroughness related to a task (usually something the police say in a murder inquiry!). It does not literally mean that stones were turned in the process. Stone turning is a major facet of geophysical survey on El Cabo however. I sincerely doubt there is a stone, or a log, or a coconut husk which has not been turned, or kicked, or flicked at least once on the entire site. In fact the daily movement of debris from one survey square to the next, and back again is major task. After a while, you come to recognize certain items which you have, more than once, shifted out of the way of the radar or magnetometer. There is a difference between moving a stone for the 1st time, and shifting it for the nth time; the difference is in the number and variety of species which it houses – ants, spiders, crabs (Belto found a hermit crab in a toothpaste tube cap today), scorpions (not poisonous mum), artefacts, damp, rubbish.

Talking of rubbish (a favourite archaeological pastime) - major rubbish classes encountered in El Cabo are: empty drinks cartons (milk or water), barbed wire, empty liquor bottles (probably mostly rum), old shoes, vehicle parts, old archaeological pins from our previous work, various coloured pieces of plastic, fishing floats and fishing nets and multicoloured pieces of string. This is not to say that the site is cluttered with litter, in fact, as a communal village area, it is remarkably clean. Cleaner in fact of modern non-degradables than of pre-Columbian rubbish, which is everywhere! Smashed and crumbled ceramic vessels, old stone tools (mainly axes and adzes), coral and stone pieces of pestle and mortar, polishing pebbles, food remains (fish bones and shell), all piled in visible heaps. Although to be fair, whereas the current village has existed for about 25 years (I think), the pre-Columbian inhabitants were in the same spot, on and off, for 700 years or so. Enough time to make a bit of a mess.