David Astbury joins the excavations in the lower town.

Not every dig can boast a bona fide rock musician on staff, but we can! David Astbury, one of our new recruits and an archaeology student from the University of Newcastle, spent the previous 12 years touring and recording with his band Headway, including a stint in Los Angeles. David is from Warwickshire in England and is enjoying the experience of dig life in rural southeastern Turkey. His other digging has been in the UK, but we hope that he will decide to move south in his archaeological interests.

Here’s David cleaning a section (or “profile”) in Operation T. As you can see we are still just below the modern surface. He’s learning plenty of new skills with us, including a stint doing geophysical survey and, of course, pottery recording in the afternoon.