Event period: from 20 to 26 May 2016
The main protagonist of the events in this story is a friend of mine, whom I will refer to by the nickname Enoch. I will avoid his surname to protect his family’s privacy. We both shared a faculty for a while: I was then a second-year student at the bachelor’s degree in History at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He was in his fourth year and about to hand in his bachelor’s degree Final Project (or TFG), which dealt with Galician peat bogs and their potential as sources of archaeological material in an excellent state of preservation[1]. I will not mention his TFG tutor for privacy reasons.
Our friendship began by chance when we shared a workspace in the voluntary workshops in the archaeology laboratory of the faculty, organised by the Study Group for the Prehistory of Northwest Iberia (GEPN) to train students who wanted to focus on the archaeological branch. I had joined these workshops in the second term of my first year and Enoch was already a veteran, and since he and I had a common taste for fantasy and science fiction literature and writing, as well as role-playing games, we hit it off pretty well from the start.
The events begin in the middle/end of the second semester, when the final exams or midterms start at the university, as well as the final projects and assignments for some subjects. Enoch was in the final stages of his TFG and had already drafted and finished the introduction, the objectives, and the theoretical framework of the project, so the only thing left was to complete the body of the TFG and draw up the conclusions.
In order to complete this part and incidentally contribute to archaeological research with his project[2], Enoch researched the archaeological records stored in the office of the General Sub-directorate for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage. We colloquially referred it to as the “Heritage Office” or “Heritage”, and is near The Museum of Galician People, in the square currently known as Porta do Cami?o. He hoped to find references or allusions to peat bogs or archaeological remains found in peat bogs, relying, above all, on the locations officially registered in the maps of the book Peat bogs in the mountains of Galicia, published by the Xunta de Galicia in 2001, within the series Technical Collection Environment. In this way, he avoided having to go through all the folders municipality by municipality one by one, thus being able to focus my efforts on those municipalities that contained or were in contact with a peat land area.
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For several days now, hour after hour, I have been looking at files in Heritage, and so far, I have had no success. As I expected, almost all there are forts, burial mounds and some Roman or medieval findings. If I continue at this rate, I will have nothing to support my claims in my project beyond examples from other parts of Europe. Under normal circumstances, if I had more time or (for the sake of argument) funding, I would try to do some research in one or more particularly interesting places, but, since there is no money for that, I will have to be patient and cross my fingers.
In any case, I have some hope, an ace up my sleeve if you prefer to put it that way: talking about my TFG with one of the civil servants who work there (they are already bored of me, asking them things or asking them questions, so there is a lot of trust), one newbie asked me if, given that peat lands need humidity, it would be possible for them to be created on the coast or in estuary areas. It was certainly not something I would have considered, as I had enough of mountain peat lands, but the point is that I replied it would be workable in certain circumstances.
It was then that he told me that perhaps I might be interested in some archaeological files they had in storage, which compiled all the findings pertaining to underwater archaeological remains. They separated them from the rest because they are often outside the territorial limits of the municipalities or because they are in a jurisdictional limbo that is not very clear to anyone.
The important thing is that I asked them for the files, and, with a bit of luck, they will have them for me by tomorrow or the day after. In the meantime, I will continue to work on what I already have. I’m not very convinced about this, but I can’t help but feel excited about the possibility that there might be something. I’ll keep you posted.
[1] He built this hypothesis on the cases of other findings in European peat bogs or tar pits, such as the Tollund Man, the Grauballe Man or the Lindow Man. The anoxic conditions and high humidity of the peat bogs, together with other environmental conditions which I have not wanted to go into in depth given my lack of knowledge and training in the subject, are what allow the remains to be in an excellent state of preservation in the long term.
[2] A dissertation, at least in a bachelor’s degree in History, does not have to contain information or conclusions resulting from academic research, as these skills will be developed and assessed later in the master’s degree with a master’s thesis (TFM), and, to a greater extent if possible, in a subsequent doctoral thesis. In a dissertation, therefore, it is sufficient for you to demonstrate that you can handle bibliographical sources and produce an original text. However, a more investigative approach is not forbidden, and depending on the speciality you are aiming for, such as, for example, archaeology, it is even advisable to opt for it.
