At this point, we have been in JennÚ for just over a week, and the Mali interactive project has been a daily challenge that has taken all my free time. After solving the initial problem that the communications software placed on the computer by Rice didn't work properly, we have faced daily problems with getting a clear and continuous signal out on the satellite telephone. There has been some unusual weather here, which may mean there are atmospheric conditions that interfere with the signal. In fact, I haven't yet been able to collect email messages for the project, so if you have sent us questions, we hope to be able to read them soon. After a lot of trial and error, I may have discovered just this morning that a clear signal is available at between 5 and 6 a.m., before the sun comes up. Maybe the sun has something to do with all our problems with communications via the satellite? Who knows.... ? All this is by way of explaining why I am only now able to write something for Discovery Journal about the archaeology we are doing here.

Through all the problems and frustrations with the interactive part of the project, the excavations have been continuing uninterrupted. We have three pits open in areas of the Jenne-jeno mound that are seriously threatened by erosion. Basically, we want to find out when those sections of the site developed, before they disappear and we can never know. We get information on the date of the different layers of archaeological deposits mainly from the pottery they contain. Over the years that we have worked at Jenne-jeno, I have studied the pottery and gotten lots of charcoal samples for radiocarbon dates that tell us exactly when certain pottery styles were popular at the site. Now, when I find deposits that have a lot of a particular style, I know approximately when the deposits accumulated. Most of the deposits we are digging on the eroded edges of the site began to be laid down around 300-400 A.D. and continued to accumulate until about 1000-1100 A.D.

Yesterday was a great day for digging, as it was overcast and actually sprinkled briefly, which is almost unheard of here at this time of year. So we were spared the sun that usually makes work at the site a hot, dusty business and the dry Harmattan winds blowing out of the Sahara that suck all the moisture out of us, making us perpetually thirsty. Everyone is commenting in the town about how unusually hot it is for January, and they are nervous that the heat is drying up the ponds left from the floodwaters too fast. Where will the cattle and goats get grass come April? So everyone was glad for yesterday's unusual weather. With the heat, everyone has been sleeping up on the flat roof of the house, but the windy weather brought with it a real wind storm in the middle of the night that sent sand and dirt swirling around us and into our bedrolls, so we quickly decamped for our rooms. Today is much cooler, so maybe we're in for easier times at the site.

If can get this short message out O.K. today, I'll try to write more on the archaeology this weekend. I hope to be able to read your questions later today!