Saturday, August 16, 2014

My Field School Experience, brought to you by Mary Ellis

Archaeology, for those of you who were unaware, is
the study of human cultures from the material remains of the past. It is divided into two categories, Historic and Prehistoric. There is a fair amount of joking and rivalry associated, as can only be expected. We all study trash. This week's lesson was on the art of excavation. This excavation was a mitigation effort required by law, so that construction can commence. Excavation disrupts the Archaeological record and creates a greater need for curation, yet it is one of the only ways to access the data. This excavation was an integrated process involving survey, excavation units, dry screens, wet screens, column samples, auger samples, floatation, sorting, and cataloging. Teams of people are required to work in concert for all of this, thus interaction and communication are at the apex of this stone parabola. The sites chosen for excavation had been surveyed previously and selected by the principal. The prehistoric control units in locus one started with one by one meter control units that dug down to sterile soil, lamellae. These units were dug using arbitrary ten centimeter levels. These units were broadened to be two by one units.


The units dug in locus 2 were one by one units, dug through sterile soil, as deep as osha allows. The soil from all unit levels were dry-screened and then wet-screened by level. The cultural remains sorted counted and weighed by level and unit. There were of flakes; debitage and shatter abounded. Monterey Chert dominated the assemblage. Column samples of twenty-five by twenty-five centimeters were dug in both loci of the prehistoric units, this was sifted through smaller mesh in order to help quantify the relationship between mesh size and type of recovered artifacts and ecofacts. This information will be collected and analyzed. As far as I can see (which isn't much past my nose), our field school's intention is to teach Archaeological thought and to integrate a new generation of Archaeologists into the culture of Archaeology. I write this from the comfort of a seat indoors, on a laptop computer. Our fearless leader does an excellent job of feeding us all in the field. Pothunters and looters are almost always a problem to archaeological research. If you find something exciting, leave it be, mark it in your map, and notify the nearest archaeological society or staff archaeologist of its existence and location.

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