Public Outreach at the Dana Adobe and Our One Hit Wonder Hip Hop Career by Melinda B.

Melinda B. excavating at the Dana Adobe

My favorite day of field school was Wednesday the 23rd of July. I knew from the start that we were going to be doing an outreach presentation that evening, but there was so much more in store that I had no inkling of! I started the day in the field lab, doing a general sort of material that we had excavated. Mid-morning, the group of us that had been assigned to present the historic excavation that evening were pulled from our tasks and asked to clean up the units as much as possible, sweeping away as much of the dirt that had gotten back into the cracks between the rocks. This was both for the event that evening and for the continued use of the historic excavation as an interpretive tool for the Dana.

When lunch rolled around and the crew chief that was in charge of the historic excavation, Gilbert, went walking off into the distance, I asked why – and when the response was that he was going to go look at a cut bank to see if it was the source of any of the building materials that we had uncovered, of course I tagged along. The three units that were excavated in the historic section of the site had uncovered an incredible floor composed of a variety of building materials, including some possible decomposing granite and large rock cobbles. Many of the crew chiefs had commented on how interesting this was, both because the landscape we were in was extremely sandy, making large cobbles rare, and because no one had seen anything like the possible decomposing granite before. When Gilbert and I got to the spot we were aiming for, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the rocks there did indeed match the possible granite that had been found in the excavation. One of the things that I enjoy most about archaeology is the inherent interdisciplinary aspects of it. In this case, having a basic concept of geology was very applicable.

The public outreach event that evening was focused on sharing what the field school had done, as well as giving people a general idea of archaeology, how the archaeology firms work with academic programs, and how we all work with the Native American community. Representatives from the Dana, the local Native American people, and Albion Environmental all spoke about their roles and interactions with the field school students, many of whom stressed the benefits of collaborative efforts such as this. Next on stage was Dusty, our fearless leader. He explained the Cabrillo field school, and then handed it over to us students! Groups explained all of the different steps and processes of our excavation, including methods, lab work, prehistoric excavation, and historic excavation. Everyone did a fantastic job with their presentations, and all the attendees were interested and enthusiastic.

Melinda and her group's presentation

After the outreach event, it was my team’s turn to lead the group discussion. However, Gilbert convinced Dusty that we should be given the opportunity to do a rap instead – and Dusty agreed to a 2 minute rap and 2 minute interpretive dance. Marcy started us off with a dramatic mike drop, I threw in a verse or two, Kaitlin had some sweet rhymes and even threw a citation in there, Dayan is hands down the next Slim Shady, and Nate was completely on point – brought the whole thing home. We proceeded to interpretive dance the different phases of archaeology, including survey, digging, screening, and some sweet impromptu moves. It was an excellent and fantastic way to end the evening – or as the beginning to a great night, for those who night hiked to the lake – but that’s not my story to tell.

Happy digging! -Melinda