June 04, 2008
Kate and Avie rock your world.
Yo yo archaeology fans! Kate and Avie here to update YOU on what is the happening in Douglas Lake Archaeology. Our class has started working at two different sites, one early and one late. At the later site, dating to around 1300 BCE, Avie is finding lots o' stuff. Working with Bailey in the "money unit", Avie has excavated lots of lithic tools (including a never-before-seen possible pottery pattern stamper), bone, and pottery. Today alone we found a broken projectile point and a PIPE STEM people. Bailey spends most of her time carefully excavating what we call a "pot break" (no, not that kind, but tons of pieces of the same pot found in situ) ↓↓↓↓↓↓ .
Pottery makes the sun shine; just ask Bailey.
When Avie hears music (Justin Timberlake's Rock your Body), she just cannot resist a dance break...
At the early site, dating to around 700BCE, Kate and friends are working hard. These girls are finding a butt-load of bone. Today these ladies found what they think is a burrowing mammal's bone! And yesterday, a worked bone, possibly used as a harpoon spear. Alice and Caely found a deer jaw with a burnt tooth still attached! HOLY MOLY THAT IS SHWEET>!
(We have cookie breaks)
Posted by mhowey at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2008
Day 4!
Hello from the COLD north! This is Alice and Bailey blogging. We made some VERY exciting discoveries today!!
This is a possible cat jaw found intact. It is only one of a few unusual animal deposits found at this site. Others include: turtle, beaver, and bear. Sarah and Hye-Jin's site.
This is a bear tooth found at My (Alice) and Caely's site. It is polished and may be evidence of ritual acts, as the other animals may have been.
This is a SECOND bear tooth found at my (Alice) and Caely's site. It too was polished.
This is a pot break found at my (Bailey) and Avie's site. It has some rims which can be tested for residue which can tell us what they may have been eating and cooking in the pots. It can also be dated!
This is a pictured representing the HAPPY DANCE that our Prof and GSI's did after each and everyone of our discoveries!!!
We are having fun and we hope that you are enjoying our updates!!!
Posted by mhowey at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2007
Archeological Secrets We've Learnt Thus Far...
It’s been a week and a half since we first arrived at the Biological Station, and although we’re not expert archeologists yet, we have managed to pick up a few important archeological skills. One frequently overlooked but highly important of these skills is the art of worm be-heading. Not all archeologists are privy to this knowledge and we are extraordinarily lucky to be digging in the northern forests of Michigan where worms abound, each a potential candidate for a be-heading. We were quickly inducted into the exclusive rank of worm be-headers without any fanfare, since more often than not, the unfortunate worm was found only after it had been sliced in two by a probing trowel.
Northern Michigan woods proliferate with worms:
Trowels. These are neat little tools. We sharpen them, we dig with them and we create perfectly straight walls with them as we dig out a unit (or rather, we attempt to create perfectly straight walls with them - this is one skill we have yet to acquire).
Straight walls:
However, for all their uses, trowels do nothing in the area of preventive hygiene. That is, despite digging with a trowel and not with our bare hands, our hands get dirty anyway. The crevices of our palms are clearly defined by the dirt that has found its way into them. Yet, the real skill is the extent to which our fingernails get dirty. So much soil gets trapped beneath our nails that even after multiple washings our nails remain dirty. Others might see dirty hands, but to us, it’s a skill that can only be attained by digging in the dirt for eight hours a day.
Posted by mhowey at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2007
Our first artifacts-2007!!!
POSTED BY RUTH MACNEILLE, field school student
The first week of digging has proven to be both fruitful and exciting! We slowly uncover the earth 5cm at a time, stopping to map the location of particularly significant artifacts found. Fish bones, turtle bones, beaver teeth, several core rocks, many flakes, fire cracked rock, ceramic pots and pipes, and even a projectile point (top of an arrow head or spear) are among the remains of a large living structure of some sort. The most complete artifact, thus far, has been the pot pictured to the left. Though this picture is a bit blurry (sorry), one can see much of the shape of the pot from the broken pieces lying in place in the ground. This concentration of pot contained some beautiful rim pieces specific to Michigan about 400 years ago. If some certain artifacts are not overwhelmingly convincing for students new to the field, ceramic pots with their wire designs, rounded rims, and smooth sides provide clear evidence of past human life.
The rim of the pot uncovered (seen left) allows one to accurately estimate the size of the pot because the rim is an indicator of diameter. In the lab, we wash the artifacts found so that they can be more clearly identified. In addition, we are able to lay them out to see a more complete picture as is the case with this rim for example. The design and style of the pot rim help to date the piece. The living structure that this artifact is believed to have been sitting in is thought to have burned, but its exact purpose and use has not been determined. It may have been a seasonal living area, but this has yet to be determined.
Posted by mhowey at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2006
From Land to Sea, by Chris and Steve
20CN63, the Grapevine Point site, has entered its final stages as far as excavation. The Wonder Twins (Set A), Nick and Tony continued to profile the cache pits west of the site while the rest of us stayed back. Six lots need to be finished by thursday morning, which means a lot of work in a short amount of time. Katie took over Nick's highly productive lot and continued to find numerous items just under the surface. Gillian and Andrea were the best screeners, tremendously helping the effort. The high point of the dig today was when Robin unearthed a slender, off-center projectile point. Luckily a camera was at hand for the momentous occasion. The pictures will hopefully be up soon for all our avid fans to see. Speaking of see, the field work ended today at 2:00pm so we could find artifacts in the shallows of nearby Burt Lake.
It was a long hike back to the site on Burt Lake, but it was worthwhile. We loaded up on a pile of pottery and stone flakes that have been covered up by the water due to the erosion in the lake. Most of our crew waded out into the clear water looking for sunken artifacts near the shoreline. The water was a little cold, but it was worth it even for those of us who have recently become sick because it was pretty nice not to have to dig with trowel in hand to find artifacts. The water was especially cold near the creek the site is located next to, but a few of the adventurous among us braved the very chilly water while searching for artifacts. It was a good day and unfortunately we are down to just two more busy days of fun in the sun before it's time to go home.
That's all folks,
The Wonder Twins (Set B)
Posted by sdgates at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2006
Another Copper Tool!
That's right, I said it. Today, another copper tool was dug up on the 20CN63 site bringing the grand total up to 3 pieces. Now the only reason to make such a big deal out of this is that the only Michigan copper source in the area is at least 23.95mi away across a huge body of water named Lake Michigan (Pellston -> St. Ignace). Or in other words, it is located in the Upper Peninsula. And while this tool wasn't as cool as the other two, measuring out to a mere 4cm x 1/2cm, it still is a significant find since it explains a lot about the trade or travel of the Native Americans that once lived on this site some 600 years ago.
Anyway, enough with the figures and such... let's get down to business. The 20CN63 site is at a critical point where we are crunched for time for actually finishing all the units we have already opened up in the past 3 weeks. Our ultimate goal is to find the edge of the site, as Robin hinted in the previous blog. I myself have been utterly unsuccessful in this arena, but only because I have found so, so, so many artifacts in just the first 10cm (level 1) of my unit. To be more specific, after today's findings I have unveiled a total of 14 Pottery Rims, 4 Pottery Breaks, 2 Lithic Cores, and one extremely rewarding Projectile Point (I say extremely rewarding because it is all I have wanted to discover since day one). Also I ran across a charcoal concentration in the middle of my unit that led me to conduct a carbon sample, which requires very carefully picking up the bits of charcoal without touching them (ie. using the tip of the trowel) and slowly sliding them into a tin foil pouch (that I also couldn't touch - at least with my bare fingers).
Point being, it has been a very interesting and meticulous day after I had to take 8 piece plots (average is around 2) which requires measuring the North coordinate, the East coordinate, and the depth below surface of the artifact. Good grief...
In closing, I also will mention that the same 6 of us from yesterday stayed on today while the rest of the class went off and shovel tested some more at our other site. While the findings from shovel testing weren't quite as exciting as yesterday, when Steve and Katie dug right into a ton of pottery, there were still a few tests that came back with artifacts (such as lithics or FCR). Also notable of today was Andrea's find of a fairly large post hole located in the west wall of her unit. You couldn't miss it even if you tried... well, maybe you could...
A great day though, despite staying out until dinner time in order to try and scrape up any extra hours we can find. The only downfall was the small rainstorm that blew in right as we began to pack up. Not really that bad walking back, even though it takes 15 minutes, since it gave us all a chance to wash off a little bit of the thick layer of bug spray we seem to always coat on every morning.
-Nick
Posted by nickytay at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2006
Sweet Week 3 Wrap-Up
After the past two days of digging and discovering amazing finds, the ARCH 487 class has abounded to a new level of excitement! Particularly due to the unearthing of an ultra rare copper fish hook! On top of that, an extremely well preserved and polished stone axe was dug out of a unit by Dr. Howey! With such a great find, she exclaimed, "I WIN!" while lifting the artifact up towards the sky with her right hand. It was pretty rediculous. And hilarious.
Also in that unit was what looked like a large grinding stone which would've been used to grind up such things as corn in order to make bread. However, upon further excavation today, it became apparent that the stone was actually just a large piece of FCR (Fire Cracked Rock) and consequently a large curtain of disappointment was befallen upon the site as soon as this realization became aware to everyone. Still, amazing amounts of artifacts are being dug up every day, and the extent of the excavation has reached exciting proportions. With over 60 units under operation now, the features are really popping on up, especially with the discovery of a post hole today! Again, Dr. Howey was the one to find it, and pulled the entire class over to allow us to have a good look at how small a hole the post hole can be, as it was made at the time with a mere tree sapling.
Overall though it has been really exciting out in the field and we will be indescribably sad to leave the site next week in order to learn shovel testing (which is apparently a neccesity for every amateur archaeologist).
-Nick "The Copper Hook" Taylor
Posted by nickytay at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2006
Another Day in the Field
After a long holiday weekend, we started the field work. it was pretty slow and hot day. Few things were found in the excavation. Chris found a projectile point in his unit. A lot of FCR's have been mapped, and a feature has been found in one of the units' wall.
Posted by sstomas at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2006
Another Exciting Day
When the weather starts to warm, the field work becomes easier here in Pellston. We began to excavate a trench eleven meters toward the prehistoric beachhead. As expected, the closer we got to the edge of the shoreline, fewer artifacts were unearthed. Fortunately some exhilarating artifacts were found closer to our earlier lots. Steve-O found a projectile point that was made with excellent craftsmanship. Both sides had been worked, creating a thin point that would have taken a lot of effort on the part of a late Late Woodland hunter. The hearth feature that was excavated by Sarah and company was extended eastward and westward to reveal a larger ring of fire cracked rock. The field work also expanded away from the soil today.
Biologist Bob took half the class on a pontoon-boat ride in search of other cache pits, a good indication of human habitation. We traveled north to a series of twenty-five pits arranged closely together. After counting them several times, we headed to Pells Island, where UMBS holds two plots of virgin woodland. We trounced through many patches of poison ivy in search of another possible site. At the end of the over-grown trail, on top of the ridge, a cache pit was found. Brad was the first to sight it and it was appropriately named "Brad's Pit", get it? Dr. Howey was very excited at the possibility of excavating on the island in the future, as were all of us. The boat trip back to Grapevine Point, the site of our current excavation, gave us an added pleasure. Bob pointed out a bird on the horizon. It was a loon, an animal we have all heard many things about but have not been privileged to see. Luckily, the warm weather will stay with us.
This is a loon, but not the loon WE saw. Still trying to learn how to use the new digital camera. Thank goodness for google image.
Posted by kuclochr at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2006
Treefall!
Dr. Bob Vande Koppel helps us cut down a dead tree that was in danger of falling over on our site.
Posted by bdykstra at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
Triangle Sensation -and taking out of trees-
5/22/2006 Monday
Today's highlight was taking out 3 huge dead trees threathing to fall on the site (and us!). Bob the station biologists manned the chainsaw as a few of the guys helped to pull the trees down. The cracking sound was awsome. And I guess Bob enjoyed it too. After all that labor, our excavation site looks so much better.
Profiling was the major task for me(Seo Jun) today. Me and my pit partner Steve drew a 6 meters of profilie map. We actually planned to do only 2 meter, but whatever, we just did whole 6 meters. Six meters of wall, when you see it from the pit, it really looks like a Grand Canyon. Steve did the measuring and I did the drawing. I always had lack of confidence of my drawing, but this time I guess it worked. Obviously not bad, and I am pretty satisfied with our profile. I kind of enjoyed doing it.
Trianglating was my (Gillian's) big project today. Me and my pit partner Katie and Chris trianglated 11 square units successfully before lunch, or at least we thought we did. After lunch, when people were backstringing, we discovered that our very first nail that we were measuring off of was off so therefore everything was off. SO we spent the entire afternoon retrianglating the 11 squares. So in total, we trianglated 22 squares and became really tierd of triangulating and really frustrated with ourselves. But at least we got to watch the trees crash down, that was fun. Our team was called Triangle Sensation.
We also had some visitors,Dr John Halsey the state archaeologist stopped by to see the site and what we were doing. Also, Dr. John O'Shea stopped by for the morning and Kari Slavik also came to dig a unit (a 1m by 1m square). We appreciated their intrest in our project and our class.
-Seo Jun & Gillian-
Posted by seojunoh at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
Rainy Day Blues
The rain started last night and 24 hours later, it's still comming down. It was just too wet and too cold to go out to the site. It was pretty disappointing for everyone. That's not to say we sat around all day; today was a great chance to get lab work done. We also had a short lecture on Michigan chronology and learned how to use the total station. We'll use the total station to make a topographic map when we have a dry day.
Still sad about staying in camp all day and fingers are crossed for tomorrow.
Posted by ssalwen at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2006
Nick from the "Pythagorean Pirates"
When you're triangulating, as I was doing yesterday, you've got to come up with something interesting to make a task like this seem fun. Well yaaaarrr mateys, I think I've found a way. That was yesterday though...
Today was super skiddingly sweet since our team probably has dug up two more hearths exactly due south of the two that Robin and I discovered yesterday. This means that it is quite possible that the Native Americans which set up camp on this nimble lake shore had lined up their pottery firing pits in nearly a straight line parallel to Douglas Lake. Oh man, that is totally righteous if you ask me.
However, as highly indulged archaeologists out in the field, we are still anxiously awaiting more projectile points or other artifacts other than pottery, flakes, and charcoal. Although in today's highlights were a few fishbones (the first of which I somehow saw in the screeners while screening), a muskrat tooth, and other various calcined pieces of small rodents. On top of that, we have been stumbling across a couple cores in our small grid of units.
Excitingly our site is expanding every day. And by now, after only three days out there, we must have about twenty units in place and a third of them already excavated/(being excavated).
Yet you know what the greatest part is? Hearing one of your fellow professional field archaeologists say, "Hey, did you know that I'm a Transformer?"
Or,
"Alright, this weekend I'm gonna go to Walmart & buy a whip!"
Posted by nickytay at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2006
Today I got to dig. It was much more exciting than screening and we continued to find lots of artifacts in our unit. We found several small pottery sherds and many flakes. The most difficult part of digging is making sure that you remove soil evenly from all areas of your unit so that the floor will be even. Sadly, I learned how to triangulate today which is not very exciting. Triangulation is a method of laying out new units by measuring with from known locations.
Posted by sstriker at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2006
Day 1 - May 15, 2006
Today was our first day out in the field, and we started our plots. Mine was pretty sweet - we found a LOT of artifacts within just the first few hours. Mostly they were large pieces of pottery (about 2 ziplock sandwich baggies full), but we also found lithics (scrapes, blades, and one partially-formed scraping tool) and Fire-Cracked Rock (FCR). The soil was very root-filled, so work was pretty slow at first. For the most of the day I was the screener, sifting through the dirt to find the cool stuff. Because we're finding so many things, the learning curve is pretty steep - I've never dug before, and I'm learning a whole bunch of terms and techniques very quickly. In lab, we set our findings out to dry - we're supposed to start washing them once they are ready. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks - they should be fun!
~Andrea
My square held a plethora of pottery pieces as well as some flakes and fire-cracked rocks. I was also a screener like Andrea. I thought screening was pretty interesting because one is able to see the dirt disappear through the filter and sift through the remains to find the artifacts. The whole group seems to be good people and I can't wait to learn more about our site with them. Lab was simple seeing as it was only the first day, but I'm sure that as time progresses the lab will be more exciting.
--Brad
We took a sweet trip to the Walmart in Cheboygan today as well. We picked up some knee pads + gardening gloves... things that'll help out in the field! It was pretty exciting. We look forward to further random excursions.
~Andrea
Posted by abolters at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)