The students in my lab class are pushing hard to finish their projects. They’re all working on materials from Aniakchak – mostly the 2007 collections. They’re producing the first real data from these materials. I have students analyzing shellfish, mammal bones, chipped stone waste flakes, chipped stone tools, and bone tools. Other students are working on the catalog data and illustrations. It’s my favorite part of the class. I have 16 research assistants – all generating data and addressing questions. It’s a blast.

They’ll be posting the results of their studies on the Aniakchak Wiki. Check it out and see what they have to say. I’ve been telling this class that they have to do better than the 2006 class – analyzing larger samples, creating more stunning graphics, and writing better reports. The Aniakchak Wiki will have both the 2006 and 2008 reports, so everyone will be able to see if this year’s class really does ‘kick butt’ on the 2006 class as they claim.

CS Tool Group – Matthew, Josh, and Emily

What I’m most curious to learn from this year’s analyses are some of the differences between occupations at Aniakchak. This year’s class is focusing on a single 1 x 1 meter excavation (N462E455) that produced almost 2 meters of cultural deposits. The upper component started with a Koniag house floor (Strat II). Immediately below this floor was a thick midden deposit (Strat III) that probably dates to about 1200 years ago. About 80 cm below this midden is a very rich deposit (Strat VIII) that included a lot of shell midden, micro debitage, and burned bone. It looks this deposit could include a house floor or similar context. This deep deposit produced some fiber tempered ceramic sherds, suggesting a Norton tradition occupation dating around 1700 years old. Another 20 to 50 cms below the Norton component is another relatively rich deposit. This basal component had spongy wood preserved and a scattered midden. We haven’t dated this component, but it may predate the Norton component by a couple of hundred years.

I’m excited to see what the students have to say about these different components. It’s sometimes hard to tell anything when we’re digging. There is just so much blue mussel shell and fish bone that it’s hard to pick up any other patterns. This is why I always get pumped up when we get to this stage in the lab work. After hours and hours of sorting and cataloging, we’re finally going to find out what we have discovered.

Here is the end result. I’m using a digital Nikon D70s with an old 105 mm macro lens (the lens doesn’t work with any of the camera’s electronic functions). We have a pretty basic photo stand and lamp set up in our lab. I use a frosted glass plate to lift the artifacts above their shadow. For editing the images I have an old copy of Corel Photo-Paint left over from my dissertation days. I’d never stitched images together before – so I felt pretty pleased with myself that I could figure it all out.

I know I’m behind the times when it comes to artifact illustrations. I’m always really impressed by good illustrations. Some of the best work I’ve seen recently is being done by people using scanners. I like the idea of using scanners since you’d get images of a uniform size. One of my goals for the King Salmon photo documentation is to be able to combine into a single image what ever set of artifacts that I want. My results today will work, but I’m sure there are easier ways to get the images. Any ideas?

I’m actually very intrigued by the interplay between art and science, especially when it comes to illustrations in archaeology. I like crisp, simple photographs and drawings when I am documenting my work. But on this blog and in my talks I want illustrations that capture both the objects and sites, but also people. The photograph of the basalt point is effective at capturing the object’s details, but is otherwise a boring image. I much prefer photographing objects being held by a human hand and with a natural background when I want a more interesting image. I feel the same way about field photographs. Stratigraphy profile shots are a part of virtually every archaeological report and conference presentation. Pictures of very dark brown soil grading into dark brown soil aren’t all that exciting to look at, even for other archaeologists. Having a crew member working off to the side, though, and the image has some zest. Like most archaeologists, I take some boring pictures for documentary purposes only. But I like to add a little something for the astute observer. Take a close look at this profile of shell midden lenses at Aniakchak and you should be able to spot a Star Wars Boba Fett doll with his arms raised in triumphant celebration of a nicely cleaned wall.

For another view of archaeology and photography check out this note by Michael Shanks of Standford University. If you just want to see some amazing photographs of archaeological sites check out James Jacob’s Archaeoblog.