Old Dirt – New Thoughts

This summer looks exciting for Hamline’s archaeology program. We have at least nine ten students working on seven projects in four countries. I have three students coming with me to Aniakchak for the month of July. Three Four other students will be working on projects elsewhere in the United States. The remaining three students will be in Belize, Greece, and Israel.

I’ve asked everyone to post comments on this diary whenever they get a chance. It’ll be really interesting to get some reports from the field. We should probably have a contest for the most amazing find, the best feature excavation, and the most challenging day.

I’d also like to hear about life in the field – what do you eat? Are there nasty bugs or other little critters that make your life miserable? What do you do for fun when you’re not working on site?

Hopefully everyone will have a chance to post at least once or twice this summer. Email me photographs and I’ll add a picture to your comments. Have fun and find some goodies!

Field locations of Hamline’s archaeology students (summer 2007).

I have posted on the Aniakchak Wiki excerpts from my field journal. Katie Johnson Ringsmuth, an historian with the Park Service, asked me to put this document together last summer. She’s interested in recording the recent experiences of scientists and researchers that work in the park as part of her park history.

I’m not sure whether my journal excerpts have any historical or literary significance. But, I have always been interested in reading other people’s published field journals because of my fascination with the scientific process. So I offer my own contribution for readers with similar interests. (Note, I carefully censored all reference to that most troublesome member of my crew – JAG- so you won’t find any of my lengthy and justifiable rants about this person in my journal excerpts. Sorry for those of you who were hoping to get the true story behind the canned oranges.) 

     My Archaeology Lab Techniques students are finishing up some great projects. I have groups working on the bifaces, chipped stone flakes, mammal bones, shellfish, bone tools, and flotation samples – so we have a lot of work happening right now. The students will be posting the results of their analyses on our new Aniakchak Wiki. Everyone should check it out. I’m expecting some interesting data.

I’m having some problems with this blog. For one thing, my “blogroll” is no longer visible. Even more vexing is that my browser locks up everytime I try to add any content (which it’s going to do as soon as I save this post). Our “Instructional Technology Coordinator” is figuring out what’s causing the problems. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else is having troubles. Well here goes … I’ll see you after I reboot!

Update (8 November 2006): For those who don’t know John, (see comment) I am posting a photo from 2005 showing John fighting with Christine over a can of Mandarin oranges. As I recall, John lost this fight. He will deny this of course, but I know what I saw.

Another Update: apparently I have to learn a new way of posting photographs.

Update 11 November – I can now load photographs. Believe me John, this photo is the least damaging one I have to show.

 John and Christine “sharing” a can of oranges (photo by Ross Smith, 2005 Aniakchak field season).