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.

This class is a unique opportunity to participate both on an archaeological excavation and in an interdisciplinary and collaborative project. It’s an interdisciplinary class because of the students. Each of you is asked to contribute to the overall project goals based on either your major studies or other areas of interest and expertise that you have. Your contribution may be in a research area – where you apply your research skills to questions about the site, or the artifacts, or the historical background. The last time I taught this course we excavated Hamline University’s original Hall of Science, a three story brick building constructed in 1887. I had a chemistry major that analyzed the chemical composition of the building’s bricks, a history major that collected oral history accounts from alumni and faculty, an economics major that analyzed 125 year-old bills and receipts from the building’s construction, and an archaeology student who analyzed the distribution of glass artifacts recovered in our excavations.

Other students contributed by presenting and interpreting our project in various media including designing a web site, filming a video, writing a play, printing posters, and putting together an exhibit. We also had an education major that brought over Hancock 6th graders so they could experience archaeology first hand. Our philosophy major examined the ethics of archaeology. And our environmental studies major looked at the intersection of environmental protection and cultural resource management laws.

The point is, you can pursue just about any idea you want. What you need is an ability to collaborate on other people’s projects and an enthusiasm for interdisciplinary archaeology. If this sounds interesting then send me a brief email outlining what ways you could contribute to this fall’s class. Also tell me a little bit about yourself (including your major and year). Finally, I would like to know why you are interested in joining the class and what you hope to gain from your participation. Make sure you look at my other posts tagged as “Hamline History” to get a better idea of this year’s excavation plans.

If you take this class be prepared for a challenge, some fun, and a non-traditional educational experience.

In these days of almost trouble free electronics and fancy desk top computers, it is difficult to imagine a situation where you had to fight your electronics each and every day. Vacuum tubes always needed replacement, capacitors sprung leaks, and resistances burned out.  . . .  One could not obtain commercially, or even build oneself, an electronic means of making a high voltage power supply for the counter. We needed a long-lived supply of about eight thousand volts, stable and spike free. This was accomplished by buying literally hundreds of deaf aid batteries, stringing them together like sausages, and immersing them in ceresin wax. I had a certain interest in the lethality of this contraption, and laced it liberally with mega-ohm resistors. However, on applying the high voltage to the counter, I still had to stand on a rubber mat and discharge myself to a piece of metal with an audible spark coming from my finger. Surprisingly, this proved to be the only trouble free part of the apparatus for many years.

Willis goes on to describe running their first archaeological sample – a piece of wood from Star Carr. These days, with the ease of dating offered by labs like Beta Analytic which alone processes 5000 AMS samples each year, its amazing to think about obtaining that first absolute date - 7600 BC +/- 210.

Willis’s “Worm’s Eye View” includes a healthy dose of his witty perspective. In describing his beginnings in interdisciplinary research he writes,

[My fellow graduate student], Richard [West] and his cohorts gave me my first taste of inter-disciplinary science. Prior to this time a geophysicist, for instance, was looked upon as an indifferent geologist and a lousy physicist who had taken a soft option. Today, such interdisciplinary research is not only taken for granted, but has proven to be the vital synergism for some spectacular advances.

It’s definately worth reading, especially if you’re like me and just find the doing of science fun, whether its archaeology, geology, or even physics.

  
Teotihuacan from 15,500 ft (Google Earth image 1/16/2007).

Ur from 1600 ft (Google Earth Image 1/16/2007). 

I am amazed at what I learn about archaeological landscapes when I can explore them in Google Earth. I’m also amazed at how well one can see surface features and architectural remains in the high resolution areas. One of the really impressive explorations of Google Earth archaeology is posted by James Q. Jacobs. His web site includes a very interesting discussion about monumental architecture from archaeological sites around the world.

I’m working on my own Google Earth “survey”, the results of which I will post sometime soon. In this post I want to write about the application of Google Earth in the classroom. Last month I taught my World Prehistory course. Every time I teach this subject I always begin by telling my students my fantasy would be to have a helicopter, a pilot, and unlimited funds. We would fly to all the sites so that we could see them in person and in their surrounding landscape – see them “in situ“. To me archaeology is about places and things (and our ideas about these places and things). To really grasp archaeology, to understand our theories, to connect with the past, one needs to see and touch the places and things that we study. Google Earth is as close to my helicopter classroom as I’m likely to ever come.

The assignment I gave my students was to develop a “tour” of a world region outlining the prehistoric and historic developments by highlighting its important sites and/or archaeological settings. Google Earth allows them to include text, photographs, and web links with each placemark. So I saw this assignment as having many of the elements of a traditional term paper, but presented in a geographical format. The students utilized a variety of research and computer skills while learning about archaeology, geography, and a new technology.

You can see an example of my students’ work at the GE community forum. The example is for the site of Cuzco put together by Lindsey Jo Helms.  I was really impressed by her use of photographs and overlays.

According to our calculations we would need to repeat our mound-building efforts 4545 times in order to build a respectible 30 ft tall Hopewellian mound, or 14,285 times to accomplish the average of the 14 construction efforts for Monks Mound. As in all classic experimental archaeology exercises, this one certainly gave us a unique perspective on monumental architecture of the ancient world. 

 Mound-building experiment

World Prehistory class (mound is in the background)