Archaeology Expo

I haven't been giving the blog much attention lately. I've mostly been really busy with work. This has been my constant view for the last ten days...

So it was really nice that this weekend we had something fun to do. The weather was really beautiful ('cause this is Arizona in February) and it was nice to be outside and get some sun (you know, with lots of sunscreen and all). This is the lovely Arizona State Museum. This weekend they hosted the Archaeology Expo and R. was a volunteer. Basically it was like a little mini-fair with tents and people selling food and people giving archaeology demonstrations.

Here is R. and our friend Brandon showing people how to make stone tools. It's called flint-knapping. The guys practice making stone tools so that they understand how the tools that we find archaeologically were made. They also really like it. Here they are working with mostly chert and flint.
And, due to popular demand, here is a video! The famous R. is going to show the world how to knap. The video cuts off a little at the end, because I can't figure out how to make videos last longer than 60 seconds.

Coming up this week: a visit from my sister!!

Field Work

Welcome to my office. I've been in the field for the past few days. On Monday I did a survey. That means that I walked with another archaeologist back and forth across a piece of land to see if there are any sites there. You walk 20m apart and look from side to side to find artifacts or structures or anything else prehistoric. This is what the view looked like all day:

We didn't find very much, but I did spot this cool thing. It's called a bedrock mortar and it is a place where the Hohokam, who used to live in southern Arizona, ground corn or mesquite or some other dry food right on the surface of the rock. They did it so much, that a little hole formed from all the grinding. There was no village nearby, it was probably used by people out on hunting trips. Sure makes cooking on the old Coleman stove seem a lot easier, huh?

Tuesday and today I've been working in Avra Valley on a much older site. We already know where the site is and are busy excavating it so that the county can use the land for a water project. The site is from the Archaic and Early Agricultural period. That means it's somewhere between 2000-3500 years old. The people that lived there were just beginning to invent farming, and they still moved around for most of the year. They didn't even have pottery yet. This picture is of half of a storage pit that I excavated yesterday. They might have stored food in the pit. It was filled with ash and charcoal and had small pieces of bone in it.

So, it's been a busy, fun week so far. I'll be in the field tomorrow and next week, and then it's back to boring lab work for me. I'll miss being outside. Today I saw two roadrunners and a jack rabbit before 6am! There was also a big bad guest at the site, but we won't talk about him.