May 20-26: A busy week to start the fieldwork!

The 2013 field school had a great beginning. Usually we spend the first day getting oriented to lab procedures and the archaeological collections. This year, we set off to do survey work, as well. We began by surveying 40GN13,  site recorded in Greene County. The field is currently being used as a pasture and was covered in buttercups. Because the visibility of the ground surface was difficult because of the dense vegetation, students used a small auger to take column soil samples to see if we could recover evidence of human occupation

We placed these auger tests in an even spacing of every 15 meters and had tested most of the hillside by Tuesday. The clay was tough and it was a challenge to get each sample! We recovered several pieces of chert flakes and carefully chipped tools.

On Wednesday, we began surveying in a very different setting: a plowed cornfield, the location of 40WG11, a site recorded in Washington County. As you can see in the photo, the corn plants were very small.

The survey conditions were excellent due to recent plowing and recent rains. The rain, in fact, prevented us from going to the field on Thursday morning, and when we ventured out to the site to work, the ISU van got stuck in the mud. I am glad to say that we extracted the van through a great team effort.

flier for the 2013 field school

Our Intrepid 2011 Field School Crew!

From left to right: Lorelei, Andrew, Diana, Cat, Dave, Valerie, Neil, Steve, Nick, Laura, Helen, and Dr. Sampeck.

Smoothed, Stamped, Incised, or Burnished?

Features!

At the start of the day some of the units were already down to the natural soil layer, while others still had to keep digging to get down to theirs due to there being more sediment from flooding over the years. Those of us that were already down to the natural soil began our day in the field by defining our features and mapping them to scale on graph paper. After we finished that we got to start carefully digging up our features and bagging up the dirt for flotation to recover small things like organic material.

Below: Steve Scheflow digging up a post mold and bagging the dirt

Since we were digging much smaller areas and had to be careful not to damage artifacts and to keep the integrity of the shape of the feature we ditched our trowels and started using spoons and dental tools.

Below: Laura Volz works on exposing a pottery sherd with a dental pic

Some of our features had nothing in them, some had a few artifacts, while others (like the above photo) had an abundance of artifacts, including shell (marine & freshwater), pottery sherds, chert, bone and a bone bead. For the features that contain many artifacts we had to dig around them and leave them where were naturally deposited (in situ) in order to see the way they are arranged to help us possibly figure out why they are positioned the way they are. Then once the exposed artifacts have been photographed in situ they can be collected.

Below: Two post molds and a feature with half of the artifacts in situ

As we continue to excavate our units these last two day we hope to find more exciting things in our features that can help give us a better look at the people that once lived on this land we've been digging in.

Mini-Video: Meet Steve Scheflow--Feature Presentation

A day in the sun, finally.

Yesterday morning was filled with thunderstorms, however after waiting for an hour and a half they quickly passed and it turned into a bright sunny day around 8:30 AM. The weather was perfect really, because it dried out the units (those that weren't flooded anyway) and it was only 80 degrees outside, so not too hot.

We got to the field later than usual because of the storms and once there we got to work on either excavating our units or on bailing water out of the flooded units. Afterwards, some units started water screening their dirt right away because it was too wet to dry sift through. Other groups went on like usual.

I started on my third level yesterday and I'm already seeing a difference in my collection of artifacts. The pieces of pottery I'm finding are more often decorated and larger. I'm also finding more complete projectile points and larger pieces of bone too.

When we got back to the cabins we had lab on our own time so that we all could complete our posters. My project is on Cherokee dances. I talk briefly about the origin of Cherokee songs and dances and give examples of some dances too. I also talk about the evidence we have for dancing at our site. We have been able to define an area with a significant lack of artifacts compared to the areas around it that has a circular shape. This was most likely the plaza, where most of the dances would have taken place. We're also finding a large number of turtle shell, especially in the northern units. Many Cherokee dances included turtle shell leg-rattles that were filled with rocks to create music. A lot of this shell was probably used for those dances.

Next week will be our last week here and so we'll continue excavating for a few days and then begin to fill up our units and whatever else necessary to clean up. We also will be presenting our poster presentations on Tuesday so next week should be very busy.