Monday, April 13, 2009
Welcome to the sewage plant.
A modern sewage treatment plant and a prehistoric farming village.
Dan.
In the picture below you can see the individual fields with the berms separating them marked with white paint. The dirt is much darker in the area where the fields were.
Many charred corn cobs have been found, indicating what was being grown. Click on the picture to see in better detail.
Pit structure with an entranceway.
Houses from this time period typically are round or oval. The big surprise has been to find several with entranceways. You can see the postholes for the posts that formed the walls and helped hold up the roof.
Storage or cooking pits.
Scattered between the houses and around the fields are many pits. Some were used to store seeds. Others were used for cooking.
Oval house with a very burned floor.
A series of canals run through the fields and past the houses. These are some of the oldest known canals in North America.
The U-shaped canal is visible in this profile. We take samples of the dirt for various studies.
I was out at the site to look at something that I have expertise in.
Donut day!
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A modern sewage treatment plant and a prehistoric farming village.
My company has been working at the plant since last summer, excavating areas where new giant underground sewage treatment thingies are going to be built. There is a prehistoric site that dates to the San Pedro phase, 3200 to 2800 years ago.
Dan scrapes away the dirt with his special blade and has been exposing houses, pits, canals, and field borders.
Dan.
In the picture below you can see the individual fields with the berms separating them marked with white paint. The dirt is much darker in the area where the fields were.
Many charred corn cobs have been found, indicating what was being grown. Click on the picture to see in better detail.
Pit structure with an entranceway.
Houses from this time period typically are round or oval. The big surprise has been to find several with entranceways. You can see the postholes for the posts that formed the walls and helped hold up the roof.
Storage or cooking pits.
Scattered between the houses and around the fields are many pits. Some were used to store seeds. Others were used for cooking.
Oval house with a very burned floor.
A series of canals run through the fields and past the houses. These are some of the oldest known canals in North America.
The U-shaped canal is visible in this profile. We take samples of the dirt for various studies.
I was out at the site to look at something that I have expertise in.
Donut day!
Lucky for me, the wind wasn't blowing when someone handed me a donut. It is really smelly at the sewage plant.
