Saturday, April 16, 2016
The birds are chirping outside, Spring is here, rapidly moving toward Summer.
The creosotebush is blooming, the flowers turning into little fluff balls.
Creosotebush.
In my backyard the cacti are blooming too. It didn't freeze much this year and the cacti are enormous.
Prickly pear.
Buddy follows me around when I am watering or inspecting things.
Buddy stretches.
I've been out digging for the last three weeks. One of the weeks was spent at a site that is quite famous that I had never been too before. It had adobe-lined pithouses. I dug in trash areas and trash-filled pits. I screened a lot of dirt through 1/8-inch mesh and found many tiny animal bones, rodents, lizards, snakes, and small birds. I also found six beads, five in the 1/8-inch mesh (we usually screen dirt using 1/4-inch mesh). The beads were made from shell, stone, and turquoise.
Archaeologists at work.
April is the month of events. Every weekend one or two days are spent preparing for and/or attending events. I was hoping it would calm down in May, but I already have one event to do.
Cannon firing at the park.
Back at the second dig site I dug 1m by 2m control units in two pithouses. We excavate control units to see what it in the houses, and to have samples to compare to other houses. As I was digging through chunks of fallen adobe from the walls and roof of one of the houses, this enormous shell bracelet fragment popped out, dating to sometime between AD 1150 to 1300. Like the other artifacts we uncover, it will go to the museum for curation.
Shell bracelet.
Archaeology isn't all exciting finds. Yesterday the wind blew like crazy in the afternoon and I was covered in dust, so uncomfortable. What looks like tan skin is actually a layer of dirt. You should see what I blew out of my nose.
Dirty.
