Mini Indy

A friend suggested that I start this blog because they can be fun...that they can be a 'release' much like a journal...but I honestly have no idea where to start. So, inspired by Harrison Ford (watching Blade Runner) and a constant reminder of my archaeology future, I'll dive into that.

According to Robert L. Kelly and David Hurst Thomas, archaeology is "characterized by an effort to reconstruct the past based on things - artifacts - and their contexts." (I'm resisting the urge to cite this...)

How do I fit into this category?? For the past year I have been taking classes that teach me history and archaeology field methods, and have been applying what I have learned to a few projects around the Valley. Our most recent project was just outside of C.P., and boy was it a fun one. We knew it was an historical site to begin with, and the dozens of artifacts lying on the surface would have been a dead giveaway to anyone walking in this field. Chunks of brick, pieces of glass, and fragments of ceramics were all marked with different colored flags...it started to give us all headaches because we couldn't even tell where the next unit flag was.

The weather was considerably better than we had been dealing with, and naturally on the last test unit of the last day, we hit the jackpot. At first we thought it was just going to be another chunk of brick like we had already found all over, but it turned out to be much more than that...



Because we could only open so much of the surface area, we could not dig around this section of the feature, so my boss (pictured above) cleaned out as much of the dirt as she could, took a bunch more photos, and had to cover it back up to come back another time.

I had been on a couple digs before, but this one was my first with an actual feature, and it felt amazing. To see something that has not been seen for around 100 years is pretty cool, especially when you are interested in historical archaeology. Around the entire site we found hundreds of pieces of glass, nails, ceramics, and other artifacts that were bagged and taken to the lab to be cleaned and labeled.

This was a very brief overview of what I have been up to so far, but the most exciting dig for me will be this upcoming weekend at the Britt Gardens. All of my Practicum hours have been spent slaving over Peter Britt's homestead and artifacts from it, so getting to go back gives me butterflies in my stomach. I've been itching for this since the term started!

February 12th is the Chinese Festival in Jacksonville, so for anybody who wants to come see what the Southern Oregon University Lab of Anthropology (SOULA) is up to, public hours are from 11am - 3pm in the Britt Gardens...hope to see you there!