Books!

In the past few days I have been working on getting sources for my IS, which means going to the library with a large duffel bag and filling it with books until I can almost not carry it. I procured a selection of books for the first round of research:

All of these will hopefully be helpful in getting me on the right track. All of these have to do with chert and I am going to try and teach myself about the different stages of making a tool are and what flakes are associated with those. My advisor Prof. Nick Kardulias has looked at some of my chert material and believes that some kind of reduction was going on at the site. This means that people were taking large chunks/cores of chert and knapping them into blanks to then be made into specific tools. Today we have a meeting where he will examine my artifacts some more to see what kinds of things I have. We will be going through my 'rocks'.
I also wanted to draw everyone's attention to a certain book.

I found this book at work (Olentangy Indian Caverns) this summer and really wanted to use it. My other advisor, Prof. Mark Wilson, in our meeting on Monday, did some searching and is allowing me to use this source. It has really great descriptions and photos of chert types in the area so I was looking at it as being good for comparing the chert I am trying to identify.

Well there is still a lot of work to be done, I am filling out funding applications for AMS dating expenses and proposals and writing chapters. Busy, busy, busy!

short update

I have realized that in the years in highschool science class where we learned the metric system of measuring, it never stuck with me ....I know I know I am a disappointment and I bring shame to all sciences.

I have to measure out 10-50 milligrams of charcoal to be sent out to the BETA labs for AMS dating and this morning I just stared at the scale that read .20 grams and had no idea what it meant. Thankfully a friend set me straight but I am still having some issue at the moment as the how much the scale needs to read. It will be done correctly, it will just take me a little longer to get it right.

picture of my charcoal!!!

More pictures from the lab to come

IS labwork time

So sorry to those of you that looked for a new blog post in the past month or so, I had some technical difficulties

So far the things that were missed :

Close of the second unit

Move into school with all of the equipment and artifacts delivered to the lab

Preliminary washing and sorting being done

New finds after washing:

Fire cracked rock

Ochre

The fire cracked rock and charcoal were found in unit number one and in the same context layer, these could mean that cooking was going on but could also indicate that chert was being heat treated. The large chunk of chert that was found on the surface of the second unit, pictured in an earlier post, that has the bright reds and blues, has been heat treated. Some types of chert are easier to knap once they have been heat treated. Cherts may have a glossier surface and brighter colors.

So far I have been focusing on the washing and preliminary sorting of the chert as well as getting the charcoal that was collected ready to be sent out for carbon dating. Unfortunately there is not a large enough sample to perform carbon dating but there is enough to perform AMS dating. AMS dating allows dating samples with only a few milligrams of carbon. I currently have 4.6 grams, which is plenty for AMS, I would have needed 20 grams for carbon-14 dating.

All in all IS is in full swing and I am already beginning to write up the field methods

Unit 2 updates

 As you all know we have moved to a new unit, and so have the mice. When Mom and I went out the the new unit and removed the tarp we found about four nests and the two mice running around. When we started to move some of the equipment the mice jumped into a crate that holds our trowels and such. They were actually kind of cute and probably at this moment enjoying the shelter of the tarp.

Unit number 2 is proving to be very promising. So far we have collected a lot of materials just on the surface. Mom and I went out to the site and staked out the 2x2 meter square and removed the plant material from the surface. Just by doing that there were chert flakes visible. This new location is at a higher elevation than the first unit and a bit closer to the earthworks. I'm very excited to see what kinds of materials this unit holds and who knows? Perhaps we will get lucky and find some really great pottery.

Moving Day

On probably the hottest excavation day yet, Mom and I went out to the site. Tuesday was designated as the last day at the first unit. We had to bail out the unit a bunch because of the heavy rains of the day before. We found a frog and two mice in the unit. The mice had started to make a nest.

We measured the distance between the unit and the earthworks, and then paced from the unit to the cliff. These measurements, along with the GPS coordinates will help to map the unit later.

I made sure that the clay layer was even and that no other artifacts were present at the surface. We probed into the clay to see how deep the layer went and could not find the bottom of the layer after about a foot. We decided that the clay was the sterile layer, meaning that no artifacts would be found and we could close the unit. We took photos of the unit walls and made notes about it before closing.

It is hard to tell very well from the picture but the top soil grades into a clay that has random gray clay nodules through out. The gray clay nodules stopped at the top of the pure yellow clay layer. This wall is the North wall which was probably the cleanest wall because there were the least amount of roots.

We took a little break after all of our measuring and walked over to a spot east of the first unit where we had flagged before. This spot is higher up than the first unit and showed probes containing both yellow and red clay, which is why they were flagged. I decided to probe again to see if this would be a good place to have the next unit and hit a large rock right on the surface. It turned out to be a huge piece of chert, most likely Flint Ridge due to the coloring.

I looked around the flagged area and found a lot more pieces of chert lying on the surface so I decided this spot would be an excellent place for the second unit. We ended up moving all of our equipment to this second site and started to refill in the first unit.

As the time gets closer to the start of Fall semester I need to work faster to get in the next two units. Now that Mom and I have a system down it should go smoothly, we hope. 6 weeks left before I go back, keep visiting for updates!!

lots of overdue updates

the last 2 weeks have been very busy with work and excavating so the blog took a back seat for a bit. This means that I have a lot of updates.
firstly I contacted a man names James Murphy who is a Professor at OSU. He sent me a few links and articles that will really help with my research as well as identifing the striped piece of chert from a few posts back. The piece is informally known as "Deep Run Banded Chert". James said that the occurance was rare in the area and sent me pages of a CRM report that is the only source he has on it. I'm really excited about this piece now and hopefully I can contact some more people from the area to see about its occurance.

On a day that I happened to be working Mom and my Uncle Mike and his girlfriend Kathy went out to the site. They made great progress on the unit which made it much easier for Mom and I to finish it. I am so grateful for both Mike and Kathy, thanks for coming out guys!

This is a really cool crystal that Mike found, It has bits of red on it, once I get it back to Wooster and washed I'll look at it much closer.

On July 4th Mom and I decided to celebrate freedom by going out to the site. We knocked out the rest of the context layer and I did a lot of surface collection where I found big pieces of chert laying right on the surface. It was a pretty normal day except that our turkey friends returned , and this time they were sneaking up on us. There were two grown turkeys, probably a male and a female, rooting around for food. They didn't gobble just walked realyl close to us. Every time we tried to get a clear picture it was hard so only a blurry one is provided.

Today Mom and I went out to basically clean up the unit. We cut roots and made sure that the walls were level and the clay layer was exposed. I found a few pieces of chert and rocks but not a huge amount. I predict that we will close this unit in probably two more excavation days. Mom may even go in with Dad one day that I am working and close it.

The circles in the picture are not post holes they are imprints frm my bucket.

Next time we go out to the site I plan on taking soil samples, measuring the unit distance from the earthworks so that I can map it more easily. I also need to make another copy of the map or get one from OHS so that I dont mess up the one that I have.

Alright huge update but thanks for reading!!