Halloween at Chaco Canyon
By Katherine Shaum
Even in the
apparent remoteness of Chaco Canyon, people find excellent ways to celebrate
that spooky day at the end of October. Last night, we joined a number of Chaco
Culture NHP staff in listening to a recording of the original broadcast of the
extraterrestrial radio drama “War of the Worlds”. It originally aired as a
Halloween episode on October 30, 1938. As we left the apartment, small flakes
of snow filtered from the dark sky and showed themselves for a second each in
one of the few lights that illuminated the residential area of the park.
This
morning, crystalline frost blanketed the ground, lending a picturesque effect
to the wooden steps of the bathroom trailer, but also making it difficult for
some people to exit their tents. At around 7:15am, our kitchen trailer was
invaded by an interesting group of figures including a buccaneer, a pumpkin,
and Ted the teddy bear. These were park staff members making the rounds before
starting the day. Later that morning, we students donned Dr. Seuss-esque hats
and reciprocated by trick-or-treating through the offices in the Visitor’s
Center.
 |
| Teaching Assistants and Field School Students wearing Halloween headgear |
 |
| Jennie Sturm holding prism for total station mapping confers with Ted |
 |
| Stablization Crew visiting Wetherill Homestead and Trading Post project on Halloween |
Thursdays
are short days so we can return to Albuquerque before 5pm. We only had about
3.5 hours to work, but everyone made good progress in bringing their units up
to speed. Many of us were trying to complete the last levels in our units in
order to prepare for profiling. Profiling is a process in which we will measure
and draw the side walls of our units. Many of our units have interesting features
visible in the side walls such as layers of ash or charcoal, signaling that there
was, at some point, a fire. Excavation must be completed
and the walls straightened before profiling can begin. We will profile by
laying out a tape measure along the base of the wall and marking points of
interest at given intervals on a sheet of graph paper. We will eventually be
able to connect the dots and create a picture with more detail than a camera
can sometimes deliver.
My
partner and I are working on a unit with an old sandstone wall in it. It is a
small place for two people to work, so one person would fix the unit’s walls
and excavate while the other would screen buckets of soil and organize the
artifacts. We used several tools in this process: the blunt end of a pick-mattock
for speedier (but still careful) excavation, a trowel for finer work and for
leveling and straightening, a dustpan and brush for sweeping up soil and a
bucket for holding it, and 1/4” and 1/8” screens to better examine the contents
of the soil in the buckets.
At
noon, each team cleaned their unit and placed a tarp over it to protect it from
the elements for the weekend. We then headed back to camp to clean up the
trailers and pack up personal items. As we left the park, we spotted a number
of elk on both the left and right sides of the road. A beautiful 2.5 hour drive
back to campus concluded the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment