A Day in the
Life of an Archaeologist in Chaco Canyon
By LeeAnna
Reagan
Morning
starts early here, before the sun is even up. The coffee makers are prepped the
night before so with the flick of a button our fresh hot caffeine morning boost
is ready to get us out into the field. Students with kitchen duty set out the
rest of the breakfast free-for-all at 5:30 am and the rest of the crew usually
starts coming around 6 am, and by 6:30 am everyone has their breakfast devoured
and lunches made. Everyone walks down to the trucks and loads them with the
equipment needed for the day and we are ready to go by 7:20 am. We arrive at
Pueblo Bonito and begin to unload the trucks and pack the equipment to the
Wetherill Homestead Site, while the group of surveyors head to South Mesa. We
set up a shade shelter and do our
morning calisthenics, which consists of clearing brush from sites. By 8 am we
are all warmed up and ready to start work in our units.
In my unit
there is a feature in the Northwest quadrant that I excavated and it turned out
to be a historic post hole from a Wetherill building. It measures 40 cm across
and 40 cm down and is in the second level in my unit. Because I am done
excavating the feature I have pedestalled the Northwest quadrant and continued
to excavate the remaining three quarters. I have noticed a lot of changes in
the different areas of my 2 meter x 2 meter unit. For example, the soil in the
Southwest quadrant is very sandy and is easy to trowel through, but the
Northeast quadrant is full of sandstone rubble. The Northeast quadrant also has
a lot of lignite, which is commonly referred to as poor mans coal. It is
important to note these changes and differences in a unit because it could mean
that you are on to something.
By 10am
cookie break has arrived and it usually the time of day to take off another
layer of coats. Cookie break is enjoyed by all and usually has an assortment of
yummy cookies. Today we had ginger snaps and chocolate chip! During cookie
break it’s a good time to get rehydrated and catch up on notes, but after 15 minutes
it is time to get back to work. It is very important to keep the walls of a
unit straight and to check the elevations to know where you are and how many
more centimeters you have to go. By
the time 12pm rolls around, I usually have talked to a couple of visitors of
the park who are curious about what we are doing and excavate a couple of
centimeters more. Lunch is usually a bonding time amongst the group. We talk
about what is going on in our units, what is going on back home or really
random light conversation, which is my favorite. 12:30 has come and our lunches
have been eaten, the water cooler has been lightened and we go back to our
units to uncover more historic goodies!
The
afternoon progresses and more layers come off and more centimeters go down. By the
time 2:45 rolls around it is time to wrap up our units for the day and pack the
trucks back up. I like to clean my unit at the end of the day and use the
“Elton” counter brush to do so. Because my unit has a feature I have to cover
it up with a tarp, but it is kind of hard to do in the wind. I secure it with
rocks and sandbags and go to load up the trucks to head back to the lab. We get
back to the lab at 4 pm and get the equipment put away and start categorizing
the artifacts we found during the day. We assign them FS numbers and head back
to camp at 5 to take showers and have dinner at 6, tonight it is salmon! After
the clean up crew gets the kitchen back in order we go back down the lab at 7 pm
and finish assigning FS numbers and get the equipment ready for tomorrow for
the survey crew and the dig boxes for the excavating crew. If we are lucky we
get out of lab at 8pm and get to bed by 9pm, then start the process all over
again tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment