Filed under: Uncategorized
Hey everyone… sorry its been so long! I am here at New Philadelphia, this is the end of week 2. So far we have dug 2 5 foot by 5 foot units. the first one was completely boring, there was nothing there but we had to groundtruth the geophysics (basically taking electronic measurements of different qualities of the ground to determine if anything is there) So then we got to switch units and are now working on a new area. This area is nearby a lime slacking pit, basically a giant pit made in the ground to make mortar. We have found some pretty interesting things including lots of ceramics (fragments of plates, cups and bowls), glass and metal. Today we actually found a small toy gun!!! It was really neat! I am going to try to post pictures on fb if anyone wants to check them out!!! Hope all is well with you and i’ll try to update this more often than I have!
PS: visitors are just fine on either the weekends or if you want to come to the site on a afternoon (friday or monday?) let me know or email my mom for my cell phone because i don’t have easy internet access!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Hello all!
I just finished up my last full week of GV’s field school! My partner and I stayed in the same unit the whole time, which is fine by me because we continue to find things! The rest of the crew are digging test holes trying to find the boundary of the site (They are doing awesome!). This week we found a whole turtle shell, it was about 80 cm below the surface and its possible that it was put there by humans, instead of natural processes (we’ll know more after it gets cleaned up and dried out). It did give me quite a scare though because at first it looked like a skull b/c it was upside down. We also continued to find animal bone fragments, and flakes from stone tools.
The most exciting find came on thursday, I was digging and noticed a small patch of bright redish orange soil, which from classes I know is a sign for a possible feature (a feature is something like a hearth or fire pit, house or some other important structure) In this case the red soil was oxidized because of the iron in the soil and the burning, we only found a small amount of it though. So… there are two possibilities
1: There is a feature in the levels below out current level and worms or rodents brought up the patches we found (which would be awesome!)
2: Or the feature was washed/blown away by natural processes, we are on a flood plain for the river, after worms or rodents carried what we found to the level we are on.
Basically this means that we continue to dig, we are about a meter below the surface and we have to keep going until we stop finding things, which I hope is before I leave for NP, which is in about a week!!!
Still having a blast! and I will try to keep everyone posted about how things are going.
To answer questions about NP: I am not sure the visitor policy, the answer we got was pretty vague and so i’m going to scope it out once I get there and I will get back to you all, of course if I am allowed I’d love to have anyone who wants to come down!
Talk to you all soon! Love, Katie
Filed under: School
Well today was the last day of the first week of the GV field school.
HOLY CRAP I LOVE ARCHAEOLOGY!!!!!
Since this was my first experience I was really nervous about how I would like it, I absolutely love it! This week we learned how to lay out a 50cm by 50cm test pit; my partner and I had to find our ‘pace’ (which means that number of steps it takes for 10 meters) and then each pair got to lay out their pit. We then started digging, all of the dirt has to be put through a screen (which takes FOREVER) to find small artifacts. We immediately started finding animal bone fragments and some of them are burned! Which is evidence for human occupation and consumption. We then started to find flakes (which are pieces that are taken off when creating stone tools like projectile points.
The second day we got rained out after about 2 hrs of working, which was a bummer because we were just getting to the deeper levels and more interesting artifacts.
The third day we were kept from the field for about an hour because of some turkey hunters blocking the entrance to the site, we then got into the field and started excavating. By this time we were down about 60 cm or so, which means I had my whole head in the hole, using my trowel to hand dig out dirt. I uncovered this strange black ‘rock’ but it was in the floor so we were supposed to leave it and dig down to it but I had my prof come over and tell me what to do and so I tapped on it the corner to let her hear the noise it made and she yelled at me to ‘STOP!’ because this strange black thing was actually a piece of pottery (called a pot sherd)!!!!!!!!!!! This is very exciting and it was the first one found on the site so far, and I found it!!! It turns out that the pottery was decorated in something called rocker stamping (rocking a piece of shell against wet clay). This is even more exciting because it appeared to have food residue on the inside which means that we might be able to date it!
After that exciting day the prof’s decided to have my partner and I open our unit into a 1 m by 2 m excavation! We started that thursday and worked extensively today. It takes a long time to get through the plow zone which is the area of soil (in this case about 26cm deep) that is disturbed by the plowing of the field. After we got thought that soil we get to the undisturbed soil that typically holds the cultural material.
We had to leave our unit at the top of the next level but we have already found a ton of bone, flakes and also some more pot sherd’s. I will update again next week, I don’t have internet during the week because at my prof’s house she doesn’t have wireless but I can answer questions if there are any and I will update again later!!
I will also try to post pictures if I can ever figure out how to do it!
Filed under: School
Hello All! well its been a while, school is very busy right now. Finals are next week and then I am home for about a week before coming back to school.
The subject for this post is to tell everyone about a fieldschool I got into in Illinois. It is called New Philadelphia, basically it is the first known town to have been created by an African American in about 1836. Free Frank McWorter was able to buy his own freedom and then the freedom of his entire family. He set up the town and encouraged people of all races to come and live there. Eventually the town grew to about 160 people. Free Frank died in 1854 but his family continued to live there until a railroad came into the town and all the shops were forced to leave, around 1870.
For the last 4 years excavations of the town have been going on, there is still much to do. The program that I got into is called a NSF-REU program (national science foundation- research education for undergrads). There are a total of 9 students that got admitted from across the nation, so its pretty cool that I got in!!! I will be leaving on the 27th of May to get down there and will remain there until Aug. 1st.
The first 5 weeks of the field school are the actual excavations, we are put into small groups and each group works on a specific house/building/feature, we develop research questions and do all the preparations for lab examination in the field. We are staying at a really nice lodge in Barry, IL.
The second 5 weeks we move to Springfield (University of Illinois, Springfield) to the lab. We are staying in graduate student apartments and working at the Illinois State Museum, one of the premier research places in the midwest. This is probably the most exciting part because GV only has limited resources for the lab and at this lab I will be able to use all kinds of technology!!
I am still trying to figure out if I will be able to come home on a few weekends or not (B, i’m not sure if i’ll be around :( when you and S come) I am trying because it would be pretty wierd not seeing my family or S for 10 weeks. Oh and I forgot to tell you another exciting part! I actually get paid to do this, so not only will I be gaining so much experience (quite possibly my ticket into grad school) but I am also not going to be broke next year!!!!
I am not sure about the phone/internet connections down there but I will try to keep everyone updated, pictures and everything!! Oh and I am also doing 2 weeks of GV’s field school, don’t know much about it but its a prehistoric native american site, more to come on that!
Miss you all! I’ll keep you updated! Love, katie
http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell/NP/
heres the link if you want to read more! 
Filed under: Blogroll
okay so I figured out how to get flicker on here but i can’t figure out how to get my own pictures up… thats why there are some wierd people’s pictures there. Can anyone help, i have an account and there are pictures on it, I just don’t know what to do!?!?!
Filed under: Family
Hello all!!!! Hope everyone had a great christmas and a happy new year!!!
I had a great time during this break! We had a good family christmas with everyone there, we were able to surprise mom with her mothers ring (pretty cool!) and found the coolest new board game ever! (the new electronic life game).
I got a sweet new camera that I am very excited about it and the pictures i’ve taken so far are GREAT!!! the only problem is that i have yet to figure out how to put pictures on here….. Lets see… everyone should also try and catch Planet Earth on the discovery channel, very cool! S got me the dvd for christmas!
We went up north to the condo after christmas and had a blast, that is one of my favorite places on earth and I haven’t been there in 3-4 years! We went downhill skiing, ice skating, sledding, snow shoeing and saw the new National Treasure (GREAT MOVIE!!!). S found out that he loves downhill, which is good because so do I.
I head back to school on Sunday which is not exactly something i am looking forward to. My classes are going to be difficult and I am nervous! I also have to go back to work… last semester i set some lofty goals that I’m going to have to live up to again… Another scary thing is the beginning search for graduate schools!!!!!!!! AH!AHHHHH!AH!AH!
Hey all! hope you had a great thanksgiving! I had a blast with the family in Georgia! I needed a vacation! I have 2 more weeks of school and then finals and then I’m home for Christmas!!!!
just thought i’d let you know something else exciting! I got a $5000.00 pledge at work on monday night! It was amazing and the largest single pledge in the history of TOP! I beat the record for most raised in one night with a total of $6000 that night! I was so excited that i was shaking the whole rest of the shift!
Anyway, thats all… wish me luck during finals their gonna be rough! Love you all! katie
Filed under: School
Well, today I am very disappointed in some anthropologists who I had really admired for their research. All of you know that B took me to the canyon a few years ago and during that same time I was taking an anthropology class, well i became really interested in the tribe that lives there. I started reading about their unique situation as soon as I got back and much of my research during school over the last 2 years has centered on this group, mostly using the research of John F. Martin an anthropologist at ASU. Well I was doing more research and came across this article
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/?sty=18824 (if it doesn’t work type in Havasupai lawsuit its the first one)
Well I for one am soooo disappointed in my entire field right now, this has seriously made me angry. For many years the relationships between anthropologists and Native Americans has been rocky at best and now by misusing blood samples for many years this group of researchers has affirmed the stereotype that anthropologists have about not caring about anything but the research. This small group has single handed-ly ruined the chances for research that could be live saving to many of the Havasupai because they knew they would not get approval from the tribe so they went behind their backs.
I have been looking at graduate schools recently and ASU was at the top of my list, now that I’ve read this I’m not sure i want to affiliate myself with a university that would allow this to happen, this is the reason we have review boards to stop this kind of thing from happening but instead they continued to approve the research when they did not have permission. Now i don’t really know what to do!!! I realize that this lawsuit was filed 3 years ago, but I’m sure that for members of the tribe it is not something their are going to forget any time soon, which makes my plans to do research among them very difficult and makes my entire field (no, my passion) look BAD!
Anyway, that was my rant for the day, i am still trying to figure out what happened beyond the tribe filing the suit but so far i’ve had no luck. K…..
Well thats pretty much been my life the last few months. I am not doing that great with my classes right now, they are really hard but i’ll get through them! I am doing really well at work though! I have consistently in the top 3 callers and last week i won caller of the week because i raised the most money ($2740)!!! This week i think i am up to about 1600 which is cool too!
I am very excited for thanksgiving break!!! We are heading to Georgia in less than a week!!!! I am very excited to visit with everyone and go shopping on the day after thanksgiving!!!
Well thats all for now… nothing really has happened lately… anyway see some of you soon! and everyone else, much love and happy thanksgiving!!!
Hello all,
It has been a long time! I am so sorry but the last few months have been so crazy. I finished my internship over labor day weekend, which was fun. I am really glad to be done but at the same time I am going to miss some of the people and the site in general. I moved back into school the last week of august and that was fun. Our apartment is so much cuter than last year!!! K and I have been painting artwork and we have plants and IKEA is the coolest store ever!!!!!
Classes are pretty awful this semester. Most of my professors are just way out there and its very hard to understand the assignments, which makes me stressed! I do have an anthropology class that i like its called Native Peoples of North America, its basically the history of Native Americans. I am also working on that independent study that i mentioned a few posts ago. Its with my favorite professor and she’s been a huge help. I am basically anaylizing metal artifacts like nails, lantern pieces, bullets, stove parts and that sort of thing. It was very difficult getting started but I have 2/12 boxes done (already over 200 groups of artifacts.)
S and I are still dating It was a year in sept. He just got a new job at a jewelry store basically being an apprentice, he really loves it and trust me its not so bad having a boyfriend who wants to be a jeweler He is working on transferring to a university so he can finish up school in the next few years.
Thats pretty much all thats been happening in my life for the last few months!!! I will try really hard to keep updating this thing regularly but if i forget its because i’m busy not b/c i don’t want anyone to know whats going on in my life I can’t wait until thanksgiving!!! Love to all! Katie
