Home for the moment

Well, Yankeetown was a wonderful experience. Sorry it had to end. Got some great experience, learned a few new things, and had a blast doing it. Maybe I'll have the chance to go back again next summer and expand on what we started during the past two weeks.

Next stop is Strawtown, where I'll be going over the next 2 weekends. Can't wait.

In the meantime, I'm back to work at that place which shall not be named. But, only 8 more nights (or 64 hours) to go. The countdown is on!

I'm gradually getting myself packed up for the move into the new place. Should be happening by late next week I think. Sure will be glad when that is over. I really hate moving. :(

All for now. I'll check back in after Strawtown and the move is done. Doubt I'll have much time for anything else before then.

Ciao

MySpace

Okay, so I've gone and created a MySpace page for myself now, too. Figure it will compliment what I've got going on here and help us all stay in touch a bit better.

I've tagged some of you with "friend" requests. At least those who I've also found on MySpace. If I've missed anyone let me know where to find you so we can get connected.

Here is where you can find me ...

http://www.myspace.com/mythic_voyager

Gone Muddin'

One of the things that is required of archaeologists is to be able to work outside in adverse conditions. Little things like rain should not present obstacles. The work goes on.

Still, rain can present difficulties in certain situations. Like it did for us last Sunday morning.

It had rained a fair amount the night before but had pretty much stopped by morning. Not a problem. However, the final stetch of road along the river bottom to the site is nothing but dirt. Dirt which, immediately following a rain, turns to a nasty mud that is much like driving on ice.

We had only gone a little ways down the dirt road, fishtailing all the way even when moving at a crawl, before stopping to assess the situation.

I was in the 2nd truck in line. The rest of our caravan had lagged behind us a bit. While we were talking about whether to continue or not, this is what we saw happen ...

Yup, one of our jeeps had strayed into the ditch. But it gets better. The driver got out of the jeep, leaving the keys in the ignition and the engine running, and the doors had automatically locked behind him.

It gets even better still ...

Tow trucks won't come to the river bottom. They know what driving there is like in the mud and have more sense (more sense than us apparently).

After a 2 hour wait we finally got somebody to come out with a slim-jim and get the doors unlocked. Then we were able to push the jeep back out of the ditch and onto level road.

While waiting for assistance, the other vehicles had slowly left the dirt/mud road and parked at a boat launch where the pavement ends. Which meant, of course, that once the jeep was freed up most of us had to walk back to where the vehicles now waited.

Where we stood around, chatting and munching for a while ...

And then packed up the tools from the truck and hiked through the mud for over a mile to get to the site!

After that the day went fine. :D

Field School - Encore

Have y'all heard enough about Field School by now? lol

Okay, this will be the final posting on the subject. But I did warn you that I would be back to do this. Here is a group photo of the cast of players; staff and students included. That is Dr. McCullough, the Field School director (and soon to be my boss), standing in the back row next to me.

Yankeetown

Reporting live from Evansville ...

I'm almost through my 2 weeks at this site already. Wow! They've gone by way too quickly.

So, what is the Yankeetown site all about?

The site rests along the Ohio river near Evansville, Indiana. The folks that once lived here, circa 700AD, were part of what we term an 'emergent Mississippian' culture. They were the first people in Indiana to practice maize agriculture. After living at this location for some time, they later moved downstream and took up residence at the Angel Mounds site. Beyond that we really know very little about them.

We recognize this culture through its distinctive style of pottery. Much can be found eroding from the banks along the river. The site has been known to exist for some time, however the present dig is the first 'professional' excavation to take place here.

I'm not gonna talk much about the specifics of what we have found so far. That is reserved for the folks conducting the dig (I'm just a grunt volunteer - lol). Still, I can show some general pics of where we are and what we are doing.

This is the road leading to the site. The site itself rests in the middle of a soybean field.

We opened up several units within the field. Here's a view from the unit I started in. You can see where another unit is being worked at (albeit fuzzy) in the upper right corner.

And here's a shot from the units that I went to work on over the weekend. I kinda bounced back and forth between the 3 units, keeping them all excavated down to the same depth. The ladies are screening through the dirt to find the goodies that I've shoveled out. In the background is another unit where work is in progress.

And thats really all I'm gonna say about the dig at this time. I'll come back in a day or 2 with an adventure to tell about and some more photos of the dig.

But before I go, I gotta introduce you to "Black Dog."

According to some of the locals, Black Dog had been living wild along the river for the past couple of months. She was quite timid when we first arrived. However, by mid-way through the second week she was taking food from our hands and would let us pet her. And she would be waiting eagerly for us to arrive for work in the mornings. All of us quickly grew attached to her. Especially Rex, our project director.

As of last Thursday, she has been officially adopted and given a new home. Black Dog is now living in Indy with Rex's family. And yes, her name will continue to be Black Dog. :)

The Winds Of Change ...

... have blown through my world again.

My upcoming plans are still essentially the same but events of the past couple of days have put a new spin on them.

I'm still heading off to Evansville to work on the Yankeetown dig for the next couple of weeks. Leaving in the morning for that adventure. I'll report in on that as time permits.

Afterwards I'm back in Fort Wayne for a short while. At least during the week days. Will be working at the Strawtown site, near Indy, for the first 2 weekends in October.

Still have to make the move into my new place early in October but at least I'll be in the area so that will be easier to accomplish. Oh, and I won't be moving across the street anymore. Will only be moving into a new unit upstairs within the same building instead. Can't get much easier than that.

But here's where the big changes come in...

Effective as of October 17th I will no longer be working at my current place of employment. Went in last night and gave them my final notice. That seems kinda like a ways away yet but since I'll be spending most of my time between now and then away on vacation, it works out that I'll only have to go in for 9 more nights. WOO-HOO!

So where am I going after that? Well...

To start with, I won't be looking for work through ShovelBums. At least not right away. And maybe not at all depending on how things go.

Instead, I've been offered a full-time staff position right here at good 'ole IPFW working with the Archaeological Survey crew. :D

It's not going to be a permanent position but it will last well into the winter months. I'll get to work on various site-related projects (starting with a return to the cemetery project, where I'll be until it is completed) as well as spend more time in the lab doing curational stuff. During which time, I'll get the chance to make a variety of professional contacts throughout the region. Ideally, these contacts will lead me to future employment to the south when the winter slow-down hits this region. So, instead of going out into parts unkown in search of prospects, I'll be able to explore more opportunities in advance. The end results will be the same, but the road getting there will prove to be much less bumpy.

And there you have it!

Cemetery Update

Finally getting back to talk a bit more about the cemetery project. Gonna have to keep it brief though for 2 reasons. The first being, simply, lack of time.

But, beyond that, the nature of the project itself warrants limited discussion. Out of respect for the deceased and their family members, publicity is to be kept to a minimum. Beyond events of the first few days, all public statements and photos have to get bureaucratic approval before release. Which means, basically, only pre-approved public media releases can be presented. So there really isn’t going to be much I can talk about from my end. Should I come across any public releases I’ll try and post them like I did with the earlier news video.

Still, I can talk a little about what we did in the first week.

The cemetery is really rather small. Not what any of us were quite expecting when we got down there. Here’s a shot from the southern perimeter …

Doesn’t really look like a cemetery at all does it?

Most of the tombstones are missing. You can kinda make out one at the left edge of the photo. The rest are all hidden in the trees in the background. Like this one for instance.

The cemetery is bordered on the west and north by a golf course which can be seen in this photo.

The reason for our being there is because of a road expansion project. More specifically, what is called an “intersection realignment.” INDOT plans call for a straightening of the street which runs around the golf course. The new throughway will cut across part of the cemetery. We need to go in and determine how many burials actually exist in the cemetery and where they are located (since most of the markers are now gone). From that will come a decision regarding how many have to be relocated due to the road project.

Locating the burials is a fairly straightforward task. By removing the topsoil you can see where the grave shafts were dug by noting changes in soil color and texture. For the reasons stated above, I can’t show any photos of what these look like but, trust me, they are clearly defined. Most of the grunt work was done with a backhoe which removed about the first 2 feet of soil. After that we went in with our shovels and trowels to bring out the details.

What I can show you are a couple of shots of what the work looks like from a distance.

As you can see we have dug about 2 feet below the surface. At this level we can locate all burials. Once found, they are physically marked and outlined with flags and drawn onto a map. After that we move on to a new section of the cemetery and start the process over.

And that, sadly, is all I can really say about the subject. At least for the time being. If and when I can come back and add more, I certainly will.

Field School - Parting Shots

So what can I say about Field School in closing?

Well, quite a bit actually but I’ll keep it short.

It truly was a learning experience (which, of course, it was meant to be). Many of my classmates have commented on how much they got out of the experience and I agree with them completely. There was a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun too. And I made some great friends in the process.

However, after 6 weeks it had to come to an end. Calling it quits was sad enough but I’ve got to show you what I found to be the most depressing aspect of the whole field school adventure.

Note that everyone in the photo has a shovel in hand. What they are doing is back-filling Block 2. Everything which we excavated during our time there had to be filled back in before we left!

If this had been a project which we would be returning to in the near future, our excavation units would have been lined with plastic before doing this. That way we could more easily remove the back-fill, and pick up from where we left off. But, at this point in time, there are no definite plans to return to this site. So, all the dirt we dug out had to go straight back into the units it came from. We had to leave the site in as close to its original condition as we could get it.

You really get an appreciation for all the work that was done when you get to this point. It doesn’t really seem like you’ve moved much dirt when you’ve done it gradually over a period of weeks. But it’s a completely different story when you’ve got to move it all at one pop! Even with several of us working on it, back-filling Block 1 (our largest block) took more than half a day.

Here are before and after shots from Block 1, taken exactly a month apart …

And we had to do that with all 6 blocks. Bummer!

But enough of that. All in all, field school was a blast. We had a great time while we were there. Lots of good times and laughs. There were daily food fights at lunch time, which also included water balloons one day during the last week. And practical jokes such as Craig’s fart machine and Scott’s stinky boots (which I would have to explain in person – lol).

Here is a shot from ‘Craig Day,’ where everyone on his crew came to work dressed like him. Craig (one of our staff people) is second from the left.

And with that I’m gonna wrap up the Field School chatter. I’ll probably come back to it at least once at a later date (trying to get a group photo to post) but, for now, I’ve run out of time for this topic. Hope everything has made sense.

Okay, one last photo to end with. Here’s Adrienne and Aisha dancing in the rain. :)

Okay, so I lied...

... and didn't get everything posted last week that I said I would. :P

Probably won't get it finished this week either. But hopefully I'll be all caught up by the end of next week. I'd better be 'cuz after that it'll be a while before I can do any kind of regular updating again. Like I didn't have enough on my plate already, I had to go and heap it even higher.

So here's the what...

In less than 2 weeks I leave for Evansille to help out with a dig along the Ohio River. I'll be there through the end of September. Looks to be an eventful time. Lots of good (and unique) things coming out of that site. I'm sure I'll have lots to pass along about it.

But, before I leave for Evansille, I have to have my apartment packed up. Yep, I'm getting ready to move again; sometime around the turn of the month. The catch here is that, given my current schedule, I'll probably be out of town when this move is actually supposed to take place, so have to get things ready beforehand so that movers can come in and get me relocated while I'm away. Only a minor logistical headache.

Not making a big move. I'm only going across the street to another unit within the same complex. But, I'm upgrading to a larger place and gaining a roommate. Need to have someone around here to keep an eye on the home place because I intend to be travelling quite a bit over the next few months (or maybe longer). Time to make some serious career changes and say goodbye to my current employer.

Toward that end I've decided to become a Shovel Bum for a while. What this means is that I'll be seeking relatively short-term jobs (say, 1 week to 4-5 months each) at digs across the country. Ideally, I'll be constantly moving from one site to another, as I gradually make my way to the west coast. May prove to be something of a risky gamble but I think the benefits will be worth it in the end.

The reason for going this route is to gain more experience, expand my network of professional contacts, and to look for additional career opportunities or options. Basically, I need to get out there, shake the tree a bit, and see what falls.

Right now I have what I what would consider to be 3 good prospects (museums in Muncie, Indianapolis, and Cleveland) but I'd like to see what else is out there before seriously pursuing any of those. I'd still like to end up in either Oregon or Washington but, realistically, I have to go where the opportunities are. And besides, whichever position(s) I opt to pursue, additional field experience gained prior to that will only help to ensure that I can get the position I want.

And that, in a nutshell, is the plan as it stands. I'll keep y'all updated on how things are developing as best I can.