Long Time In Limbo

Lots of catching up to do here! Thought about breaking it into smaller chunks to make it more digestible but what the hey, why not get it all over and done with. Then we can move on that much quicker. I will try to keep it brief. ;-)

When I left off back in February there was some question of where I would be going to work next. There were several weeks of downtime while sorting that out. In the end I went to work for a new company named AMEC. They had a Phase III project going on near the town of Louisiana, Missouri which is situated next to the Missouri River.

Being in Louisiana is the first of the reasons why I have fallen behind in my postings. The hotel we stayed in had serious issues with their internet service. At best, I could get online for a few minutes every other day. Had to maximize my online time, given that situation, so I had to let other activities have priority.

Anywho, the project there was essentially a salvage operation. A gas/oil pipeline had been drilled and tunneled underneath the site we were called to. The earlier recommendations had called for the pipeline to either be routed around the site or to have the site fully excavated prior to pipeline placement. They opted for this other course of action instead. In theory it should have been fine. However over the winter, with successive freezing and thawing, the ground subsided over the pipeline and disturbed the site to the point where it had to fully excavated anyways or be destroyed. So, for several weeks in March that is what I was doing.

But of course, being out there gave me the chance to do a bit of sightseeing and such in a new part of the country. Had 4 days off during my stay out there and took full advantage of it. The first day I drove out to Cahokia Mounds State Park only to find out that they were closed for the next 2 days. Instead, I backtracked and spent the day at the St. Louis Zoo.

The second day I made 2 stops. The first was a tour of Meramec Caverns in Stanton, MO which was followed by a visit of the Daniel Boone Homestead.

On the third day I was back in St Louis exploring the City Museum. That place is awesome! It has what must be the world’s largest jungle gym, built completely from scrap materials. And that is just the start of what there is to see and do there.

And lastly, on my final day off I made it back to Cahokia.

Having put in my time with AMEC I returned home and was able to help the crew at IPFW with a couple of short-term projects relatively close to home. The first was a site in nearby New Haven which was actually tied to the site that I excavated while attending field school last summer. We found several shallow features there which will hopefully help us improve our understanding of the cultural group which once lived at the Kramer Enclosure.

Following that excavation I sat out for a week due to that fact that I had to take my car into the body shop to have some damages repaired.

And that is a story that I can’t do justice to in writing. If you haven’t heard it already remind me to tell it to you later!

Next I got to work on my first historic site, adjacent to the Levi Coffin House. The neighboring Seybold-Price House is slated for demolition so that a new Interpretive Center for Levi Coffin can be built. We went in to search for archaeological features that might be impacted by these plans. What was found was a surprise to all parties involved.

Buried beneath the lawn were the remains of what was probably a storage structure. Its brick walls likely supported a wood-framed building. A brick floor was found which, curiously, was left open in the center. The entire remains was filled with brick rubble and trash from the period; tools, glass, plates, cups, etc.

I should probably add at this point that ever since returning from Missouri I had been fighting against a computer virus which repeatedly and consistently caused my laptop to crash. I finally managed to correct the problem after several weeks, but this, too, kept me from being able to post updates here. I have also now purchased an external hard-drive which I have frantically been transferring all my stored files to so that, should I somehow lose the computer completely in the future to another virus or other problem, I will not also lose everything (articles, photos, documents, movies, etc.) I have collected and wish to keep.

The next project in line took place in Delphi, Indiana. This was a Phase II project required prior to upcoming highway improvement plans. I only managed to spend a couple of days there helping out but still had a great time in the process.

And that is essentially a quick recap bringing y’all up to the near present. Now that my computer issues have been resolved I will hopefully not fall behind like this again.

So where am I now? Right about here ...

This is the hotel I am currently staying at in Maysville, Kentucky. It is situated right along the Ohio River.

The river was running quite high during our first week here due to recent rains. Here is what it looks like at normal levels.

The site we are working on is also located next to the river. We are conducting STPs (Shovel Test Probes) and trenching excavations here prior to the construction of new hydroelectric facilities to be associated with the pre-existing lock & dam.

The area we are working in is somewhat challenging. Here is a shot of where some of the trenching is going to be conducted.

The many acres over which we will be digging our STPs are much more overgrown. To give you a better idea, here we are at the starting line Friday morning of last week.

And this is the brush that I had to wade through very first thing that morning.

And this is actually the easiest stretch to deal with. Here are some shots taken as we progressed through that day.

On Monday we started heading into the worst of it. We’ll have to work our way through the brush on both sides of this access road.

In the past this land was used for various purposes but has since become overgrown through disuse. For example, after fighting my through this bit of heavy underbrush …

… I came across this old abandoned public restroom.

Elsewhere, we found evidence for an old road that once ran through the woods. All that really remains now is an abutment where a small bridge once stood.

But even this little bit has something to tell us. You can still see some of the original wooden pylons that hold the wall in place. The lower part, composed of large, angular limestone cobbles was probably constructed in the mid-1800s. Roughly a century later in the 1900s the upper portion was built/rebuilt with concrete blocks. Given the size of the trees that are now grown up around it, the road was likely abandoned soon after the reconstruction.

This week we started placing less emphasis on STPs and more on trenching. We now have 3 trenches open and in various stages of completeness. More will be opened up next week. I’ll post photos of that part of the project at a later date. We still have a lot of STPs to go but we’ll pick them up in between other things as time permits.

So, this particular project is definitely keeping us rather busy. But of course we are still finding time for play. Yesterday, some of us drove a few miles down the way to the small town of Mays Lick. There, we spent the afternoon taking in their annual Asparagus Festival. Even though it was raining off and on we still had a wonderful time.

And, WOW, that actually brings everything up to date!

More will follow …

Home For Now

Here I am.

Though at one point we thought the project in Nebraska might run over by a couple of days, it ended right on schedule.

During the first few days there we worked on excavating units on the surface. Once they had been completed we spent the rest of the time working on units within trenches dug by the backhoe. We did have something of a warming spell but the ground still remained frozen for nearly the first 2 feet of its surface. Troy, our backhoe operator, got to have a little fun with getting things ready for us. This will also better show you what we were up against when trying to dig by hand.

Dirt-henge!

During the warmest days we were able to work without resorting to tents and heaters...

... but for the most part we preferred to make use of them.

Now, some explaining is in order before I go any further.

As with the previous 3 sites I had just worked on in Missouri, what we were doing at this site in Nebraska is was what we term a 'Phase II' project. A 'Phase I' project is a simple survey made to determine whether a site exists, or not, at a given location. That had already been done at these places sometime in the past.

We were called in to do Phase IIs because a pipeine is being constructed that will run through these sites. Whatever exists at these sites will be subsequently destroyed as a result. Before that happens we must go in and determine how extensive the site is and what is potentially at risk. During Phase II operations, test units are systematically dug to uncover the nature of what lies there. Based upon what is found, a determination is made as to whether the construction project can go ahead as planned, or not.

The sites in Missouri were found to be relatively minor sites. Nothing of significant value was found at any of them. The conclusion was that further excavation would not yield any new information beyond what is already known about that region, for that time period. Therefore, the pipeline construction can continue as planned without concern of losing something of archaeological value.

The findings in Nebraska were different.

It was touch and go, in regards to what the conclusion would be, right up until the final trench & unit was excavated.

Prior to digging the last unit (shown above) all that had been found were broken fragments of limited value; some ambiguous pottery, a few broken tools, and some animal bone fragments. Nothing about that clearly said that this was a site that had been extensively utilized.

However, this last trench cut into what we call a 'midden,' or prehistoric trash pile or pit. And a rather large one at that. The backhoe exposed only a small fraction of it, we concluded. And the quantity of artifacts we extracted here far exceeded everything else we had collected from all the other units put together; complete animal bones (some burned), intact tools, and diagnostic pottery (meaning, essentially, large decorated pieces). This suggests that there was once a sizeable settlement here and that, given the thickness of the midden, it was inhabited for a lengthy period of time. This, then, is a site that has significant value for future research. There is a high probability that we can learn more about the people that lived here in the past.

And because of that this site has been recommended for "Phase III."

Phase III calls for the full excavation of the entire site so that nothing gets destroyed and all relevant data can be collected for future study. Whether that actually happens or not will be coming up for discussion. If the Phase III work gets approved, such excavation will have to take place before pipeline construction can occur at this location. The alternative is to leave the site as is, and route the pipeline around it. Nobody can say at this point what the final outcome will be.

Anywho, once we were sure we were looking at a Phase III upgrade, our work there was done. We packed ourselves up and headed for home. Which is where I am now.

Nothing definite lined up for future projects yet. The Missouri project I thought I'd be heading straight to from Nebraska has been put on hold. Other upcoming projects I'm aware of will be starting up sometime soon but I haven't received concrete dates for them yet. But, word on the street is to 'Get Ready!' Sounds like there is going to be a lot of work break open shortly, and probably all at the same time. Just gotta be patient until then.

The Circles Keep Spinning

Picking up from where I left off last (and this is gonna be rather quick cuz there just isn't enough time to go around these days) ...

As I'd promised last time, here's a shot of our first feeble attempts to melt through the frozen soil back in Mexico, Missouri.

That lasted about a day before we shifted to more strongarm (literally) tactics. We also got our shelters too which helped tremendously.

We made somewhat better progress once those had gone up and our propane heaters (also new) were turned on. Still wasn't the prettiest piece of work though.

Having given up on the idea of melting our way through we opted to take a pickaxe to the frozen surface. After a couple hours of chiseling our way around the perimeter of the unit we pryed off the frozen center as a single slab.

Once past the frozen layer, the rest went quite quickly. We actually managed to finish the job only 1 day behind schedule.

After that we went to ... no, not Nebraska ... a site outside Troy, Missouri to help out for a day. Another crew was working there under similar conditions so we gave them a hand. Didn't really spend enough time there to talk about it.

So, after our day there we moved on to ... no, still not Nebraska ... the Orchard Farm site in St. Charles County, Missouri; right across the Mississippi River from Alton, Illinois which is where we stayed for this project. This job was much the same as the previous two except that a) we were in the middle of an open field, and b) the frozen surface layer was several inches thicker.

After having refined our pickaxing skills at the previous sites we did better here. Still, it was slow going. In order to stay on schedule we used a backhoe to strip off the frozen soil over the final 2 units and, ultimately, made short order of them.

There was nothing of any real substance in any of the units. The best find, and it really wasn't much at that, was a small pottery cluster in one of our backhoe trenches. And for those who are wondering if I'm actually out here doing these things, and not just making it up, heres a shot of moi in action, cleaning up the area around the pottery we found.

All things considered, this project went rather smoothly. We finished it off right on schedule then headed back to Carbondale, Illinois where we spent the weekend working in the lab, processing what we had collected from these latest projects.

Early the next Monday morning we hit the road for (finally!) Nebraska.

We had a small, 1-day survey job outside of Columbus, NE to do on the way but there was just too much snow on the ground to accomplish it. We've put that on hold for the time being. It is supposed to warm up soon so we'll likely take a day to go back there once a bit of the snow has melted away.

In the meantime, I'm now working on a project in Cedar County which is at the northern border of Nebraska. I'm actually staying in Yankton, South Dakota for the duration. The working conditions are not nearly as dreadful as I expected them to be at this time of year. Its chilly and there is some snow on the ground but it is not unbearable. We have our shelters and our heaters so its really kind of pleasant working for the most part (until we have to go outside that is).

And that is pretty much where I'm at now. We're about a third of the way through this project. Should have it done by the middle of next week if all goes well.

So, whats gonna happen next? Hard to say for sure. I had to turn down the return to the Santa Clause project because I'd already committed myself to this one by the time the call came in. So that project is no longer on my calendar. (Which also means that I had to miss the Tell City Euchre tournament too! Dammit!) And other outstanding commitments I've got probably won't start up for another month yet so can't plan on those just yet. Thought I might have the chance to go to Louisiana for a couple of weeks but in the couple of days it took me to iron out my schedule here that crew was filled without me. Blah! So... unless I hear otherwise (which, as you might have figured out by now, could happen at any time) it looks I'll be heading back to Missouri again. There is at least one project there to help out on and possibly a second in the immediate future. If those work out well, that should take up to the point where these other projects start kicking in which will take me to more warmer parts of the country.

But for now, I'm hangin' out in Yankton, SD ...