August 2008

So my August is turning out to be the busiest part of my summer. This is a short breakdown of what I'll be getting into:

Basically we just have people contact us who are doing projects that might disturb possible cultural materials in the ground. so we're sent out to see if there is anything, or if there is something known to be there then we're sent to dig it up. so really we only do work when things are in danger of being destroyed, so we're basically salvaging cultural material.

Tuesday I'll be going to Kotzebue where we will be working on Shore Ave/Front St on a beach ridge that should reveal artifacts that are upwards of 700 years old. Since this is pretty much the main street of Kotzebue, we'll also be finding cultural materials that run right up to the present.so that means that we only go where the projects are, but that can be cool sometimes, like when i leave for kotzebue on tuesday.


I'll only be there a week, but it should be cool as there are no roads leading there, so basically you have to fly or boat in -- it's a fairly remote area but receives a bit of tourism.

I just got done with a week in Kenai on Kalifornski Beach Road where we were working at a field camp with about a dozen native kids. They were aged 13 - 16 and are considered youths at risk. They were a surprisingly well-behaved bunch and seemed to hold a respectable amount of interest with doing the archaeology. We were also able to see some of their traditional songs, dances, and games. It's a good way to put everything into context.

The site we were working on is a site that dates to the early 1800s. The interesting thing about this is that there really is next to nothing known about the people in that area at that time. This time period is just a little bit after the Russians came to the area and started changing/influencing the culture of the natives there. So what we were finding were a lot of beads but also ceramic pieces and bits of iron and copper, although copper was used by the natives before Westerners came.

So after I'm done with a week's work in Kotzebue on the beach ridge, I'm headed off to the Tangle Lakes area where we'll be looking for organic tools coming out of melting ice patches. There are really only about a half dozen of these antler projectile points known from the interior Alaska and western interior Canada (Yukon Territory),so finding more would be pretty exciting. We'll be riding on 4-wheelers and headed on the west side of Glacier Gap. If we have some time later we'll also be doing some trail work closer to the Denali Highway.

After I get back from there I'll have a couple weeks break before I head off to California for some hopefully underwater archaeology work off one of California's Channel Islands named San Miguel. Ten thousand years ago this furthest-out island was connected to its neighbor, Santa Rosa, to make what has been named Santa Rosae. The underwater work will be to see if there is any evidence of archaic people in the area whether it be in the kelp forests, or on a possible quarry site or seal rookery.

While down there, maybe I'll take a much needed vacation. Then it's back to Alaska to prep for the long winter. Some downtime might be nice. Maybe not. We'll see.