Day 2: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Look at what Brett found! It's a comb made of bone.

  Day two of the dig started off bright and sunny and it wasn’t long before a few artifacts were discovered such as the bone comb pictured above. The excavation of the oven area continued and several more students were assigned units, myself included. I spent most of the day removing the top soil from my unit and excavating a feature found just under the very top layer of leaves and other debris. A clear layer of charcoal was present in the south-east corner of my unit, possibly from a modern-day campfire. Although the feature is much more modern than what we are really looking for, it is still evidence of human interference and I was able to learn a few techniques for documenting and excavating a feature found in the soil.

   

The water screen was also set up today so we could begin screening the soil from our units. The picture below shows Dr. Dumas instructing two students on how to use the water screening system. 

Archaeology often requires a bit of engineering.

We wrapped up our day at the site around 4:00 this afternoon and returned to Land Hall for a yummy dinner of pizza followed by a presentation from Dr. Dumas offering some insight into the history of Fort Tombecbe. Can’t wait for day three! 

Jordan Mahaffey