Exciting News from Wolf Village

Just in case you didn't know, Wolf Village is amazing. We're wrapping up the 2013 field school right now and because I don't feel like reading through any more of JEC's comments to the concluding chapter of my thesis, I figured I'd post an update. Anyways...

Remember the large oversized pit structure (Structure 2) we dug last year that we argue is communal?

Well, we went back this year to explore a feature we found at the southern end of our 2011 exploratory trench and found this cute little feature that we're interpreting as an antechamber to the structure.

We also continued excavation in a pithouse that we identified last year (Structure 8). It turns out that the pithouse is much bigger than we thought (nothing near the size of Structure 2, but still, large enough to be considered oversized even at Wolf Village where the residential structures are fairly large to begin with).

Especially with the large hearth, we're kinda thinking that this structure may be similar to Structure 57 at Five Finger Ridge, which Rich interpreted as an oversized pithouse that served both as a residence for someone of higher status and for some community purposes. But we'll have to do a lot more analysis before we can actually say if that's a decent interpretation or not.

We did some additional testing near Structure 2 and found this residential pithouse (Structure 9).

It's subrectangular with a pretty deep vent shaft (that was very awkward for me and Katie to excavate) and had several burned beams lying on the use surface. Hopefully we'll get some good dendro. dates off of them.

And last but not least, remember the adobe surface house (Structure 1) that Scott dug in 2009?

And that Katie continued excavation of in 2010 and discovered had a second room?

We thought a second room was pretty cool, but we've always wanted to trench to the north of Structure 1. We got distracted by Structure 2 until this year though. Good thing we finally did that trench, because we found a few more rooms...

Katie and I went out and excavated the three small storerooms, but other than that we only barely had time to trace the walls. (Sorry, I know the pictures aren't the easiest to see anything in.)

But you can see the outline of the tops of the walls of the two rooms from 2011 in the background of that last photo. Now we're thinking that Structure 1 has at least six rooms and possibly as many as 9 (we haven't quite figured out what's going on at the north end of the structure though, so those numbers could change completely by the next time we talk about this). Is it Heartbreak Hotel 2.0?

They might have taller walls, but we think we might have more rooms! 

Either way, more evidence of what we BYU people have all been saying for basically forever: that the Fremont are pretty dang awesome and complex.

So... for the fourth year running, we lied when we said it was the last year at Wolf Village. We're in for one more field season at least. But we're pretty excited about what we're finding!

Partially out of a lack of desire to write my thesis and partially because I am possibly way too excited about this, I thought I would share my latest PVAP find with everyone. About nine months ago Rich hired me to analyze the PVAP ceramics (I'm still not quite sure why I said yes), but one of the perks of exploring the PVAP collection (as most of you know) is that you often come across really cool things.

Possibly the first anthropomorph found on Fremont pottery?  Rich told me I couldn't graduate until I found the head- I think it may be a long summer. 

Update on Wolf Village

Most of you know (because we are excited about it and shameless about self-promoting with the newspapers here) that the BYU archaeology field school spent another season at Wolf Village in Goshen, Utah. We had an awesome season there and got a lot done and will be heading back there for the 2013 field season (which is once again supposed to be the final season at Wolf Village... we'll see if it actually is).

This year we focused on finishing up excavating the large pitstructure (Structure 2) that we barely managed to trace the edges of the 2012 season. Last season it looked like this:

And by the end of this season, it looked like this (not the best photo, but it's surprisingly awkward to photograph giant structures):

Just for a little bit of scale, here's the entire field school just sitting around inside Structure 2:

And here's a plan map of the structure, including all the beams we recovered this year and the hundreds of postholes: 

Last year, we reported on here that Structure 2 was 71m2, but now it's even bigger and measures 75.6 m2! We're just a little excited about how gigantic it is. We're also really excited about the two antechambers/tunnels on the eastern and western sides. They're pretty much right in line with one another and almost exactly aligned east-to-west. Also, around the junctions with the main structure and the antechambers there are lines of postholes that we think might have formed part of deflector shields or screens of some kind to separate the areas. Dr. Allison thinks that the antechambers might have been used as entrances and/or exits from the structure. At the very end of the season (because that's how it always is, isn't it?) we found what we think might be an additional antechamber to the south. That's one of the things they'll be looking at next year.

Like Katie reported last season (for info on past seasons at Wolf Village see Katie's awesome summary at: http://fremontfarmers.blogspot.com/2011/08/friends-of-wolf-village.html), the midden above this structure was really interesting and totally packed with artifacts. We found at least 20 clay pipes, tons of olivella shell, gaming pieces, jar handles, and proj. points. Here's one of the really cool artifacts, it's a pair of cute little anthropomorph (we think) slate figurine things that fit back-to-back:

I don't have pictures of any of the other artifacts right now. This season we also tested at a few areas and found at least one more pithouse, but we didn't fully excavate anything and focused the majority of our efforts on getting Structure 2 done so we wouldn't have to un-backfill the entire structure. 

As of right now, our interpretation of this structure is that it's a large communal structure (because really, what else would something this large and weird be?) but we don't really have that many ideas about it's function. At GBAC next week, Dr. Allison, Scott, and I are presenting a paper talking about communal architecture and we've found out that oversized pithouses like this occur at a lot more sites than we thought (okay... only at like 5 sites, but before excavating this one we didn't even think there were any) and we're proposing that, along with the central structures which Rich defines and talks about in the Clear Creek report (aka the bible), oversized pithouses are another type of communal structure used by the Fremont. 

Sorry, I know this is a really quick gloss over what we did this season but if anyone has questions or needs clarifications on things let either me or Katie know. The preliminary report should be finished by Christmas and we've finally gotten a paper on Wolf Village architecture written (we're presenting a shortened version at GBAC if anyone is interested in hearing it) so more Wolf Village publications should be out soon, making it easier to get information on it. Yay for Fremont archaeology!

New work in Nine Mile Canyon. Light on archaeology information, but still- progress in the canyon.
Nine Mile Canyon Work

Good News Everyone!

Saw this story about a missing Fremont figurine. For those out of the Utah loop, thought you'd like to see the story. Lost Figurine Returned

Fremont Fighting and Insights into JCJ via Barb Frank

Hi all,

I heard a funny story about JCJ and thought I should pass it on. Last Friday, I went up to SUU to look at some Fremont remains. My friend Ryan Harrod (a physical anthropologist PhD candidate and expert on non-lethal violence) and I are interested in looking at Fremont remains to see if they were participating in violent behavior. Ryan and his chair, Deb Martin have been accumulating databases on violence throughout the SW. I thought it only fitting to lump the Fremont into that database. Subversive labeling as a SW culture!

In December, we went to the MPC in Provo to have a look at a few Fremont skeletons as well. Our current sample is only 16, but I guess by bioarchaeology standards, that's pretty good.  Preliminary findings show that of the eight we looked at in Provo, only two demonstrated evidence of healed cranial depression fractures (this is not counting Seamons Mound). The eight we looked at in Cedar City ALL had some form of cranial trauma. Six of the eight had healed cranial depression fractures occurring in a range of areas on the skull: parietal, occipital, and frontal. The other two had severely broken/healed noses. So, that's pretty interesting. Seems like Parowan Valley Fremont liked to rumble. I'll keep you all posted about these developments.

Now, onto the fun part! While at SUU, Barb Frank and I got to talking about Joel. She once again mentioned his "beautiful, brown beard" (remember that, Cady?) and that it was "like a beaver pelt hanging from his chin". I then proceeded to tell her the Wendover story. Since she did field school with Joel and Dave Madsen, this was a great story for her. Then, she shared a good one about Joel. She asked me if Joel had ever mentioned his field school roommate, Dave. I said he had not. This was new to me. Here goes:

At the beginning of one of the field schools (I don't know which one), Jennings had all the students line up. For some reason, Joel was running late or could not be there for this line-up. Jennings had all of the women choose their roommates and then all the men. Among the group of guys, there was one named Dave. Dave was (as Barb put it) "flaming". He was a dance major, but somehow got into the Archy fieldschool. Barb said she thinks Jennings allowed the kid to come along because he needed the field school fee money. Dave wore his hair in a samurai top-knot and dressed in saffron robes (ala Buddhist Monks). When it came time for the men to choose their roommates, they all chose each other and left Dave the odd man out (HA!). Jennings said, "Well, Dave, I guess you'll be rooming with Joel. He's not here, but you'll meet him later."

Joel shows up, realizes what's happened, and resigns himself to dealing with Dave as his roommate. Apparently, Dave was a practitioner of yoga but preferred to do it in the nude. Each morning, Dave would strip and begin his yoga in the room. Barb said that Joel was up and out of his room before anyone else was awake just to avoid the site of Dave in all of his glory. It sounds like Joel got up earlier and earlier each morning just to avoid the possibility of interacting with Dave in the mornings.

This story cracked me up. I can just picture Joel shuddering in disgust as this guy, Dave, began his morning exercises. I wanted to pass it on to all of you.

Utah's in trouble

Despite the main stream media's attempt to cover up the story, Brad has uncovered the truth; that clearly, this guy is the person currently in charge of all archaeology in Utah.