This semester was pretty uneventful. It comprised of me going down to Sand Hollow in January, and then spending the rest of the time in the bone room analyzing the chipped stone from PVAP. After plodding through only one box (there are 14 total), I have now analyzed 900+ tools from Summit (42IN40). Most of them are utilized flakes.
So, my previous method of "just get through all the boxes" has been foiled. No way am I gonna be able to do 13 more boxes with similar artifact counts and ever graduate. Enter sampling strategies.
For now, I am working on revising drafts of my proposal and figuring out how to sample the assemblage. I've been reading a lot of stuff on Homol'ovi (the Hopi Mesas area) and despite the obvious differences between the Hopi and the Fremont, I have gained some perspectives into how to sample a massive collection, and also gotten some ideas about studying spatial distributions of chipped stone.
This past week I was near Bliss, Idaho with Lane doing Idaho Power stuff for Mr. Baker. We documented several sites along the Snake River. Cool stuff up there. We found several points, some late prehistoric ceramics, sandstone shaft smoothers, and a few rock shelters. Apparently the week before I went up, they found a burial. Shane was all over it. Not much left, just some vertebrae and teeth.
We did find a really cool site near the banks of Salmon Falls that, according to his journal, was visited by John C. Fremont. He and his cronies traded with the Shoshone for dried Salmon and spent some time near the falls. The site was very large with lots of groundstone, shell, chipped stone, rock art, and circular features with upright slabs. There was also a historic component, stacked stone walls and a ditch. It was pretty picked over by visitors to the site (read: looters) and little has been done to preserve it. After finding several looter pits, Lane shook his head and uttered, "Bastards." He then lamented Idaho's neglect for this historically significant site. Hopefully, with some strong suggestions to put it on the register, it will get there. We could have easily spent three days recording that site due to the massive amount of stuff there.
I wish there was more to report, but I didn't take any cool classes, and I've been doing a lot of analysis so there isn't much else to say.
2 comments:
I'm glad you guys didn't get hit by any arrows from Tara B.'s brother. That guy is a local legend is Bliss, ID.
I know, and I kept fearing that I would run into one of the Brizz clan whilst in their territory...
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