Projectile Point Database

Does anyone remember talking about putting together an online projectile point database for North America? Well, I think I may have figured out a way to do it without much trouble.

Wikipedia provides for small semi-independent, more insular communities called Wikia. We could pretty easily set up one of these and start putting up the Great Basin points that we know. Once it gets going, I think we then write an article about it in Lithic Technology and email a bunch of people to get involved.

An open source project like this would be really cool, especially if we could categorize the points in a number of different ways to help people check points they may not know. We could also set up a section to post "mystery points" for others to check out and see if they can identify.

What does everyone think?

Air-Conditioned Grad Office is now a Reality!

Yes my friends, the dream is now a reality. Sorry to rub it in the faces of those who have since left the Office of Public Archaeology, but the grad office is now AIR CONDITIONED with a "Frigedaire" (complete with remote control) air conditioner. As part of the generation of the air-conditioned grad office, I would like to say that it is indeed a beautiful day. The sweltering summer heat will now remain outside of the building, and in the field where it belongs. It seems Al-Uzzah has smiled kindly upon us...

Ay Chihuahua! Casas Grandes, Mex.

Well, I thought I would post a few pictures from my recent Spring Break trip. I went to help a doctoral student at the University of Arizona map and survey prehistoric trails that surround a hilltop site called El Pueblito, in Chihuahua, Mexico. It lies about 2-3 miles southeast of Casas Grandes on a plateau. It is also associated with an atalaya (ceremonial circular structure) that is just up the hill and measures about 17 meters in diameter. It's huge and at the peak of that hill (or mountain if you're from the plains of Oklahoma). Not far from the atalaya is a cave, but is presumed to be an historic attempt to find buried treasure. We decided to explore.

We didn't get far with my make-shift smoke stack...I mean torch. Our attempt to find the end of the cave ended at a drop-off 14 meters in.

I plan to head back down this summer to excavate at El Pueblito in an attempt to get some Southwest experience in the dirt. No money, but the place is beautiful and has incredible archaeology. There is plenty of room on the crew if anyone is interested. Todd Pietzel would love to have you and is even going to pay for food and board.
This last one is of me climbing up to a second cave just up from one of the trails. There was nothing in there but the scraps of a hawk's delicious meal (a chicken perhaps).

Lay-tar.

Self-praise

Quick FoF member update. Two of us (Jenny and myself) participated in the Fulton Mentored Reseach Poster thing. I walked away with first place (in the department) for my poster on Spotten Cave and Jenny was awarded second place for her poster on Fremont settlement patterns near Vernon, Utah.

I feel that this is vindication for the obsdidian incident last year.

Also, the majority of us passed the comps. What a relief!

Hello!

I just returned from a week and a half in Parowan valley, sorry for the lack of posting... By now I think I have been to most of the canyons along the hurricane cliffs. Some canyons are completely lacking any materials suitable for clay, however there are good quality clays coming from the canyons near Parowan and Paragonah. Im taking into consideration both options; either the ceramics were produced from a single self tempering material, or the combination of separate temper and clay materials. I did locate a volcanic ash that is altered to the point of being a clay, it also contains biotite mica , feldspar and quartz. Currently im favoring the other option of separate clay and temper materials, although it has been difficult to locate appropriate tempering materials.

New available publications

Just so everybody will have easy access, two new publications have been added to the sidebar. David's rabbit coat project and Chris's condensed thesis. If anybody has others, send them my way. It looks like I have a place to host them for the time being. Don't ask, don't tell.

FOF discovered?

Today at OPA, Molly was reading the blog and Joel came up behind her...

"what is that?" "Friends of the Fremont?" "what is this?"

Molly quickly closed the windo and we told him it was merely a forum for idea exchange.
He shrugged it off but still seemed interested.

This goes back to Chris' question of, "should we involve the mucky-mucks"

I still say no for now. I know that Rich checks the blog every now and then, but for the most part we are fairly insular.

Thesis Feedback

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has given me feedback on my thesis and the truncated versions I have circulated. If anyone else would like a pdf of my condensed (35 page) thesis, please email me (watkins.chris@gmail.com). Maybe I should send it to Mike for online posting...

I decided to email a couple of people who I thought would be interested in my thesis (Alan Reed of Alpine Archaeology and Margaret Lyneis, formerly of UNLV) to let them know that it had been posted online. I have gotten some good initial feedback with promises of more.

I was a little anxious about shopping my thesis around, and I thought that I would share that I had a good experience. I think we should take advantage of the online nature of our theses and alert people who we think may be interested. It seems to be working for me thus far.

Um...sorry Holly:

Preemptive Haiku
Holly, you are just half-baked
Contribute or leave!

Holy Crap! I jest
But it's just for your own good.
We want you with us.

And I still love you,
Despite your Old World fetish.
It's just so easy.

Now come be our cook,
And all will be forgiven.
Peer pressure is right.

New Links

Some of you may have noticed that I added a "publications" section on the sidebar linking to the theses written by Dave, Mike, and myself. Does anyone alse have any publivcations they'd like to link to? And I guess I should have asked Dave and Mike if they wanted their theses linked to. Let me know if not and I'll take them down.

Here's My Take on the Year

Beef, chicken, pork – Gross!
Vegetarian at last
Oh I’m Lovin’ it!

__________________________

Expensive houses
Traffic that goes for miles
A Vegas nightmare

__________________________

Survey of Nellis
Baskets, alcoves, seeds, oh my
But no aliens

*Disclaimer: for those that are unaware, Area 51 is right in the middle of Nellis Air Force base.

__________________________

Crazy Kansas Man
Thought Bones was a great target
Kicked out on his a**!

Here is to another year

Sorry I didnt get these out yesterday, but here they are, and long live FOF:

Tropic, Moab, Price
Escalante is so nice
and Green River too
_____

Living on the road
eating from old AP2
Life with OPA...
_____

Drink sweet, sweet, Fresca
Nectar of the desert gods,
can you have too much?
_____

Friends of the Fremont.
Defenders of the lost ones.
They will rise again.
_____

Silicon and dust
Techno-Archaeology,
Future meets the past.
_____

Flakes and Stone Tools;
Manos and Metates too.
Love the stones and bones.

Odes to Field Schools

As I sit here guilty,
Thinking on the tents to check
And equipment needs:

First Escalante-
Not like later and Club Sean,
Stories now depress.

First Santa Clara-
Research design looks groovy,
Will we have a cook?

Field trip to first camp-
These kids will be spoiled rotten
Flush toilets, showers!

Now and then

They did what! No way
I’m offended, oh my heck
Daily Universe

Molly Mormon who?
Contacting book store, uh oh
Shouts of anger

Jewel and peasant quest?!
What about Capital Reef?
After level four

Unshaven, unkempt
No problem at library
Unspoken delight

Lapdances….5 bucks!
Vegas filth, wretched hive
Bad as Mos Eisley

Provo Nostalgia

High profile campus.

Pillar of academics!

I miss Rich and Lane...

In-N-Out Burger

I can eat the Jumbo Jack

J-Dawgs they are not

Zelda on bootleg

"Rosemary, heaven restores..."

Cut it! Here comes Joel!!

Oh crap, what the H?

(Yada-yada-yada) State!

Finger for Holly

Polar Bear Mudbath

We hitched a ride with a Swede

They heat-treated wha?!

Celebration Haikus

Tribute to the Blog:

A brilliant blog
Established in great wisdom
Idea exchange

ASU, OU
UNLV, BYU
Interscholastic!

Tribute to the Fremont

Long lost farming friends
Defamed, slandered...Foragers?
Peripheral pals.

Five Finger Ridge site
Important Contribution
Ignored by Utah

A constant culture
Or variable Sevier?
I vote for constant

Tribute (or lament) to the MPC

Plum blossoms outside
Cool breeze, light April showers
Stuffy in this place


Will we get AC?
Only April, sweltering
Can't wait for July

April 6th -- One year of FOF

I just noticed that Thursday will mark the 1 year anniversary of Friends of the Fremont. Any ideas on how to celebrate? Perhaps we should all submit a haiku in commemoration...

Haiku Lament

What was I thinking?
Spread much too thin, now too late
Long days, longer nights

Hi,

Hi Chris, Folsom8k, and others…
First of all thanks for letting me join the Blog, it seems to be a good group of people that are passionate about archaeology. As was requested here’s little about myself; as of now I am looking for work in archeology, having applied to various CRM firms and BLM offices. I want to gain more practical experience in archaeology. I am also applying to grad school, with the goal of entering in the fall of 2007.
All the work I have been doing recently in archeology has been of my own interest. I have been working on sourcing materials such as obsidian and clays. In October I spent two weeks collecting samples from obsidian locations, which were submitted for xrf analysis. However my main interest has been sourcing the clay materials for SVG ceramics. I have spent three weeks hiking around Parowan valley analyzing the geology and collecting samples. I have done this work so far, keeping in mind all the issues presented in the paper by,
Dean E. Arnold, Hector Neff, Ronald L. Bishop.
“Compositional Analysis and “Sources” of pottery: An Ethnoarcheological Approach” 1991
This topic has interested me, mainly because I love ceramics, archeology and the Great Basin, and working with these ceramics is a combination of all three. I was first introduced to Fremont archaeology in the Eagle Valley field school hosted by Uc Davis. Since then I have been working with Clint, and developing various project ideas.

Abbreviated Thesis

I've managed to cut the main point of my thesis down to about 35 pages in preparation for publication. This is probably much more readable than the full text. I have a pdf of the draft if anyone would care to look at it. I would appreciate comments before submitting it for publication.

Cady has a copy of the pdf the Provo folks could get, otherwise email me (watkins.chris@gmail .com) for a copy.