Quick Day Survey

 

Tuesday immediately after getting back from Afognak (still more to post on that trip) I went on a quick archaeological survey.  Molly and I flew with Keller in a helicopter to the Kupreanof Peninsula and surveyed a few miles of the shoreline.  Keller helped us with test pits.  Mostly we hiked.  Keller and Molly leap frogged me from the first stop, and while they checked on a site I surveyed the shoreline to catch up.

Not a bad way to spend the morning.  Exploring an unfamiliar coastline on a sunny fall day.  The fireweed is in full 'fluff' mode and all hillsides were white and red with the fireweed in its full fall glory.  Molly and I mapped one big village with 18 house depressions.  That's the biggest site the museum has mapped all year.  A few hundred years ago there were probably 350 or so people living in that village.

Keller left us for most of the day, and Molly and I explored the last couple of miles together.  Just as we finished we heard the whoop whoop whoop of the returning helicopter.  And then after one last test pit we flitted away in the big dragonfly for home.

Patrick