Archaeological Fieldwork

 

Excavating some serious smoke processing muck

Archaeological excavations are generally pretty dirty. You are digging in the dirt after all. They are even dirtier when it is a remote field project and you are living in tents.  There are no showers, banyas, or baths and the only way to get clean is a quick swim in the freezing nearby creek.  Of course to keep things light for the flight out you are limited on clothing - and so even if you manage to get clean you got to put the same dirty clothing back on.  That said in 2 weeks I did manage 3 baths and cleaned my clothes in the river once.  That's pretty good for a field project. Still by the time we flew home my one pair of pants was pretty smelly.

Fieldwork is hard work but rewarding.  We excavated a circa 1000-year-old house whose foundation was dug into beach gravel and had been capped by a beach gravel roof. We had to remove all the gravel by hand and it looked pretty hopeless.  But then after a couple of hours of laborious gravel removal we found the floor and an ulu sitting right on top of the hearth.  Right where the inhabitants of the house had intentionally left it.  Pretty cool and made the gravel removal worth it.

In general it was long days digging in the dirt interspersed with exciting moments.  In a smoke processing feature Alex and I dug for hours removing bucket after bucket of charcoal stained, rock filled muck.  This was a feature where people had lit slow burning fires banked with dirt and rocks to smoke process meat.  It was slow going, but every once in a while we'd find a ground slate killing lance used to hunt sea mammals, or even a flensing knife used to cut them up.  And then we got to the bottom - WOW, that was one massive structure - Alutiiq people circa 5000 years ago were super serious about smoke processing their meat!

We learned a lot on the dig, and I'll share the details on another post. It was also pretty hard work.  Once we got back to town it took a week for me to recover - my wrists still have not recovered from the gravel removal!

Patrick

Charcoal totally saturated with water and full of cobbles

Very difficult to screen

Alex and Dani uncover the hearth in the 'rock house' - removing the gravel was 'hard' on the wrists

wading the creek from the other side at the end of the day

An ulu that had been left on top of the house hearth

The smoke processing deposits were DEEP

Molly and crew digging in the rain at KOD 1452

Creating a topographic map of the house depression at KOD 872

We created an accurate surface map of the feature prior to excavation

Uncovering the floor in the 'rock house'

Cooking on the woodstove

 

On the latest trip into the field at Santa Flavia Bay I perfected a new way to cook eggs on the woodstove for breakfast - the frittata.  Or at least that's what I think it would be called.  Or maybe a Spanish omelet?

Basically I cook either bacon or Spam in the big frying pan on the woodstove and then set aside in the small pan.  I then cook the hash browns.  Then I add some cooked hash browns and finely chopped SPAM or bacon, and nettles (and Nagoonberry flower petals in some of these pictures) into the small pan (and putting the rest of the set aside bacon/SPAM back in with the cooked potatoes).  For the eggs I stirred them up with  a couple tablespoons of warm water and pepper and salt in a cup. Then I poured them into the small frying pan over the potatoes, nettles and pork product and covered with a tight lid.  I cook the frittata on the woodstove until done (it does not take very long - and the bottom is often crispy).

On this past trip we had some pretty cold and wet weather.  And even set up camp in a downpour (see unloading plane photo below).  So to help keep us warm and dry stuff out the woodstove was an integral part of camp.  We used a new woodstove from 3FulGear (https://3fulgear.com/) and it was amazing!  It had way more flat surface area on top for cooking and was very easy to regulate.  The stove is durable too - no screws or rods on the inside of the firebox to corrode from use and everything assembles quite tightly.  Also this was the first trip I can remember with no burn holes on the tent.  So the new woodstove gets full good marks!

Patrick

Some pretty pictures from Santa Flavia

 

Santa Flavia Bay is a beautiful place.  After 2 weeks, I sort of took living on the beach with green mountains immediately all around for granted.  But while looking through my pictures from the trip the beauty of the place stands out.  Wide open vista with sea stacks right by the long beaches.  The mountain slopesdrop sheer from on high down into the bay and little lagoon.  And it is not very brushy either - the slopes are covered with grass, cottonwood tree groves, and small patches of alder. An amazing place to visit.

Patrick

One last ski with the doggies

 

Today I went skiing with the doggies for the first time in 3 weeks.  Back in early June I got sick and then I went on a 2 -week-long remote archaeological excavation.  There has been plenty of snow - it's just that I have not been free to take advantage of it.  Even now there is still enough snow in the north bowl that I got in a 700 foot vertical run.  

But all that said, it looks like the snow is on its last legs.  I think that in the next few days the snow in the north bowl is going to get broken up with big gaps between the good snow, and will not be worth the hike carrying skis and wearing ski boots.  Still the doggies do love the exercise - so maybe if we get another sunny day I'll give it another go.

So Green

The past couple of days I went for walks where I normally go to cross country ski.  This is the area of old military roads above Buskin Lake - what I call the Upper Buskin.  I think I last went xc skiing back there in March - here is the post (click here for post).  It certainly looks different now!  It is so, so GREEN.

It's funny because I know the area so well from cross country skiing, and yet I never go there at this time of the year.  It is a totally different experience.  But I do like the walk and the dogs do too - so we'll be back when it is GREEN rather than black and white.

Patrick