Lecture in Salt Lake City, Friday, May 7th.

I am giving a lecture next Friday at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City.  I will speak at 7 P.M. in the museum auditorium, and their new exhibit of pottery will be open.  The exhibit grew out of the Potters of the Gathering show from last year, but is a new show curated by Kirk Henrichsen.  They will have several archaeological objects on view from both the Utah Pottery Project and Utah State Parks collections, as well as antiques from the Gary and Jill Thompson Collection and the Church History Museum's own collection.

I will talk about last summer's excavation of the Davenport Family Pottery Shop in Parowan.  The museum asked for my abstract and title, and this is what I sent:

Ten Years of The Utah Pottery Project: Archaeological Questions and Answers.

After more than ten years of preparation, Timothy Scarlett led industrial archaeology students last summer to undertake the first major archaeological excavation of a pioneer-era Latter-day Saint pottery shop. In an illustrated lecture, Dr. Scarlett will overview the scholarship of Utah Pottery Project and explain the last summer's discoveries at the site of the Davenport Family Pottery Shop in Parowan, Utah (1855-1888). The results of that excavation and ongoing laboratory research open a fascinating window into challenges and struggles faced by Utah's nineteenth century potters and their families.

Bleeding for my craft

Hi All,

A brief update from the lab. Today I taught the students how to make stone tools, often called "flint knapping." Several of the students were really looking forward to this activity. They were pretty excited to try working the obsidian nodules into biface tools.

I'm afraid there weren't any budding Homo erectus the group, but they could have passed for Homo habilus.

All in all, however, they did better than Jessica and me. The total injury count (requiring band-aids):

Professor: 2

TA: 2

Class: 1 (and there are five of them!)
Next week, we are going to talk about glassmaking and archaeological analysis of glass, but we will also pull out the lithic fragments from the Davenport site and apply some of the practical skills everyone learned, using the new vocabulary to say, "This is the proximal and medial segment of a secondary reduction flake, complete with hackle lines and an eraillure scar indicating the striking platform above the bulb of percussion."

Mobile blog post

Davenport Dig Review

Last night Jessica and I presented a summary of the summer's discoveries in Parowan. The city staff booked us into the historic Aladdin Theater, the old movie house that they converted into a community theater. About 100 people came out to see our presentation! Nur Kausar wrote a nice summary for this morning's Cedar City Daily News.

I gave an overview of the Utah Pottery Project and then Jessica took the audience through the site, explaining the different buildings and activity areas we had uncovered. After the overview, I spoke about the experimental research we undertook before this summer and what directions our research may take us in the future.

I undertook this entire research dig as a kind of public archaeology. We opened the site and welcomed visitors all day and every day. I operated the dig in this manner because I believe strongly in community-based public archaeology. Public archaeology showcases archaeological research as a collaborative process, like a journey of discovery. I invited people from Parowan's different communities to join us as partners in the research, instead of subjects or consultants. We have been building relationships with the community and I hope that our partnerships continue to flourish in the future as we consider future research and public programming, such as imagining the operating replica of the Davenport Pottery site for the Iron Mission State Park Museum.

Of course, as a public archaeology program, we are seeking partners who want to facilitate the research and community partnerships by providing scholarships and support for students to work it the lab and field studies. If you are interested, please click here for more information on how you can help as an individual, a foundation, or an corporation.

Last night's public lecture and presentation was an opportunity to give a more formal summary of what we have accomplished thus far. I was also able to extend our deep thanks to the members of the community who have prepared treats for the research team - from delivering burritos or cookies to the dig, hosting picnic dinners for us, and inviting us to swim in their pools. I don't think I've ever felt so welcomed by a community.

I am very grateful to the Utah Humanities Council for their financial support of the public programming elements of this field project. The UHC also supported my early attempts to get the project going, which resulted in the current programmatic agreement between Michigan Tech and Utah State Parks. As I said last night, the UHC asks that each event sponsored by their organization include this statement:

"This program has received funding from the Utah Humanities Council. The Utah Humanities Council promotes understanding of diverse traditions, values, and ideas through informed public discussion."

Final Week's Big Push

We have started our final week at the dig.  This week will be so busy that things will get frantic at times.  All the bustle is caused by the two main activities during this period. 

First, Jessica will lead the students to finish all their excavation record-keeping.  This includes all the steps that they don't show on CSI- drafting profile and plan drawings of excavation units, making final photographs of each unit, writing draft reports about the stratigraphic layers and features in each excavation area, and finishing initial artifact processing, cataloging, and inventory so the bags can be packed and transported back to Michigan Tech's Industrial Archaeology Lab.

During all the recording and processing, we'll also have lots of visitors to the site and several public programming activities.  This is the best time to visit a dig, since we are at the maximum extent of excavation for the season.  People can now see all the architecture and features that we've been able to expose.  We kicked off our public programming last night with a talk in Parowan. I'll write more about that talk in a post soon.  We have lectures and site tours all this week, including Michigan Tech Alumni today, a brown bag and lecture in Cedar City on Monday, then the Sons of the Utah Pioneers, the Boy Scouts, some type of event with visitors in town for the glider festival.

We will try to get more blog posts up

 this weekend, and I am going to send students to the library so they can write.  We have many interesting details to report.  In the meantime, here are some photos of people and scenes from the dig and around Parowan:

Mark at the screen.

Jessica and Frank talking things over.
Andy brushing off masonry.
Mike starting his last unit.
Renée is now fearless with the mattock.

Me at the screen, helping with somebody's unit.

The desert has been in bloom for weeks now.  This has been such a cool and moist summer, any plants that can flower have been blooming for weeks.  I've been saving pictures of flowers and will post an entire blog entry with those pics!

The weather has given us some sublime scenes.  Here is one looking north from Parowan toward Beaver.
Parowan is full of farms and ranches.  We have become used to having our morning commute delayed by cattle or sheep drives.  The ranchers are moving their herds to summer pastures in the mountains, passing our camp on their trip.

 

 

Pictures and Holiday

Today marks just about half way through our field season!  We are in the middle of a break and the students are on holiday, driving among the beautiful landscapes of southern Utah.  We start excavation again on Friday.  I thought this was an opportune time to put up a few pictures of the site showing the total extent of our excavations.  

This picture is of the first kiln we discovered, showing the full extent of recent excavations. Frank and Brandon opened a second unit adjoining the south side of the square that Renée and Samantha have dug.  They have exposed more of the kiln's floor, but we are puzzled because they have not uncovered part of the exterior wall and flue system, and we haven't found the fireboxes or kiln door.  We have more digging to do before we fully understand this kiln!  

The next image looks south over the 6 meter long trench that we've dug north of the first kiln.  You can see a pair of stone foundations that Samantha, Mark, and Mike have exposed.  The foundations are substantial and the artifact preservation in the units is extraordinary.  I have a theory about the purpose of this building, but I'm withholding speculations until we have a little more evidence.  

The final photo shows an overall view looking south toward the mountains.  The wide angle lens distorts the image, making the mountains look small and the site narrow, but it captures the arrangements of the excavation units.

In my next post, I'll describe how the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together. Readers might notice that the students have been signing up as coauthors on the blog.  I hope some of them will start making posts next week, telling what they've learned about their discoveries and the process and practice of public archaeology.

Please help support our research

After some conversations with visitors to the site over this holiday weekend, I realized that I needed to explain our project's funding and the urgent need for support.  This is a public archaeology project. The research is dependent upon tax-deducible gifts from private individuals who discover our work and decide that what we are doing is important and should continue.

Many people seem to be under the impression that a patron or foundation is sponsoring our work at the Davenport Pottery Site in Parowan, Utah.  To be blunt, people think we have a sugar daddy.  This is not true and it is important that people understand how this project came into being- archaeology research doesn't "just happen."

I have cobbled together enough support to run the field school.  Several partners or patrons are helping, mostly through in-kind donations of logistical support.  I thought I would give readers an idea of what it takes to make a field school happen:

The Iron Mission State Park Museum is making most of our photocopies and letting us bring the students there for lectures.  In addition Todd Prince, the park director, and Ryan Paul, the curator, have both given guest lectures or led field trips, teaching the students about Iron County prehistory and history.  Todd has extensive experience in Utah prehistory and stands ready to help us with the consultation process if we discover any prehistoric remains.

The City of Parowan and The Dixie National Forest worked together to get us a waiver so we could camp in the Five Mile Picnic Area at no cost.  The camp or hotel fees are a big part of field work expenses, so this support was critical.  Parowan City staff have also been very helpful because they found us a secure storage location, give us access to potable water, help with equipment for specific field needs, and are keeping up the campground.

The archaeology faculty and staff at Southern Utah University's Archaeological Repository lent us a bunch of equipment for our field camp, including some extra tents, cooking gear, and potable water tanks.  I am in debt to both Barbara Frank and Emily Dean for their help.

Utah State Parks will lend us some equipment and help with back filling and earth moving.

The Matheson family have given us permission to work on their land and promised to donate the artifact collection to the state.

Michigan Technological University awarded me a small grant that will cover about 1/2 of the vehicle costs from the motor pool.  The Department of Social Sciences is also supporting some of the students during their time here, through small scholarships or hourly pay, and helped cover some of Chuck Young's travel costs to come out and bring the geophysics equipment. Chuck paid the balance out of his pocket.  The department also let me teach the field school class, despite the fact that enrollment was well below the cut-off point that makes a class viable.

The Register of Professional Archaeologists also provided a scholarship award to the project. This helped students to enroll who might not have otherwise been able to afford to attend.

The Utah Humanities Council awarded State Parks a small grant to help us tie the exhibit and the excavation together in some public programs.

That is how we made the field school happen.

The analysis and write up of this excavation and the ongoing research are separate issues.  We will return to our lab at MTU with tens of thousands of artifacts to analyze and research to complete.  Without any donations or support, I will spend the next ten years studying the collection and writing a manuscript, working on occasional Sundays and during future months of August.  I will not return to the field in Utah again until that is finished.  It would be unethical for me to collect more excavation data without reporting on what we'd already gathered.

With your gifts of support, however, we could finish the analysis in a year, help the Iron Mission Museum design their replica exhibit of the Davenport Pottery for the Ironworks Homestead, and set up another study in Parowan or another pottery site.  The key to making this happen is gifts in support of student scholarships and analysis.  As you read in the list above, lots of organizations can give in-kind and logistical support. None of the organizations with which I've partnered can support students working in the lab.  We are looking for partners to join us in our research effort by supporting students and other direct costs.  The partners could be communities, businesses, or private patrons who wish to ensure that the archaeological study of Utah's historic-era pottery heritage continues before more of the sites are destroyed.

The way that the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program at Michigan Tech operates, we find sponsors that support our students while the faculty donate our time to various research projects.  We collaborate in this way.  I don't get paid out of donations from the public-- the university already pays me to teach students and do research, so I don't need money for my salary.  We use your donations to support graduate and undergraduate students and direct research costs (gas for the truck and van, Neutron Activation Analysis and other archaeometry, etc.)

Here are some things for which I need immediate support:

If I can find support for Jessica Montcalm, she can work on this project full time as her MS thesis, instead of waiting on tables or holding another part time job while finishing her studies- M.S. student tuition waiver, 2009-10-  $12,000

To get the lab work going, we need funds to support undergraduates working in the lab.  They help Jessica and me with the cleaning, cataloging, refitting studies (pottery jigsaw puzzles), and other analyses-  Undergraduate student lab staff- $5,000

Vehicles cost us money when we take them from the Motor Pool.  Right now, I am on the hook for gas and rental costs- $1,500 

The science costs money.  Neutron Activation Analysis, analysis of animal bones, charcoal identification, LA-ICP-MS all cost about $20, $50, or $100 per sample- Scientific testing:- $2,000

Every little gift helps!  Your gift of $20 lets me buy one scientific test.  For example, I might be able to compare the chemistry of Thomas Davenport's raw clay and his finished products, or study the charcoal to determine what type of fuel burned to heat the kiln.  

Gifts at any level are tax deductible.

Donations can be made to a special account at the Michigan Tech Fund by clicking here. Individuals who wish to give money to organizations in Utah can make donations by sending checks to the Iron Mission Museum Foundation (Davenport Pottery Project), 585 North Main, Cedar City, Utah 84720-1079.

I offer my deepest thanks our past supporters, including the students who invested their time and finances in the research.

Kiln pics

We have dug about as far as we can on the kiln. Before we go any further, we must open up another unit to expose more foundation surface.

In these photos, you are seeing the kiln floor. Beneath the floor, on which pottery sat during firing, there is a system of arched or vaulted flues moving hot air as well as fire boxes where the Davenports could add wood or coal.

We will see.

I promise to write more about the other units soon.











Mobile blog post

Digging after the rain.

We are back at work after an evening of record-setting rain.  We had to quit a bit early yesterday as some thunderstorm cells moved over Parowan.  Most of the crew went up to camp at about 3:45 as the storm blew in.  Jessica, Guy and I stayed behind to wait out the rain with our volunteers.  Kirk, Ester, and India Henrichsen came down to work with us yesterday and their work went beyond the call of duty when they shoveled and screened through the rain.

This morning is beautiful, as shown by this picture of Frank at the screen.  The only camp problem brought on by the rain overnight concerned poor Renée, who cheerfully announced to the rest of us that she now has a waterbed in her tent.

Renée and Samantha are finishing their drawing of the kiln, now fully exposed and cleaned up in their unit:

Yesterday while everyone was digging, I spent some more time with Chuck Young's magnetometer maps.  I scaled his maps and plotted Renée and Sam's discovery on top of it. In my drawing, the black box represents their 2x2 meter excavation unit.  The white circle represents a general guess about the kiln size.  The point of my efforts was to try and figure out how well the geophysical map captured what we have found in the ground.  This type of effort is generally called "ground truthing" in remote sensing:

As you can see, I think we have a remarkable match between the image and the discoveries.  Keep in mind that the red and blue colors are the opposite poles of a magnetic field (the north and south).  If you were in school and even did the experiment where you shake iron filings onto a piece of paper with a magnet underneath, you can imagine the blue and red as the two different sides of the magnetic field that become visible in the filings.

Chuck Young is still working on the data, refining his initial map that I used above.  He has sent me a draft of the new map, which I rescaled and drew upon.  You can see the magnetic field of what is probably a second kiln just north (below) of the current kiln on the plot below:
So my current theory is that there are two kilns, side by side on the north-south axis here, each with blue-red poles.  In order to find out if the map really shows the location of another kiln, we put in units to the north of Renée and Samantha.  Pictured here:
The Henrichsens helped us shovel-scrape the plowzone yesterday during the rain.  Michael is working in these units now and he will start excavating 1/2 of these three 2/2 meter units.  We hope that he will come across the top of the second kiln.

I'll try to write more later today about the other excavation units.  

We enjoyed a BBQ last night as Parowan residents kicked off the holiday weekend.  Everyone back in the Midwest will be glad to know that the cook prepared some excellent brats along with lots of other delicious food.  The students were grateful to be graciously hosted for such a terrific dinner.  I hope that everyone from dinner comes out to the site soon so they can see what we are doing in the heart of their town!

We are in the process of signing up the students so that they can write entries for the blog.  Hopefully we'll have that set up before the holiday is over.

We were right...

It is definitely the first pottery kiln.  A major discovery, since this is the first English style kiln excavated by archaeologists from the country between Denver and the Pacific coast of California.  Maybe even as far east as Tennessee, Minnesota, or Kentucky.

Renée and Samantha are still working to expose the arc of brick:

Sam is happy to be cleaning the sidewalls in preparation for a photo!

We spent lunch talking about how to calculate the diameter of a circle when you can only measure a chord along the arc.  This is a particular question for the mathletes out there.  I've worked out a solution in the tradition of pragmatic field archaeology, but if somebody thinks they can be more accurate, let me know!

The chord is 1.80 meters long measured from the outside edge.  Making a 90° angle and measuring at 0.90 meter gives a triangle side that measures 0.23 meter.  A real world word problem!

email or post your solution!  Show your work for partial credit...

Camp Life, Day 6

We have all pretty much settled into our field camp.  Several parents have asked me to post the address where they can send mail:

Addressee Name

General Delivery

Michigan Tech Archaeology 

Parowan, UT 84761

The camp is beautiful and although I could see my breath this morning while I was making my coffee, I enjoy the early morning hours.  I wake up with a pair of woodpeckers who start searching for bugs at about 6 am.  

Some of the students have grouped their tents together, while others are spread further apart.  We also have a kitchen area with a large table and good fire ring.  After warm day on the dig, everybody has a hot shower and shares dinner.  About twice per week, we have discussions or lab time in the evenings.

I rigged up a shower for the students, using some gear borrowed from Southern Utah University's archaeology lab, a large tarp, and some ropes. The students realized that they need to add cold water to their solar shower bags before using them each evening, just as I had promised to Michigan undergraduates skeptical of the camp technology.  Two pictures of our shower are below. 
The sun breaks on the Vermillion Cliffs just as we come down in the morning on our way to the site!

We hope to finish excavating the plow zone tomorrow and begin working in nineteenth century deposits.  Stay tuned!

Topsoil and Plowzone

Today is our second day excavating at the Davenport Pottery Site in Parowan, Utah.  Guided by the magnetometer survey and a surface survey, we have begun a two meter wide excavation trench across what we believe to be the kiln area.  We are excavating the trench in two meter squares.  You can see a picture of them here:

My field assistant Jessica Montcalm is the person leaning out of the picture (so she thought!)

Mike and Frank are working in the western-most unit, on the edge of the plowed field and have the first indication of architectural rubble.
Two meters east are Renée and Samantha.  They are working through the center of the hotspot in the magnetometry map.

We set up datum points by each excavation unit, so they can compare the depth at which soil, features, and artifacts appear in all the different units.  The sediment levels in the field seem to be very level.

We are already starting to find clues about production.    This little ceramic sphere seems to be a little bit of kiln furniture.  It was flattened just a bit on the top and bottom and the glaze ran onto one end during the firing.

Many people from town have come and see us at the site, but nobody is as happy as the robins that live in the trees and bushes next door.  They are thrilled that we're digging and mixing up the leaf and grass mulch dumped in the field.  As each team leaves their unit to go to the screens and process their dirt, the robins swoop in and eat all the grubs and worms they can find in the dig unit!  Then they fly away and wait for more digging to reveal more goodies.  You can just see one in the picture below.  I'll try to get a better picture with the digital camera.

This afternoon we broke early and packed up from the site.  We went down to Cedar City to the Iron Mission State Park Museum, where Todd Prince spoke to us about Utah prehistory.  Todd is the Park Manager at the Iron Mission State Park and an archaeologist with years of experience studying Utah's prehistory.  After talking with Todd and seeing the replica wiki ups on the museum grounds, we drove out to study the famous petroglyphs at the Parowan Gap.  You can see some photos and read a discussion about the archaeoastronomy at the site here:

http://www.parowan.org/city/pgap/

Project in the News- NPR Story

This morning, KUER 90.1, Utah Public Radio, did a wonderful story about the Utah Pottery Project, the Davenport family, and public archaeology.  Jennifer Napier-Pearce spoke with some of the people involved in the exhibit and archaeology project.  

I hope lots of people will come to see the exhibit before it closes at the end of July.  I also hope people will come to visit us during the fieldwork.  Unlike so many archaeology digs, this one is right in downtown Parowan across the street from the Old Rock Church Museum and just about 15 minutes from Cedar City and the exhibit at the Iron Mission State Park Museum.

As I wrote once before, this is a public archaeology project.  No federal or state regulations force people to participate.  The people who help with the project do so because they care about the history of Utah's clay artisans, contributing either as researchers, as landowners, or as donors and patrons supporting field and lab work and student research.

The Davenport Pottery Site in Parowan is an excellent example of the collaborations.  After a decade preparing for this dig, we'll study the site to develop a detailed understanding of how the Davenports built their kilns, prepared their clays, formed their wares, and so on.  With the newly discovered information, we will design an operating replica of the pottery shop that can be built at the Iron Mission State Park Museum to tell the one of the stories of Iron County's industries during the nineteenth century.

Our work relies upon the tax-deductible support of individuals who care about the Utah's history and heritage.  We need donations right now to support lab analyses, supporting student researchers in their contributions to the study.  Donations can be made to either the Iron Mission State Park Museum Foundation or on-line to the Michigan Tech Fund, into an account designated for the Utah Pottery Project.  Click here to make a gift:

https://www.banweb.mtu.edu/mtu/mtf/giftform.xsql?desig=E01112-Utah%20Pottery%20Proj-DeptSocSci-Scarlett

Geophysics and Family History

Here are the results of today's magnetometry survey!  

In 2000, I interviewed Mrs. Carol Wright in Parowan.  Mrs. Wright is Thomas and Sarah Davenport's granddaughter.  She was born in 1908, which means she is 100 years old this year. Thomas Davenport died in 1888, twenty years before she was born.  Her father had worked in the pottery as a youngster, however, and she remembered the general description of the property even though the old adobe home and workshop buildings had been torn down before she was born.  

Below you can make a side-by-side comparison between the sketch I made with Mrs. Wright and the map of magnetic anomalies.  

I marked areas of interest to our excavation on the magnetic image below:

Based upon the magnetic anomalies, we think the basic description of the kilns' location and sizes are pretty accurate.  Family histories say that they were "about fourteen feet across."  There were several, perhaps three or four lined up in the back.  We are going to locate our excavation trench to expose one side of the kilns.  We'll leave the other side for future archaeologists, since they will certainly be better scientists than we are today.

We have begun surface collections of the site, grid by grid.  I expect we will start excavations on Friday.

Stay tuned!

From the Copper Country to the Color Country

The field school students are all on the road!  

Two vehicles left from Michigan Technological University this week, carrying people and gear for the dig.  Our incoming graduate students have left from their home states in order to rendezvous in Parowan, Utah, this Sunday.  We also have some people arriving by plane at the Las Vegas airport.  We'll start work on Monday morning, bright and early.  The experience will be interesting for the MTU students, who are traveling from Michigan's Copper Country to Utah's Color Country.

Michigan Tech is on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the south shore of Lake Superior. The Keweenaw Peninsula juts out into the lake and includes the former grandeur of the copper mine and mill towns like Calumet, Houghton, and Hancock.  The copper deposits of the Keweenaw Peninsula were famous all over the world, as were the mines and immigrants came from all over the world to work in the mines, mills, and logging camps.  After decline during the twentieth century, the copper country is rural today and the economy relies upon tourism. 'Downstaters' visit during the winter for our 350 inches of annual snow and our Winter Carnival celebration.  People also visit during the summer and fall, when the big lake keeps us cool during the hot Midwestern July and August and when our leaves start to turn in the fall.

Of course, Iron County is part of Utah's Color Country.  The history of Iron County is similar in many ways to Michigan's Keweenaw.  The draw of iron mining and other related industries drew immigrants, in the context of the Latter-day Saint settlement.  The iron mines and furnaces cycled through boom and bust, leading to a decline in the mid-twentieth century.  Iron County is rural today, between larger cities and communities on the Wasatch Front to the north and St. George and Las Vegas to the south.  The economy is diversified, but tourism plays an important part.  Visitors come for the skiing in the winter and camping and hiking in the summer, enjoying the communities proximity to Cedar Breaks National Monument, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and many other eco- and heritage tourism attractions amid southern Utah's stunning polychrome geology.  Cedar City's Utah Shakespeare Festival runs from summer into the fall, and like MTU's Winter Carnival, it attracts guests and encourages families to come year after year.

Another similarity is that both communities are small, with 10,000 to 15,000 people in the cities and good universities (Michigan Tech and Southern Utah University).  Despite the small size, the former industrial booms mean that lots and lots of people have family history tied to the area.  I am constantly meeting people when I travel who tell me, "Oh, Houghton!  My Grandfather worked there." or "I have an ancestor from Parowan who then moved to northern Arizona."  Houghton and Hancock share some of Parowan's famous claim to be a Mother Town from which individuals and groups of immigrants struck out to other places in the United States.  

As an afterthought, both regions also have great traditions of local music. Check out these musicians:
Houghton's Hanna Bethel just posted a video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8S5dSaz6cA&feature=player_embedded
and our own Eric Koskinen, although he now lives in Minneapolis:
http://www.erikkoskinen.com/

You can find great music in Cedar City at Groovacious Records:
http://www.groovacious.com/
and live at The Grind:
http://groovinatthegrind.com/

Schedule and Calendar, May and June 2009

We hope that lots of people will be able to come visit us this summer. Both the museum exhibit and the archaeological excavation will be open to the public in May and June of 2009. The archaeological excavations at the Davenport Pottery site are open to the public whenever the archaeologists are on the site. We welcome visitors between 10 AM and 3 PM each day. Visitors will be able to walk around the site, see the dig in progress, and talk with the excavators, students, and volunteers about what they have learned through their discoveries.

Planned excavation calendar, May 11 through June 26:
May 11-18 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.
     Holiday May 19-21.
May 22-31 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.
     Holiday June 1-4.
June 5-14 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.
     Holiday June 15-17.
June 18-26 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.

Potters of the Gathering: Clay Work in Early Utah will be open at the Iron Mission State Park Museum in Cedar City, Utah, between May 2 and July 31. The museum is open seven days a week, 9 AM to 5 PM. Note that the exhibit will be open for a month following the end of our season’s excavations in Parowan.

This is our planed schedule, but please be aware that these times can change depending upon weather conditions and class needs. If we get hard rain, we’ll work in the lab or lead the students on a field trip.

While you are welcome to come visit us during our first work period, May 11 to 18, please understand that the dig will just be getting started. That week, we’ll do mapping, remote sensing, and survey. It takes a couple of days to get the excavation units started. It would be better to wait until at least May 22 to make your first visit.

If we cancel work on a scheduled day, I will post an announcement on this blog. I will also post a note if we plan to be on the site at a later time of the day. Please don’t visit before 10 AM, because we dedicate our early morning hours to making sure that the science is running smoothly before guests arrive.

Archaeology is unpredictable and our interpretation will change as we make discoveries. If you come to visit us on May 23, we’ll tell you what we think we’ve learned from our digging. So if you return on June 20, we will probably tell you that we’ve changed our minds and revised our earlier interpretations. As my colleague Pat says, “If we knew what was there, we wouldn’t dig it up!”

Wish List, 5/26

Hi everyone,

If you have just discovered this blog and the Utah Pottery Project, you may not be aware that you could help support the archaeological fieldwork and research!

We can always use donations of cash (fully tax deductible, of course!) which we use as scholarship funds and as matching funds for institutional grants.  If you'd like to donate money to support this summer's field work and the subsequent analysis, you can go to the Utah Pottery Project donation page here:

http://www.social.mtu.edu/faculty/Scarlett/Research/UPP/UPPsupport.htm

There are lots of opportunities to support the project through gifts of badly needed supplies.  I include a list of some examples below.

This first list includes material urgently needed for this summer's excavation of the Thomas and Sarah Davenport pottery site in Parowan, Utah.  You can have materials sent to the Iron Mission Museum in Cedar City, and they will hold them until someone from the project team can pick them up:

Utah Pottery Project/Attn: Scarlett
Iron Mission State Park
635 N. Main St.
Cedar City, UT 84720-2127

Photo supplies and archive:
We need color slide film and archival storage materials.  35 mm color slide (transparency) film serves the critical purpose of high-quality backup of digital excavation photos.  Our digital photos are of high enough quality that we no longer shoot black and white print film as part of regular excavation recording.
 
B&H Photo wishlist for the Utah Pottery Project:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/WishList/A27DDACA5&BI=1239
 
www.bhphotovideo.com
420 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10001, USA
800-606-6969
212-444-6615
 
Non-archival Storage Boxes::
All the artifacts are “Bagged and Tagged” in the field.  We put all the bags into boxes to transport them to the lab.  In the field we use regular boxes, but once cleaned and processed, everything must be put into archival storage boxes for long-term storage.
 

OfficeMax Storage Boxes, 10/pk, Item # 20151540
http://www.officemax.com/omax/catalog/sku.jsp?skuId=20151540&searchString=archival%20storage%20boxes&category_Id=null

This list includes items we will need during analysis and for permanent archive of the artifacts and excavation records.  These items can be shipped to:

Michigan Tech Univ/Scarlett

Archaeology Lab/Soc Sci/AOB 209

1400 Townsend Dr.

Houghton, MI 49931

Needed supplies:

Archival Storage Boxes:
Hollinger Metal Edge, Inc.
Unbuffered Record Storage Boxes with Separate Lids
250#C Corrugated Board, White, 7.5 pH
 
Record Storage Box - 15" x 12.5" x 10" with Separate Lid
 
10760$7.95, 5/$32.20, 10/$58.60, 25/$141.75, 50/$249.50
http://www.genealogicalstorageproducts.com/recstorbox15.html
 
 
Archival Storage Bags:
We “Bag and Tag” everything recovered during excavation.  We use paper bags in the field while everything is dirty, but we transfer everything to archival bags once the artifacts are cleaned and prepared for lab analysis and transfer to the museum to be archived.
Archival bags can be found here:
http://www.genealogicalstorageproducts.com/arpoba.html
 
Useful sizes include:
 
2" x 3" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags 
100/$4.60
 
3" x 5" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$11.50
 
4" x 6" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$12.65
 
5" x 8" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$16.10
 
6" x 9" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$19.55
 
9" x 12" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$28.75
 
12" x 15" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$33.35
 
13" x 18" - 4 mil Polyethylene Bags - Pack of 100 Bags
100/$37.95
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 12" x 18"
20/$8.80,  50/$21.00
 
6 Mil Polyrthylene Bag - 14" x 24"
20/$12.80, 50/$30.00
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 14" x 30"
20/$15.80, 50/$37.50
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 16" x 16"
20/$10.40, 50/$24.00
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 16" x 24"
20/$14.60, 50/$34.50
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 18" x 18"
20/$12.00, 50/$28.00
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 20" x 24"
20/$16.80, 50/$40.00
 
6 Mil Polyethylene Bag - 24" x 30"
10/$12.60, 20/$24.20, 50/$58.00
 
 

Field School Travel and Rendezvous

Students and project Team Members have begun making travel plans, so I thought I would put up the planned schedule.

1. Travel with the Michigan Tech Caravan:

The project vehicles will depart MTU the morning of Friday, May 8th.  All people riding in the MTU vehicles can ride for free, room permitting, so long as they help Jessica and Andy load the inventoried equipment into the truck and van.  The drive from Houghton to Parowan takes about 28 hours of road time, or two 14 hour days.  Anyone planning on riding in the vehicles should let me and Jessica know as soon as possible.  There will be a reasonable volume limit on luggage.  The caravan will need to arrive in Parowan by 10 am on Sunday, 5/10, so that we can unload the van and head to the Las Vegas airport to pick up more people.

2. Travel by Airplane:

Those traveling by air should make their own plans, but you will need to arrive in Las Vegas, Nevada, in time for a rendezvous at 3 pm on Sunday, May 10th.  This will give us time to pick everyone up and drive back to Parowan while still leaving enough daylight for everyone to set up camp before dark.

I will let each traveler know where at the airport they should expect to meet us.  You should email your flight itinerary to me when you make your reservation.  Airlines are offering some pretty good deals right now.

The MTU van will only make this trip once.  If you are flying but can not arrive by the appointed time, you will have to catch a public bus from Las Vegas to Parowan and we'll meet you at the bus stop.

3. Travel by Personal Car:

However you drive and on whatever schedule, you should expect to arrive in Parowan by 4 or 5 pm on Sunday, 5/10.  This will give you a few hours of daylight to set up your camp and settle in before dark.  We will set a specific time and place to meet in town for those who want to follow the MTU van and truck to the campground, but I will be sure everyone has detailed directions in case of schedule changes.

4. Trains, Buses, and others:

Contact me about those travel plans.

5. Final Departure:

The field school ends on June 26th and that will be our last day of work.  You should expect to depart after that.  The MTU van will make a shuttle run to the Las Vegas airport on the afternoon of Friday, June 26th, arriving there at about 4 pm.  Depending upon when they return to the campsite, the entire caravan will depart either that evening or early in the morning of Saturday, June 27th.  Caravan members should be back in Houghton in time for Track B classes to start on Monday, June 29th.  If none of the caravan riders need to be back for Track B, the return trip may be extended by another day, but that will be determined during departure preparations.

I will post a note in the near future that will include the daily work schedule as well as the expected days off during the project.  This will allow everyone to plan travel and vacation time during May and June.

Camping Details are Official!

It is official!  The 2009 field camp will be in the beautiful mountains above Parowan and it will be free to students and project participants.

We will camp at the Five Mile Picnic Area up First Left Hand Canyon in the Dixie National Forest.  The camp is offered at no charge to students and project participants. Several people worked in support of the research effort to make his happen, including Todd Prince at the Iron Mission State Park; Joe Melling and the City Manager's staff the City of Parowan; and Steve Robinson, Marian Jacklin, and Gretchen Merrill from the Cedar City Ranger District of Dixie National Forest.  

I thought that the enrolled students would like to see some pictures, so I hiked up to the picnic area this weekend.  Here are some of the pictures of my hike up First Left Hand Canyon on the way to the site:

 

  

Next are some stitched panoramas of scenes from the campground.  The camp will be at the trailhead for two hikes, one up to Vermillion Castle (left in photo) and the other to Noah's Ark formation (right in photo):

This is a view from the campground itself:

I'll post some more images from around the campground in my next post.