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!

Grids and gear!

We are underway in Parowan! The students all arrived by Sunday and we set up camp at the Five Mile Picnic Area. On the site this week, we set up the grid that will allow us to collect X, Y, and Z coordinates on all the data we gather during the dig.

Chuck Young is visiting with us today. He is a retired geophysicist at Michigan Tech. The Social Science department helped send Dr Young out to survey the site with us and teach the students about the Magnetometer.

The reason I asked Dr. Young to bring the Magnetometer is that we hope to see below the ground surface before we start excavation. We only have six weeks to dig. We really need to focus on the pottery-related features like the kilns. The magnetometer reads localized variations in magnetic fields as things interfere with the pattern of the earth's general one. Things like campfires burned in clayey dirt develop very strong magnetic anomalies. Something like a pottery kiln foundation should show up very clearly like a bright spot on the mapped readings.

At least, we expect so.

We are talking data right now and I will post a map of the readings later today!






The team on one of our first field trips. This one was about Iron County history.  They are climbing on an electric shovel from one of the twentieth century iron mines on the west side of the valley.



One picture of field camp!


Mobile blog post

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.