2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 11, Monday, June 28, 2010. Written by Dawn Johnson

Photo: Student Dawn Johnson taking a break after working hard in a STU.

It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you only sleep four hours a night. It’s not easy getting packed and into a waiting van in Aptos by 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning when you’re still swimming in Tahoe at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday night. But not only was I able to have a very productive day excavating at our site, but my terrific team mates also had a great day (actually, they did all the work, but they certainly made me look good!).

In our first shovelful of dirt, Lauren found an obsidian flake. This is pretty amazing, when you consider that this soil came from 80 cm below the surface. This is the fourth flake to come out of our fruitful little 1 m x 0.5 m shovel test unit (STU). Last week team members, Brittney, Angel, and Kolin found their first shiny, black obsidian chips in this STU. A few minutes later, Stephen held up a beautiful talon or claw. In my highly uneducated opinion, I believe it could be a coyote claw, but a trip to the Santa Cruz Natural Science Museum next Saturday may shed more light on the subject.

While the temperatures were pretty toasty today, everyone in the field school seems to be loving the work, and morale is fantastic. You couldn’t ask for a better group of soon-to-be-highly-skilled archaeologists. And the dinners would put Alice Waters to shame.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 10, Friday, June 25, 2010. Written by Carrie Reichardt

Photos: Crew chiefs Carrie and Kaely (top), students Stephen, Matt, Melissa and Ed working hard on a hot summer day (middle), and crew chief Carrie, field school instructor Dusty, and crew chiefs Annamarie and Kaely (bottom).

I have to admit, I’m currently writing this entry within the comforts of air conditioning back in Sonoma County. I am, of course, thinking of all the students who are probably frantically trying to bust out the last few centimeters of their Shovel Test Units (STU) with pick-axes and cursing those pesky rocks that come between them and the coveted straight test unit side walls. This ice-cold iced tea is for you guys, cheers!

Our second week was great! Both Monday and Tuesday three crews covered major swaths of two project areas. As a side bar for those who have never experienced archaeological survey, don’t let the idea of hiking in a state park for work fool you. It’s entirely off-trail hiking directly up mountains, fighting the charcoaled remains of tree victims of last year’s wildfire and the nasty vegetation that takes root in disturbed areas – namely, poison oak. Many a rattlesnake made an appearance, many a rash showed up on body parts, but the students persevered with enthusiasm and hard work! On Wednesday, one group continued to survey (I was among them) and the remaining groups started opening up their first STUs! We were lucky to have Frank, our Amah Mutsun monitor, who shared his great stories with the crew while they fought the hard battle against uncooperative rocky soil in the heat.

Some teams had fierce artifact mojo and found lithics in their units, including a couple of obsidian flakes! Many others had units which had very few artifacts. Such is archaeology. The days, weeks, and months of finding nothing make the days where you find that one tiny piece of something so much more exciting. And, as a historical archaeologist, I have to mention a small glass fragment scatter we found while surveying. A beautiful piece of a deep aqua soda water bottle base found in a rodent burrow back dirt pile was my personal favorite.

Steering away from the archaeology for a moment, I must take this opportunity to give a shout-out to all the hard-working students. It was an amazing experience for me, as a Crew Chief, to watch these students blossom in a mere two weeks. The first few days of the first week was spent learning how to use a compass, reading a topographic map, and mapping a site. Many of the students might have only had a vague knowledge of how to figure out where north is, but now they know what all those lines and arrows and do-dads on their compasses mean!

Field school can be an incredibly intimidating experience. Even as someone who has been doing archaeology in one form or another for a few years, even the most seasoned professional has their days of self-doubt, but the students plowed through and have grown exponentially in only a matter of ten days. I look forward to hearing about how much more they develop in the next three weeks. I can see each and every one of them continuing in the profession and making Dusty, Annamarie, Kaely and me so very proud! Their enthusiasm for getting dirty and working hard was infectious and they maintained a sense of humor and respect for one another even when we were faced with 50-degree slopes covered in poison oak and heat exhaustion. Archaeology is a profession that cannot happen without team work and every single one of the students worked together and did so with great admiration for one another. For any family members out there reading about their loved ones who are participating in the 2010 Cabrillo College Field School, you should be so proud of them! We certainly are!

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 9 June 24, 2010. Written by Ryan Phillip

Photo: Ryan Phillip taking a break from excavating a STU.

After a late night, consisting of a group reading of “The Golden Marshalltown” around the campfire, I woke up late. I woke up to see that Frank, our Native American monitor, had brought us all donuts for breakfast. We drove out to our site and started work pretty quickly. Our group had a new unit today since we backfilled our previous one on Wednesday. Our unit was closer to the prehistoric site so our soil was much more workable and our artifact finds were more substantial. We enjoyed the lack of large river cobbles in our site, and our sidewalls were easier to maintain. We found multiple flakes per level, some possible grindstones, and plenty of that material we love to call “Questionable Quartz”, since there is so much quartz in the area, and it’s very hard to determine if the material is culturally modified. The group 20 meters to the north of us found the first obsidian flakes found in the STUs, which they were very excited about. The weather today was unseasonably cool, which was a great break for us from the hotter days. We finished up in the afternoon, said goodbye to Frank, and headed back to camp. After dinner, we had a brief discussion on an article about the importance of survey, and how data can be interpreted in different ways based on research design. The second article we read was a large report on several coastal and inland counties in California and the archaeological record previously recorded in the area all the way back to the Paleo-Indian period. Tomorrow we will re-record a site as a large group and come back to our excavations on Monday.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 8 June 23, 2010. Written by David Poole

Photos: David Poole excavating a shovel test pit unit (top) and students working together to learn how to lay out a unit (bottom).

Today I just witnessed a perfect sunset to end another great day in the field. I’m sitting here right now, the fire is blazing, the ukulele is playing, my stomach is full and the mood is just right. I have to admit, today was amazing; day two of getting grimy in the dirt. We worked hard all day. Pick axes swinging, shovels shoveling, and trowels scraping. We worked together in crews of four, once again excavating our shovel test units (STUs). Though not all of us were finding artifacts, the team environment and work ethic allowed us to push through with smiles on our faces. It’s easy to want to give up when pushing through layer after layer of rock, but knowing that each unit helps in creating an overall understanding of the bigger picture, one begins to realize that producing no artifacts yields an incredible amount of information about the peoples that lived here. It’s really all about telling a story for those who cannot speak for themselves and knowing about where they were, as well as where they weren’t, allows us a chance to do this. The skills that we are learning at this field school are more than just simply teaching us how to use a compass, walk transects, create 1 m x .5 m STU units, or 1 m x 1 m control units; it’s allowing us to use the skills acquired to respectfully and as accurately as possible speak for those who now cannot.

Archaeology is amazing and I’m truly glad that I chose this as my future profession. I honestly have to say that I love it out here! I love the work, I love the environment, but most of all I love the people. I know for a fact that the relationships that I’m creating out here are going to last for many years to come.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 7 June 22, 2010. Written by John Schlagheck

Photos: John Schlagheck (top and bottom)

Dateline-Diablo Mountains, CA. John Schlagheck reporting — It is not usual work for me and my fellow team members (Emily, Mark, Matt, and Christina) — the measurements are different, the tools can be inappropriate for the tasks at hand, and the heat can be surprisingly oppressive. It’s true, cooking for 26 people in camp is quite an undertaking — but we loved it. Curry night. Dusty set us up for it and got everyone pumped and excited for the dinner. Despite the potential difficulty and dane-ja of cooking curry in the field, the five of us were up for the challenge and wanted to show these people what eating was all about. Only two of us had been in military service so it was a bit risky, but ultimately the night was a complete success. Most all were satisfied, though it was a bit spicy for one or two folks and even for one of the chefs, but no causalities.

During the day we started our first shovel test units (STUs). While some were occupied with that task, others finished the survey portion of the project on the ridge just north of the excavation area. Reviews of the day included reports of rattlesnakes near the STUs and a modest overlap of the survey transect from the previous day — but all was well in the end. The survey terrain is brutal in spots and rather strenuous on foot. Frequently, folks had to abandon their precise lines to avoid poison oak, large fallen trees and dense prickers.

Spirits are high in our camp. Having been to field school in 2009 with SJSU (that also went well), I can say that our Cabrillo group is working well together and has the kind of attitude that will foster great memories for everyone. Privately, people speak of enjoying the break from the hustle and bustle, the daily grind of our everyday lives, and normalcy.

Dustin has real world expectation of us and we appreciate his mentorship and attention to detail — this is not a vacation by any means. None of us wants to be surprised by what it really means to do archaeology for a living. That said, the atmosphere is loose and friendly, which is good, because we have another three weeks of communal living and working in close quarters. I am always surprised by the compromises and concessions required by these situations, but always feel rewarded by having made them. It seems to me that people are always better to each other when tested by their surrounding and have to overcome themselves in a way — which is a good thing.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 6, Monday, June 21. Written by Jenna Tidd

Photos: Surveyors at work (top) and Jenna and Brittany recording a site (bottom)

Today was our day two of our survey of project areas one and two. We continued our ten meter transects from east to west using the road and creek as boundaries. I had to mentally prepare myself for today’s survey after our first day of survey last week, during which my group was surveying pretty rough terrain with dense vegetation and steep inclines. I immediately noticed during today’s survey that the location we were at was less difficult. The gently rolling hills actually helped me do a more thorough job surveying because I was less focused on keeping my footing and avoiding poison oak and more focused on clearing groundcover and looking for materials. One highlight early on was our sighting of what looked like a barn owl flying right ahead of our line. Another highlight was actually coming across some chert flakes and potential lithic materials in several locations, one of which was very close by the site we’re going to be excavating.

These lithic materials brought up several interesting questions though, including the issue of how far from a previously identified site the cultural materials have to be in order to be considered a separate site. The only potential cultural materials we found in this case were on the top of a slope that led down to the creek and its previously identified sites. Another point some of these materials emphasized is that, particularly when looking for flakes, one of the factors you have to take into account is the quality of the material. There were some definite chert flakes found at the site next to the creek, which influenced our analysis of the potential lithic scatter we observed at the top of the slope. There were multiple potential flakes made of the same type of chert, but that were rougher on the flaked surfaces and lacked the obvious attributes that signify a flake, like a bulb of force and obviously smooth ventral surface. We had looked at this material earlier on though, and even enacted some experimental flintknapping, which resulted in a lot of shatter and some rough looking flakes similar to the ones we observed today. This led us to one possible theory that maybe individuals at the top of the ridge were testing the material, resulting in lower quality shatter which was abandoned, and taking the better quality materials and flakes down to the creek for use. Though none of this is by any means conclusive, the materials we found brought up several interesting issues that were fun to try to work through in the field.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 5, Friday, June 18, 2010. Written by: Kaely Romney, Crew Chief

Photos: Dusty teaching students how to use a Brunton compass (top) and crew chiefs Carrie and Kaely (bottom)

We made it through the first week, and in my opinion, the hardest week. The first moments of learning anything new can be frustrating, confusing, and never-ending. The students were challenged in so many different ways. First, they are thrown into a new environment with 23 other people who they must make relationships with. They memorized how to pace distances, and mastered the “Go-go gadget” compass that includes a compass, a protractor, and a clinometer, and learned how to use both to accurately map a site. After much trial and error, the crew then hiked up a butt-kicker of a trail to get back to camp. This was all in Day 1.

This week was really a great opportunity for anybody to ask as many questions as possible. Some examples include questions about flake characteristics, map symbols and environmental descriptions. I was blown away by the communication, preparation and energy that I saw on our first survey day. Even though we did not find any new sites, we used this opportunity to discuss the animals, plants and geology in the area. My survey crew was then drawn into a great conversation about how the environment can influence the archaeology you see on the ground and the theory you are defending. We saw spiders that balanced on top of the tall grasses, the birds that nested beneath, and skin evidence that the snakes left us behind. We explored the chert eroded drainages and quartz scattered flat. An important lesson for any archaeologist is that even if there are negative findings on the ground, many different observations can be brought home from a day of survey.

Friday morning, our fearless leader left the crew and crew chiefs to record a newly found site. The site was a simple lithic scatter including one obsidian flake, located by crewmember Dawn. The crew split up and surveyed the entire area, and mapped and recorded the entire site in two hours flat. This really demonstrated the skills built by every individual. Overall, this week really tested the student’s limits, and it seems that many if not all showed up Monday morning for some more.