2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 18, Wednesday, July 7, 2010. Written by Mark Vedros, Jr.

Photos: Student field tech Mark accurately measuring elevation of a control unit (top), Dusty and Tim Gross supervising (center), and Arch. Tech. alumni Tim working with student field tech Lauren on a unit (bottom).

Well, the day started with the standard routine of a 6:00 a.m., waking-up, preparing the day’s lunch (turkey sandwich), and stuffing my face with breakfast (a turkey sandwich for breakfast—that varies though). I also attempted pressure flaking on an already flaked fragment of chert before leaving camp to complete control units (CUs) on Tim Gross’s layout near central camp. Tim brought quite an array of flaking stones, accumulating a seeming “Archaeology Playground” the day before with his various specialized tools, e.g. – deer antlers (for said pressure flaking).

Upon arriving at our site of excavation I and the other members, begin finishing level 7 (60 – 70 cm) of our unit. Stephen Henneck and I were the primary “shovels” of the CU, taking it to a depth of 90 cm before it was terminated due to encountering bedrock in level (80 – 90cm) and in the previous level (70 – 80cm). A possible scraper, two chert flakes and several bone fragments were observed in our 9th level (80 – 90cm); however, due to the encompassing bedrock it was determined that there location was likely to be the result of bioturbation, given their placement.

We completed 3 10cm levels total today, generating one obsidian flake, one fractured hand stone and 4 chert flakes at a depth of 60 – 70cm. One chert biface, multiple chert flakes and bone/charcoal fragments were found at a depth of 70 – 80cm. Level 9, 80 – 90cm, produced the above-cited scraper, chert flakes, and bone fragments.

A unit profile was also completed as Stephen Henneck measured layers while Dawn Johnson profiled the east side wall. Four distinctive layers presented themselves: The first (closest to the surface) consisted of midden and silty loam soils; in the second, caliche inclusions appeared in loam; in the third, silty sandy loam were present; and the fourth (the deepest) included decomposing rock within the bedrock, among other numerous features within the soil deposits (color, other texture/changes, etc).

Stephen Henneck displaced a root that was 91.5cm or 3ft. long, 7cm wide, 18cm in diameter, that extended from our southeast wall edge to the northwest perimeter via handsaw at depth: 70 – 80cm (ya go my shirtless friend : ).

Column soil samples are on top for Thursday and Friday for units that have reached sterile. As we near the end of an awesome field experience, having Mark Hylkema as well as Tim Gross readily accessible for their input and advice has been quite a treat indeed.

Mike Newland’s delicious feast and career-oriented lecture last night (Wednesday evening) was an illuminating light down the tunnel so to speak. He talked about subjects ranging from CRM vs. academic archaeology, ethics with regard to Native American Culture, and work ethic, to the plausible dynamics of personal relationships within archaeology (quite full-circle).

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 17, Tuesday, July 6, 2010. Written by Melissa Lewis.

Photo: Student field tech Melissa excavating.

Waking up this morning, I could barely see anything outside of my tent. A thick layer of fog lay stagnant in the valley below us, and most of us packed our sweatshirts in our day packs, unsure about what the weather was going to be like for the day. As we were packing up and preparing to leave camp, Dusty introduced us to his friend Tim, a Cabrillo College Archaeology Technician alumni, who along with Erin, are our designated crew chiefs for the rest of the week. Before we left camp, Dusty discussed the importance of not only making sure we’re doing everything correctly with excavating, perfecting our methods and our techniques, but also developing our own interpretations this week. He stressed taking into account all of the readings we’ve been doing, all the artifacts and ecofacts our field school has observed, in preparation for our discussion Thursday night.

The weather cleared up, and by 9 o’clock, my team, made up of three other individuals, finished up our 40-50cm level. Before lunch, we managed to finish the 50-60cm level, and with working through lunch, we completed the 60-70cm level. Most of what we’d been finding in our unit before today, consisted of chert flakes, some obsidian, and saucer shaped Olivella shell beads. Our team worked well together, switching off between 1/8 inch screening, excavating, finishing the control unit (CU) paperwork and labeling our bags correctly. I was screening as we finished the 40-50cm level, and all of a sudden, I caught a glimpse of obsidian. In the first week of excavating, I found multi-colored chert flakes, quartz flakes, and historic artifacts, but I had yet to find any obsidian. I pulled out an intact contracting stem point, a projectile point with a later date than the desert side notched points we’d previously found in the site, worthy of hydrating during lab week. Before lunch, members from the Santa Cruz Archaeological Society came to visit our site and lend us support.

After lunch, our unit turned up less charcoal than we had previously, and our soil changed in color and texture. We continued to find faunal bone fragments, some fire affected and some not, and a broken saucer-shaped Olivella shell bead. We’re hoping to get down to sterile tomorrow, so we have time to column sample, side-wall profile and backfill, all before Friday. Before leaving the site, we did “data control” and did a count of all of our unit bags to make sure our paperwork and data corresponded, an important aspect to fieldwork.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 16, Monday, July 5, 2010. Written by Lindsay Kiel.

Photos: Student field tech Lindsay screening for artifacts (top) and crew chief Erin and Dusty conferring (bottom).

Being the day after the Fourth of July, we didn’t pull out of the Cabrillo parking lot until around 8:30, which was nice. It was definitely a nice change to get to sleep in for a couple of extra hours, and because Jenna, Brittney, and Stephen stayed the weekend at the camp site, we didn’t have to take down our tents on Friday and therefore didn’t have to spend the time this morning to set them up again. So basically, we didn’t end up losing much time in the field, even though we got to camp late. We had our customary Casa de Fruta stop where we met up with Erin—one of our new Crew Chiefs—and Dusty’s dad. Pulling into camp was amazing. Our line of four vans and three cars pulled in and immediately we saw Dusty’s tent sitting on the roof that covers the picnic tables. At some point over the weekend Stephen had that genius idea and he pulled it off perfectly, though apparently they were all terrified that a ranger would show up and force them to remove the tent before the rest of us showed up to see it. At least Dusty appreciated the joke.

We got out to the site around noon and split off into our new groups. Some of us got to stay at the units that we were working in on Thursday, which was nice because some of us were really attached to our units (especially Kolin who was very upset at the end of last week when he found out that he probably wouldn’t be back at his unit). For being a half day it was a super productive day. Almost all of the groups completed three levels and group six completed the final STU (Shovel Test Unit), going down to 140 cm. Our group found some pretty cool stuff. We found 5 pieces of obsidian, 1 Olivella shell bead, 1 claw of some sort, 2 faunal vertebrae, and a faunal mandible that had a canine and four other teeth still attached. Dusty says we’re going to take our unit down to 150 cm. and I’m excited for it to be so deep. This will be a great week.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 15, Friday, July 2, 2010. Written by Crew Chief Kristin Hoppa, a.k.a Sneaky Shark

Photos: Crew chief Kristin a.k.a Sneaky Shark after winning a battle with the buckets (top), and Sneaky Shark supervising a group of students (bottom).

Sneaky Shark reporting from the field: Happy to be on-site for Cabrillo College’s second week of excavation at STA-207. This week the crew finished their 1 x 0.5 m shovel test units and began excavating their 1 x 1 m control units. Although I arrived bleary eyed from a long night of driving, the crew was energetic and enthusiastic, welcoming me onto the project on Monday morning. Their enthusiasm quickly caught up with me when I arrived on site. STA-207 is a multi-component site with a rich, fluffy prehistoric midden, and a scattering of historic artifacts near the Orestimba Corral. The crew uncovered historic ceramics, glass and bullet casings; as well as obsidian and chert flakes, a wide variety of mammal bone, some freshwater clam, marine shell, and some diagnostic olivella shell beads, and desert side notched points. Our monitors, Paul and Daniel, were on-site to consult about findings and share their knowledge. They were even so kind as to brew us some yerba buena tea and warn us of the dangers of the Kukusui.

Dusty kept morale high with his usual song and dance (even some harmonica), while Annamarie kept us all together, even when coming apart at the seams herself (tent malfunction = living in a van down by the river). Visits to the swimming hole, tie-dyeing, and fireside performances made our evenings, as well as a guest lecture from Mark Hylkema and visits from Rae Schwaderer, Associate Archaeologist for California State Parks Monterey District, and Myriah and Callum. Overall I had a great time with the crew here and I look forward to seeing more of them in the field and at conferences. My only regret: I was told them there’d be free ice cream.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 14, Thursday, July 1, 2010. Written by Lauren Wysham

Photos: Crew members Brittany and Stephen carefully measuring elevations (top)and student Lauren Wysham at a screen (bottom

I’ve always known that I wanted to be an archaeologist, but until this experience I never really knew how much. It’s always exciting to learn about new things in the classroom that fascinate you, but to touch and feel it, it really brings it all home. On that note, let me tell you about one day in the life of a budding, hopefully, wannabe archaeologist. I woke up at an ungodly hour to the owlish stares of my comrades. We did our usual morning routine of breakfast and packing up before heading out to our super awesome beautiful site. It is so helpful to be conscious of the environment that people may have lived in, though different, it helps to be there. We started on our shovel test unit (STU) at 60N/40E that we were working on the day before. The crew that I was working with today was a group that knows a lot about what we were doing; their individual knowledge created a whole that made a beautiful unity of minds, that helped us create something together that we could be proud of.

Though we didn’t find much more than some flakes of chert, and other materials as well as charcoal, we made the most of it and though it wasn’t as exciting as other units, we did our best. I heard the excitement in the voices of the other groups during our lunch break about what they were finding, and although our unit wasn’t as prolific, I understood their feelings. Learning to recognize cultural material amongst all the other detritus is a skill that I feel I am learning so much more about in just the few weeks that we have been here. I feel so much closer to becoming what I want to be, and I am learning from the experience as well as my peers and instructors. One of the best parts was when I heard about the bifaces and partial points, and interesting shell beads and objects that everyone else was finding. It didn’t hurt that they had to relocate a baby rattlesnake from under an oak tree, while our unit was so safe and peaceful on the periphery.

The culmination of our day was when we finished up our STU and measured out our new 1X1 control unit. It isn’t as easy as it sounds to dig a square hole, and even harder to measure it out in dirt that doesn’t follow your instructions. But we did it a little quicker than before and I feel that with time we’ll all become pros. I am so excited to learn even more, and hopefully be an even bigger part of contributing to the archaeological record.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 13, Wednesday, June 30, 2010. Written by Kolin Taylor

Photos: Kolin examining a potential artifact from his control unit (top), a desert side-notched point (center) and students Kolin and Candace excavate as Daniel (Amah Mutsun monitor) and Dusty observe (bottom).

Today started like every other day out here…woke up, grabbed some breakfast, and readied the pack for the day. We made it to the site around 8:30am, just as I finished my cup of Yerba Mate. I was especially excited to begin the first of the control units because our shovel test units (STUs), 1 x 0.5 meter holes, had been so successful; I wondered what the bigger 1 by 1 meter units would turn up. My group (Angel, Candice, Ed and myself) was assigned to a unit four meters west of the highest producing STU, in really rich midden soil. In fact, as we began laying out our unit, there was a fine chert flake on the surface. We also seemed to measure and back stake our unit to a perfect 1 x 1 meter square smoother and faster than any other unit I’ve measured out.

As soon as our Native American monitors were on site we began our first 10 cm level, I was on the 1/8 inch screens. It was a little different at the control units compared to the STUs as far as screening goes because the goal is not to pick out all the artifacts/ecofacts you see but to break it down; remove all the definitively non-cultural material; and bag and tag what’s left in the screen. I had probably sifted 5 or 6 screens when I thought I saw a distinctive shape of a notch so I quickly slowed way down and picked through my screen carefully and sure enough there in my screen was a small desert side notch point. It was great to finally have some sort of indicator for the site’s age; its size and shape are typically associated with late period sites and probably indicate bow and arrow technology. After lunch it was my turn in the hole digging the 10 – 20 cm level. It wasn’t long before I was seeing faunal bone, flakes, and charcoal which was pretty consistent with what I was seeing in the screens from the first level. Before I knew it Angel turned up another projectile point in her screen, I couldn’t believe it.

Well it’s now 9:30pm and I am way tired from a great day of digging so I am going to wrap this up. We also found some sort of small mammal scapula, a really cool deer antler, and some possible perforated shell in our 10-20cm level. Other groups found mostly flakes, and one group found a really nice obsidian blade as well as a really cool ¼ of a disc-shaped rock with a hole drilled through it, which was very puzzling as to what it could have been for. Well I’m off to bed so I’m rested and ready to bust out some more levels tomorrow, although we would have to find some pretty crazy stuff to top today’s finds.

2010 Cabrillo College Archaeology Field School, Day 12, Tuesday, June 29, 2010. Written by Angel Ritchie

Photo: Student Angel Ritchie hard at work screening at a STU.

This morning my alarm went off too early. Tuesday. In the field, too early means six o’clock and late to breakfast is 6:40. We work hard in the sun all day and often tell stories into the night, but I always feel like I wake up too late. The breakfast scene varies. Perhaps someone is taking time by themselves eating a bagel watching the sun rise. Others are already laughing away. Some read our weekly articles. This morning I felt lucky to get a full cup of coffee from our sixteen-cup-percolator. As breakfast finishes, the sunblocking begins. I fill my three water bottles in between cramming as much sunblock onto my skin as possible. I burn easily and my shovel test unit (STU) is in the sun. Then we have a morning chat before trekking out to the site, a thirty minute drive. Today we are finishing up the STUs that we began either on Monday or last week. Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will start some control units. I am, and many others are, excited to dig bigger holes, ones that we can more easily move around in.

Then we gather into our vans and drive to the field. We constantly search the radio for a station that comes in and this morning my van was lucky enough to hear a few songs sung by the lovely Brittany Spears. When we arrived to the site, we grab the gear. At this point, it’s a mad rush. Everyone has their favorite tools. My crew arrived at our STU, 70S/20E and as we removed the cover, we found three dead mice, three large spiders, a frog in our 60 centimeter hole. The next hour was spent by our crew hypothesizing the faunal murder scene. Then Candace and I read aloud an article on women’s work and acorn processing while we waited the last thirty minutes for the awesome monitors, Daniel and Paul, to arrive so that we could begin digging.

Around nine, they do arrive and the work begins. We start digging our third level in the STU. I screen. We found lovely artifacts. A nice chert flake at least two inches long and some possible groundstone. In our next level the ground got hard and more clay-like. Our finds grew smaller, but we did find a very nice possible core. Not to mention the day before, we found an obsidian flake in the second layer. Very exciting! It does make the digging easier when you find artifacts. We picked our way through the fourth level. At one point, I heard one of the screeners say, “I am finding a flake every screen,” a very nice thing to hear when the sweat is dripping down your entire body.

I always get a little delirious before lunch, making jokes with my crew and getting clumsy with my tools. My peanut butter and honey sandwich felt very nourishing. We ate lunch underneath the same oak tree we do most days at the sight. It is a large umbrella and one can’t help but under how it was used by past groups. From far away, you can’t even see the twenty-five people eating lunch under there. After lunch, the sun shone brighter and the sweat rolled harder. It’s getting hotter progressively throughout the weeks. Our last level, the fifth, was sterile…enough. There was no evidence of further cultural material would be below this level. We drew our profile drawing and tomorrow morning we will backfill our STU, which is amazingly and surprisingly satisfying.