A Piece of Cake

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Our work in Room 28 is winding down.  We reached the level George Pepper and Richard Wetherill reached, found features that they did not expose, reopened areas that they dug beneath the floor, and took a small portion of the room to sterile soil.  We have spent the last week mostly recording the features, mapping, and taking samples.  There remain two beams in place that we still need to pull, more pollen samples to take, and a couple of pieces of ground stone incorporated into the architecture that we will also remove.  What did we find?  Pepper and Wetherill took many wonderful photographs and drew a schematic of the room, but they did not provide a complete description of the room and apparently did not uncover all of the walls and features.  We found and documented 27 postholes.  There probably were more that had been destroyed by their excavations.  We found a small thermal feature and ashpits.  We found a large pit dug by Wetherill and Pepper just outside Room 32, apparently to enlarge the space for working in that room.  We marveled that none of their crew was injured by falling walls (that we know of), when it took five sets of scaffolds to hold the walls in place for our excavations.  The artifactual finds will be described in the future.

Friday morning the student crew left Chaco and we began the LiDAR mapping of Room 28.  We continued mapping Saturday with rooms around Room 28 for context. Dr. Wetherbee Dorshow, President and Grand Poobah of Earth Analytic, Inc., Jed Frechette of Lidar Guys, and Scott Dillon of the Division for Historic Preservation in Vermont, collected over one-half billion data points that are accurate to less than a centimeter.  From these data, they will create a 3-D model of the room and surrounding area.   

At a going-away reception, Susan and Meredith, the campground hosts, made an incredible replica of the excavation in CAKE, with tiny cylinder jars and even a backdirt pile.  This was an entirely different 3D model of the excavation/room, and tasted better than the half billion data points.  Our thanks to them for their kindness and creativity!  And GB’s ice cream is the best version of chocolate ever consumed in Chaco. 

Our crew did a lot of work in a short period of time (23 work days!) with good humor.  As with all archaeological projects, we developed jokes, songs, and language that we all understood, but that folks outside the crew would probably find baffling and not as funny as we did.  The Park particularly asked us to limit our discussion of what we were finding—and in Chaco, where voices carry so far, to keep as quiet as possible.  This was both to keep from altering the Chaco experience by making noise and to avoid attracting vandalism.  So we often spoke in code.  The following list is for the crew, for the record, and everyone else may want to skip reading:

Welcome

on the radio: This is Pueblo Bonito

8 foot tall men

Screw-jacks
Candy canes of terror

Code Blue

Code White

Code Scott

Code 8

Code Chip

Code tree-ring sample

Dauby

daubaceous
a bat, a snake, and a packrat walk into a bar

Mr. Bucket

the Annex ("if I gave you a portapotty, would you drink more water?")

Won’t you screen my bucket?

That girl really works hard

Sheep corral

you need to take pictures of the sites you can't find

Schmonkeys

Look! it’s an MGM mock-up of an archaeological dig

this dirt is like buttah

Buck-o-matic

Bucket launcher

Chaco trivia contest

big hats

the bob-dog

the bob-lion

bobcat spray

PhD school

Bob, the OSHA guy

primate vocalizations

HEE hole

I feel like Cinderella

the Pepperill Project

Elvis has left the building

I’ll add blog entries as the project analysis is underway.  Once we have backfilled, it will be possible to discuss the results in more detail.  In the meantime,

UNM clear

What SPF Sunscreen did Indiana Jones use?

It is an ongoing joke among archaeologists that if you don’t want to speak to the person next to you on an airplane, you tell them you are a theoretical physicist.  Saying you are an archaeologist usually leads to a conversation about:

a)    how they always wanted to be an archaeologist and/or

b)   how they LOVE dinosaurs

It seems that many people think archaeology is an exciting profession, a viewpoint promoted by Hollywood depictions of “archaeologists” who usually pillage sites in ways that no self-respecting, trained professional would consider.  I find that about half of the students who attend field schools realize quickly that they don’t like being dirty, working outside, working tirelessly, and often finding nothing—so one function of field schools is to weed out those who think archaeology is the most wonderful experience they’ve ever had versus those who can’t stand field work.  The reality is that archaeology is really hard work, particularly fieldwork. 

What is a typical day like in the field?  On the Room 28 project, a typical day goes like this: we rise at 5 AM, eat breakfast, make our own lunches, slather on sunscreen, pull on clothing with SPF rating (which usually means long sleeves and long pants), and finally don a neon vest—which in Chaco identifies us as project members.  By 5:45, we are at the trucks, loading equipment for the day, along with our packs, water, and food.  We drive to Pueblo Bonito at 6 AM and are the first people there every day (the gates don’t open for tourists until 7 AM).  We haul the equipment to the excavation area and begin the opening—this involves a lengthy process of removing sandbags from the tarps that hang from the Quonset-hut shaped garage over the excavation—and rolling the tarps up and fastening them to the frame using the wonderful bungee balls (truly an invention right up there with mousetraps).  The ravens scold us as we unlock the equipment left at the site and distribute screens and buckets, and set up the shade over the screening area.  As the designated “Competent Person” (for OSHA purposes—this means I have the power to tell everyone to get out of the excavation, make decisions on what is safe and what isn’t, and fill out a safety checklist every single morning before we enter the dig), I don my hardhat and fill out a safety checklist, monitoring cracks in the walls, watching for any telltale piles of dirt on the floor that weren’t there the night before, and checking the scaffolding to make sure it hasn’t slipped.  ALL excavators working in trenches must meet OSHA standards—we wear hardhats, have an exit within four feet of our work at all times, and have a safety plan in case a wall falls. 

Then we start to excavate.  We use shovels in some levels if the material is just backfill, trowels where it is important.  We put the resulting dirt into buckets, usually using dustpans for this task.  The buckets are either carried to the top of the steps in the dig OR lately we have used a bucket raising device that involves a pulley and ropes to move buckets straight up and then over to the screening area—we call it the buck-o-matic.  The Park Service Stabilization Crew put it up for us and it’s very ingenious,  but does require a lot of strength to raise buckets, now that we are down 3+ meters.  We usually have 2-4 crew members in the excavation area and 2-4 in the screening area—we’ve used 1/8^th inch or window screen throughout most of the excavation, so screening a single bucket can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, depending on what is in it and how fine the mesh used for screening.  On a typical day, we screened around 150 buckets.

I think most archaeologists would agree on the qualities of an excellent crew member: they work tirelessly without complaint no matter the conditions; they take supervision well without any argument, but they often provide suggestions for ways to do things; they take a deep interest in archaeology and are always asking questions about the past and about what they are finding; they write thorough field notes every single day with lots of sketch maps; they are always looking around for what needs to be done; and they work quickly and efficiently in the field. 

We take cookie break at around 9 AM—a brief break for some food/drink.  Then back to work until lunch around 11:30.  Then more work until around 3:30-4 PM.  We take outreach seriously, so we talk to most visitors who stop at the “wayside exhibit” that is outside our excavation area.  Since we are located right ON the main trail through Pueblo Bonito, most people pass our area and stop and talk.  We have spoken to hundreds of visitors, in addition to field school groups and special interest groups.  Archaeological groups are sometimes invited to come into the excavation area, but we don’t have time to talk to everyone at length.  Some visitors from New York City stopped and looked at the dig area when we were inside the tent at lunch—they discussed how the Park Service had set up the area to look like a dig, but it wasn’t really realistic—more like MGM Studios version of a dig.  They were surprised when we popped up and chatted with them. 

Probably the most difficult part of the excavation is getting in and out of the excavation area—the five scaffolding pipes keep the walls from falling on us, but they make getting in and out a challenge.  We have stairs cut into the dirt, but we still have to negotiate the pipes—some require going under and others require stepping over.  As we’ve dug deeper, we bang our heads on the pipes less often, but it’s good we wear hardhats.  The location of the pipes prevents us from putting a ladder in—there is actually no place to put one where we could climb the ladder without running into the scaffolding.  So the stairs have been necessary. 

When close-up begins, we pull the tarps down, put sandbags on them, lock up some equipment and take the rest to the trucks.  After driving back to the residential area, the students unload the truck and do lab work until they are caught up—this means assigning field numbers, inventorying (counting) all artifacts in each category (sherds, chipped stone, ornaments, etc.).  There is a lot of paperwork to be done.  I sometimes meet with the Park Service personnel in the afternoons after work, meetings that can take minutes or hours.  Everyone eats around 6 PM—the students cook together in a cook trailer and they take turns cleaning up.  At 6:30 PM we reconvene for more lab work until it is finished.  Most of us are so tired, we go to sleep around 9-10 PM.  The students sleep in tents and have dealt with noisy birds, lizards under their tents, rain, wind, and dust storms since we got here.  Sometimes they barely sleep. 

The artifacts, samples, and fauna we’ve collected this summer will be taken to Albuquerque to analyze before being turned over the National Park Service for curation.  My NEH grant includes funding for the analysis, which will take place during the academic year.  Samples will be sent to specialists for analysis during that time too, including pollen, macrobotanical, and dated materials analysis. 

I don’t remember the Indiana Jones movies ever showing him drinking water or putting on sunscreen or cleaning the sand from his shoes (and ears) at the end of the day.  I never saw him write a field note or draw a sketch map.   I’m not sure he cleaned artifacts or even analyzed them once he had them.  This is my 39^th year of doing archaeology in the American Southwest and I don’t ever regret going into this profession.  But I certainly didn’t learn about what archaeologists do by watching movies….

I love the smell of bobcat pee in the morning

The critter that has been spraying in the Room 28 quonset hut covering has eluded the Park Service critter-cam, but we all suspect it’s a bobcat.  Why?  You know that smell that tells you the kitty litter box is overdue for a cleaning?  That’s exactly what Room 28 has smelled like the last few days.  Park Archaeologist Dabney Ford has suggested it might be TWO bobcats fighting over whose territory the Quonset hut really belongs to.  Last night, the critter apparently decided that a large bag we keep our project plastic bags in posed a threat—and he sprayed it; since that bag was in the bottom of the room space, he is (or they are) apparently concerned about more than just the unexcavated part of Room 28A that is under the tent.  Hopefully the critter cam will catch him in the act tonight. 

In addition to the excavation of Room 28, the crew has been involved in Site Condition Assessment with funding from the National Park Service under a contract to UNM and Dr. Chip Wills.  Dr. Wills has been doing site condition assessments in Chaco for four years now and has developed a really efficient method for completing the process.  The crew has to go off-trail in order to do the work of finding sites in Chaco and assessing their conditions today.  But going off-trail attracts attention in a park where this is not allowed, so in order to signal that they are WORKING, the crew wears bright orange or green vests, carries an NPS radio to communicate with the Park Service personnel about where they are going and how long they are out, and generally keeps everyone apprised of their actions.   Despite the vests, visitors to Chaco often see people walking off trail and report the crew.  It’s hard to imagine that tourists going off-trail would wear neon vests, but it apparently can happen.  So we felt the crew needed some additional identifying clothing to distinguish them from people breaking the law.  See photo below.

We spent today mapping the room and cleaning out the postholes—Pepper had pulled the beams from all but a couple of them already, but they are very well preserved and lined postholes.  Today we had a lot of visitors:  Dr. Bruce Huckell came up from UNM for a few hours—it was great to have his perspective on our work in Room 28 and some of the chipped stone materials we are finding.  The SMU field school visited led by Dr. Kit Nelson.  Finally, Bob Dunnington from UNM visited to assess our safety.  He gave us the go-ahead to keep working and cut back a part of the profile and the balk covering the door to Room 32.  So we have some work ahead in the next few days.  We won’t take tomorrow off, so we’ll miss seeing fireworks, but somehow being in Chaco is even better.

Jennie Sturm, Leigh Cominiello, unknown person, and Chip Wills model latest fashion for Site Condition Assessment.  The hope is that someone reporting the crew as wearing neon vests AND tall hats might tip off the Law Enforcement group that it is our crew.  Thanks to Jim von Haden for the photograph.

Finally!

Note: This post was written last night, but the Chaco wifi went down and I couldn't post it until today.

Today, July 2, 2013, we finally reached the surface to which Pepper and Wetherill excavated in 1896!  It was our thirteenth 20 cm level, meaning that we have excavated about 2.6 meters below the present ground surface—a long way to go in only 14 days of excavating.  The surface was fairly easy to find: a thick layer of powdered daub and chunks of daub covered the western half of the room and clearly represented the material Pepper described in his volume on Pueblo Bonito.  As we troweled this matrix away, we reached a stratum with no burned material at all, and we discovered all of the postholes that Pepper drew on his map of the room.  It was so strange to use photographs to help excavate a Pueblo room!  There is no question about this being the surface they excavated to—it is just deeper than anticipated.  Part of the problem in estimating how deep the Hyde Expedition excavated in Room 28 is that their photographs of the entire room only show the upper layers of the cache, while the photographs of the 2^nd-5^th layers are close-ups—so there is no way to evaluate how deep he excavated to reach these layers.  Now we know.  The doors in the room remained blocked, so they were not helpful in estimating the depth.  At any rate, it was very exciting to reach our first goal.  Now we just need to figure out a way to view the original stratigraphic profile safely.  The UNM OSHA Engineer, Bob Dunnington, will visit us this week to help determine how and if we can safely cut back the profile.  Using the backfill profile has actually been quite helpful these past weeks in evaluating how Pepper/Wetherill backfilled and where we might be in the room fill.

Patricia Crown and Jacque Kocer compare stratigraphic features to a photograph from the 1896 excavation of Room 28. 

We’ve had a visitor the past two nights.  Some critter (some of us are betting bobcat, others badger) has been spraying in the room at night.  It provides a pungent atmosphere for excavation.  The OSHA safety form I’m required to fill out every day asks about exposure to a hazardous atmosphere—and we think this might be exactly the condition they had in mind.  The Chaco Chief of Natural Resources, Jim von Haden has set up a camera to try to catch our new friend in the act, so we’ll see what tomorrow morning brings.

We have a lot of work yet to do to document the room and its features, to pull posts for tree-ring dating, and search for the floor, but we are very happy to have reached the level Pepper did 117 years ago.  We have been working ten hour days in the field in 90-100 degree heat followed by evening lab sessions, so the extraordinary crew is tired—but pleased to have accomplished so much to date.  

Room 28 at surface excavated by Pepper and Wetherill.  The scaffolding is ours. 

 

We continue to have a lot of visitors: yesterday brought a group (staff and students) from Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, including Kari Schleher, Karen Adams (the project macrobotanical expert), Randy McGuire and the CCAC interns.  Today we had a large group of tourists from Slovenia, all of whom spoke excellent English.  AND I forgot to mention in this blog on our work last Friday that we had excellent help that day from Brenda Shears of Arizona State University—she worked tirelessly with the crew on a day when we were particularly in need of extra hands.