Archaeological Dig Site Pictures

[HeadExam 1,783]

I am working on a Archaeological dig site not far from my house, the artifacts we are recovering are 11,000 years of age. I found many arrow heads and tons of deer bone. This was a hunting camp several days trek from the village, The indigenous population from around 11,000 years ago used this rock shelter to hunt large game from then butcher it and drag it home after processing. One of the arrow heads I found was broken and was probably lodged in an animal that was cooked at the site from the heat marks on it.  What is amazing is that arrow head was smaller than a dime. We process an area 50cm x 50cm and 5cm deep at a time recording measurements from a set point. Then we wash and separate the dirt and rock from the artifacts, chip stone, shell, and bone and bag it and catalog it. As you can see the water for washing must be pumped from a creek, it then goes 10 meters up a hill to a tank then we gravity feed it down a hose to a sprayer. The creek rarely has water so next week unless we can get someone to bring water to us we will be shut down. Sorry about some of the poor pictures I'm just getting used to this camera/phone/computer/mixer/can opener

[Stormin 4,458]

[expeatfarmer 591]

That must be very interesting please post some more pictures .

[slf-uk 914]

Very interesting

[nigel 1,874]

alain ,i would get to impatiant doing that, i would have to get the back -hoe out

[HeadExam 1,783]

After we wet screen and wash each of the 20cm x 20cm x 5cm sections we pick out all the bone, tools, artifacts, chip stone, shell, etc, like I said, then these things are put into small baggies and labeled with the block and lot number as well as directional quadrant and level indicators that are mapped on the grid. I am in Lot 16 grid 15 and cleaned sections 55 through 61 today, that encompassed levels 105 and 106 in the NE, SE, SW, and NW quadrants of Lot 16. Each lot gets its own big bag the little bags go into. Then each bag is taken back to lab where it is rewashed and each separate material (bone, tool, chip stone, shell, artifact, etc.) is counted, weighed and measured, all this is listed into a log book and the numbers of how many tool, chip stone, bone, shell, and artifacts that are found in each section are then fed into a computer where it determines how much of the material was from the original layer and how much may have been transferred through natural or man ( or animal) made disturbances. The burnt bone is able to be dated so when we find younger bone mixed in with older bone and artifacts we know there was a transference of material between layers. The hope is that the computer can adjust for the anomalies of transference and give us data on when different civilizations used the site and for how long. I found another Arrow head today, everyone finds one everyday, but I also found lots of bone including the jaw bone of a rabbit with the teeth, Sorry to say I did not find the ears or tail.

[C-101plowerpower 548]

that's pretty god damn interesting, how about using your GT's for bringing in the water?

[HeadExam 1,783]

that's pretty god damn interesting, how about using your GT's for bringing in the water?

That's funny. It's several miles from any road that even a tractor or four wheeler could use, I'm not sure if you could get a horse in there. I guess that's why the hunting is so good still today. 

[Ian 2,417]

What a great use of spare time.. Hat's off to you Alain

[HeadExam 1,783]

What a great use of spare time.. Hat's off to you Alain

This work will be my foundation or starting point into my work in Evolutionary Psychology. This is where it all begins for me.

[Triumph66 1,256]

Alain, a fascinating post and a very interesting dig I would have thought.

[HeadExam 1,783]

Alain, a fascinating post and a very interesting dig I would have thought.

Andrew this is a very interesting period, about 11,000 years ago. For several hundred thousand years man the same species as us had been wandering around living off the flora and fauna with no real serious development, however not long after this and within the next 10,000 years we were able to go to the moon and put 7 billion people on earth. Now why do you suppose the same man would wander around this earth quite content for so long and then suddenly come to want and develop so much more? I believe something happened to change man as he was into something different as he is today, I do not know what that is, but is it a coincident that that it coincides closely to the time of Genesis or is it visa-versa that the time of Genesis is when things changed and that is where our history was started. I don't know and that's not really the answer I am looking for, I am looking to chart the change in our thinking across this time span. As it is today women do not need a man for security or sustenance, that makes man somewhat redundant in many ways, and changes the way women feel and think about us and how we think about them. That is a big change from what it was like in the not so distant past. When a lion is no longer a lion, soon there will be no lions.