Wright State Field School Week 5 (Feature post)

Weather this week was rather warm and muggy. It rained some of the evenings, most of the day Wednesday and then again Thursday evening. So much so on Thursday that Friday morning each Trench had to be bailed out. Picture one is of the bucket brigade (what teamwork!) created to remove water from Trench B.



Trench A excavations continued and revealed more post molds (picture two). They appear to be grouped in several locations and not just in one single line as one might expect for the "outline" of a circular enclosure. Perhaps there were a series of rows composing this portion of the enclosure. Or maybe they served another function. As additional posts are located, they are painstakingly mapped in by the students (picture three).




Trench B features were also investigated, mapped and photographed. The largest features of note is 06-22. A squarish, red patch of earth located near the center of the Trench (picture four). Found in close proximity to this feature were close to one hundred pottery sherds. Picture five shows one of the larger intact pieces that have been recovered.

Wright State Field School Week 5 (People post)

What a busy and eventful week! Actually it was so chock full that there will be two submissions posted.

First, on Saturday the 22nd a couple students volunteered to uncover the excavation units for Fort Ancient's 'Beat the Heat: Family Fun Day'. Many people came by and were treated to tours of Trench A and B and interpretations of the various features. One family enjoyed their time so much, they went home, baked some delicious zucchini bread and brought it back to the site the next day. Accompanying the bread was the following note "For my new 'Ancient' friends and the Awesome 'Dig Team'. Family Day was memorable. Thank you, Virginia Harper." Kudos to Brian Beiersdorfer and Angela Chavez for making their day special!

As with the previous weeks, people continuously came by to see what was being uncovered. Sometimes by the bus load. Participants in an Ohio Historical Society workshop 'Landmarks of American History: Mounds, Earthworks and the Pre-History of the Ohio Valley' came to Fort Ancient on Wednesday to tour the site, museum, listen to presentations and view the excavations. Pictured here is WSU student Kate Ripple explaining the excavation process and the information they have recovered from Trench A. Afterwards the workshop attendees visited Trench B and then broke for lunch. Several of the participants took quick bites and returned to the excavation. One in particular was so interested in the proceedings that she jumped right in and helped screen for artifacts. Here is Laura Macaluso from Milford, Connecticut holding a piece of pottery she found just moments before.

Wright State Field School Week 4 (Feature post)

Yes, I called this submission the Feature post. It focuses on some features found this week and some of them are post features. Pun intended :) Anyway I thought it was funny but maybe I'm just suffering from the heat...

Trench A revealed some post molds. This first picture shows Feature 06 - 2 & 3. Here you see two darker soil stains intruding into the yellow soil. These are post molds with chinking stones that were used to help fix the post in place.

Another example in Trench A is feature 1. You can see the darker stain to the left of the rocks.

Trench B was finally completely exposed. In this picture you see a light patch in the upper left of the trench. This may be a structure floor. In front of this is a dark soil which is next to a large, red burned circle (towards the center of the picture). And in the foreground of the shot is a gravel layer. These features are just now being opened up and explored by the students.

What will the results be? Check in next week...

Linda

Wright State Field School Week 4 (People post)

Hello all,


A hot and humid week greated the workers who are seen here enjoying a well deserved cookie break in the shade.


As word gets out about the ongoing field work, more and more people are stopping by to see what is going on. Pictured here is a group from the Warren County Historical Society.


Local newspapers have run stories on the excavations and one of them sparked the interest of Gini Massey. Gini saw the story and thought Fort Ancient would be a great place to bring her grandchildren this summer. Helping students Brian Beirsdorfer and Patricia Brechlin screen dirt from Trench A are Cole Hutzel (age 10 from Mason, OH), and Hunter and Codi Massey (ages 10 and 12 from Virginia Beach, VA).

Review of The First Human

Africa often is referred to as the cradle of humanity, but Ann Gibbons, in her new book The First Human: the race to discover our earliest ancestors, refers to Africa’s Rift Valley, in particular, as “the graveyard of humankind” in recognition of all the fossil bones of our ancestors found there. This evocative phrase reminded me of something the 19th century antiquarian Caleb Atwater once said about Ohio. In an 1820 paper describing the discovery of mastodon bones and burials of ancient American Indians, Atwater wrote that this region appeared to have been “one vast cemetery of the beings of former ages.”

Gibbons presents an enthralling overview of the search for the fossil evidence of the beginnings of humanity. By the “first human” she means a short, small-brained, hairy, apelike creature that lived sometime between 6 and 9 million years ago. In the words of fossil hunter Michel Brunet, it could “touch with its finger” the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. Obviously, this would not have been a “human” in the sense that most of us think about ourselves. (Tim White, another paleoanthropologist profiled by Gibbons, once told a radio talk-show host that you wouldn’t want to invite it to dinner.)

Gibbons’ book is a wonderful summary of the history of what and how we know what we think we know about human origins. It is a thoughtful review of the most important discoveries made in the last decade and a balanced consideration of the clash of personalities and sometimes-nasty turf wars among this dedicated group of fossil hunters.

Many of the scientists interviewed by Gibbons urged her “to stick to the science and to avoid writing about the politics and personal rivalries, because it might reflect poorly on the field.” Wisely, however, she chose not to try “to separate the human story of the quest from the scientific results.” Science is a human endeavor. Nothing humans do is ever simple and unproblematic and people naturally are suspicious when science is presented that way. As the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson and the philosopher Elliott Sober once wrote, “Science is often portrayed as an efficient process that cuts quickly to the truth. Alas, all too often it is like the Three Stooges trying to move a piano.”

The glory of science as a way of knowing the world, according to the anthropologist Marvin Harris, is not that it “guarantees absolute truth free of subjective bias, error, untruths, lies, and frauds,” but that it is “the best system yet devised for reducing subjective bias, error, untruths, lies, and frauds.” Our ideas about the identity and nature of the earliest humans certainly will change in the light of new discoveries, but Gibbons’ work will stand as a colorful chronicle of the state of the art of paleoanthropology as of 2006.

This is an edited excerpt of a longer review written for Ohioana Quarterly: http://www.ohioana.org/quarterly.

Student Submission

The following is a week 3 update of Trench B excavations by Angela Chavez, a Ph.D student in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso

"Trench B update 15 July 2006

We have our first feature, Fea. 06-4, several rocks encircling an area of very dark soil. Don’t know if it is a hearth or a posthole or something totally different.

On Monday (10 July) I found the first projectile point from trench B.

We had a rain day on Tuesday, and used it to wash and catalogue the artifacts we have collected so far. We finished cataloguing on Wednesday afternoon, and as it was still raining we quit at 12:30.

Thursday, we troweled the entire 6 meter by 8 meter portion that has been excavated to get a better picture of the patterns of soil colors in the trench. The afternoon was spent photographing the trench from various angles.

Friday, we mapped the third 2 meter section (512-520N, 758-760E) in the morning, and spent the afternoon excavating the last 2 meter section (760-762E) to get it down to the level of the rest of the trench. We had a visitor from Newark, Mary Borgia, who helped excavate and sift, and found a large, near-complete bladelet. "

Wright State Field School Week 3

Rain, rain, hot, humid and down right miserable pretty much sums up this weeks field conditions at the excavation. However, between the rain threats the crew was able to expose and document some very interesting features.


The first picture is of Feature 6-1 in Trench A. Trench A is investigating the construction of the circular enclosure. Here you see the profile of one of the general surface rock clusters. The subsoil has yet to be reached in this location so a continued expansion of this unit it planned for next week.


The second picture is of Trench B. Trench B is located in the very center of the enclosure. This is where a large magnetic anomaly was seen in the geophysics data (http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/ftancien/fa-01.html). This picture shows a large burned/reddened area in the upper left hand corner. Surrounding it appears to be several large (12-16 inch in diameter) post holes. The upper portion of the unit is composed of black soil and rock clusters. Next week the remaining four blocks of soil located on the left side of the picture will be excavated to the same level and who knows what fascinating features will be discovered?!

Until the next installment,

Linda

P.S. One of the families visiting the site this week had a great observation. They asked if the earth squares (as seen in Trench B) were prehistoric features. Actually no. These pedestals are location markers for the excavation crew. They show where each individual square unit is in reference to the whole trench. And they help the crew to make sure their recording lines are straight and level so they can take accurate measurements.

Wright State Field School Week 2

Week 2 has come to a close and unlike last week, the weather was cooler and no rain storms popped up. This made for a much nicer work week! Since the last update the students have recovered mica fragments, pottery sherds, a broken bit of a stone axe head, bladelets, bifaces, scrapers and flint debitage.

The first picture shows Dr Riordan recovering a larger piece of pottery found in the central excavation. The pottery was located in the southern end of the excavation (upper most portion of the trench in the second picture). In this unit there are gravel zones, burned earth and a charred wood area which is easily seen in the photo. As you can see on either side of the open work zone are black plastic sheets. The sheets are there to keep the exposed ground underneath them moist and protect features from the sun.

During the careful excavation of the trench going through the enclosure, several pockets of arranged stone have been located. Perhaps they served as chinking stones for log posts or served as an outline for wall construction. Pictured are students creating maps of the work site.

As with last week, the excavations are proving to be a very popular destination for people visiting Fort Ancient. They come from all over the United States, England, Italy, Germany and France and share the experience. Several field schools have also stopped by to see what is going on. And the excavations are bringing repeat visitors. One lady remarked that she had been here the previous week with friends from Florida and enjoyed it so much that she came back this week with family and has plans to be here next week with more out of town friends. The final picture in this posting is a father and daughter examining the area.

Until next time,

Linda