Dig Diary- Riley's View Oct. 1-11

Dig Diary- 10-02-07

Today we didn’t get to the actual digging, but we made some important preparations so that we can get to the digging tomorrow. We started by finding an area to dig up, which meant finding an area with a dense amount of alien objects. These alien objects usually were in the form of rocks that were chipped or a different kind than the dirt balls that composed much of the ground elements. We walked in a line, and put flags at all the spots where there were alien objects, then found the spot which was most densely covered in the flags. We then measured out a two by two meter square with string, and aligned it north. We made sure that all the angles were about 90 degrees, and we measured the diagonals to make sure that those were the same. Finally, we used string to divide this large square into four smaller one-meter squares. Tomorrow each of our 3 person groups will start excavating one-fourth of the dig.

10-03-07

Today we actually started the digging process. We started out with a little bit of explanation on how to write down where we find the artifacts when for when we find some. Mac showed us how to chart down where on the grid that we found each artifact, along with a numbering system, and how to number each artifact. We then charted down where we had found the alien rocks that we had found in our quadrant of the digging site, and began digging. I was churning up the dirt to be scooped, and Charley was scooping the dirt up into a large bucket. I used a small rake-like utensil to break apart the hard dirt so that it could be easily scooped with the small bucket charley had. Charley and I would then bring the dirt over to William, who would search the dirt for more subtle artifacts. We would dump the dirt out onto a sift, and William would sift out the dirt and rocks looking for artifacts. We would then repeat the process.

10-05-07

Today we actually uncovered some artifacts. We started off the day by right to work on digging. Today we wear able to use shovels and hoes instead of just small trowels. This made the work go much faster. Our group first dug for a while, without uncovering anything. We just dug hauling as much dirt as possible, and we put it into a white bucket. We then dumped out the dirt in a large pile, but today we did not sift through the dirt like we had the other day. Finally we found an arrowhead. It was made out of rock, and was rather pointy. We marked down where we found it, drew a picture of it, and wrote a small description. We then put it into a plastic bag for safe keeping. We dug some more and found a large stone with two animals painted on it. We marked this down on the charts with different coordinates than usual because it was on the border of our quadrant and another group’s quadrant. Finally, near the end of our digging time, we found a small axe. It had a stone blade attached to a wooden handle with leather. We marked this one down, and wanted to continue, but Mac said that it was time to go back to class. We cleaned up our tools and brought our artifacts back to class.

10-09-07

Today we continued on with the usual digging process. In order to even things out more, Mac had us switch quadrants because our group was getting all the artifacts. We got quadrant D, which was not really a bad quadrant, it just had a little bit of hard ground in some areas. We dug down, and when se neared the second layer we found some artifacts. We found an acorn, and a piece of rock with a painting of an abstract animal on it. These were both very interesting and we plotted them down on our charts. We also found a stone dagger, but Mac let the other group have it (That was fine, we have gotten lucky two days in a row. After that we just continued digging without success, and finally we went back to Mac’s room with our artifacts.

10-10-07

Today our group finished the digging process of our quadrant. William was gone today, because he was going to the orthodontists to go get his braces removed. Me and charley worked as a two-sum, but we still go the job done, and go the job done well. We traded off doing the shovel work, while the other person went and took the buckets of dirt to the pile to dump them. The only thing that we found today was a feather. The feather was white, and small, with the tip of the feather being black. This may have come out of some small bird, lie a jay, or maybe it was down of a large raptor. We were unable to tell in its condition. After that, things went uneventfully, and Charley and I went and cleaned out the bottom of the pit for and more lose dirt. We marked the feather on our charts, and also marked that the dig was done and that there was nothing else left to do. We took our single artifacts back to class and discussed what we had found as a class.

10-11-07

Today, since we are done with digging out our artifacts, we began analyzing them. First, we found all of our dig charts that correspond to our artifacts. We then got out our artifacts, and made labels for each of the artifacts. The labels included all the key information, including the period, artifact number, layer, quadrant, and a brief description. While we were doing that we drew in where we had found our artifacts on the master chart. There were three of these charts, one for each of the layers that we excavated. We drew in the artifacts that we had found on each of the layers, and labeled the drawings with their artifact number. Finally, we began taking pictures of the artifacts that we had found. We put each artifact on the picture-taking device table, and used scrabble letters to label the artifacts in the pictures. We also put a ruler in the picture so that you could tell how long that the artifact was from the picture. Unfortunately we were unable to finish the picture taking, so we had to put our stuff away for tomorrow.