The first week of field school is officially done. To date we have completed 73 auger tests with an average depth of 2.5 meters. By my calculation that is a total of approximately 19 square meters (61 square feet) of sediment excavated, recorded, and screened for artifacts. We still have a few more auger tests to dig next week, but we are ahead of schedule with our survey.

Today’s forecast was for clear skies and a high near 90 degrees. Knowing that working in the blazing sun was unavoidable later in the day, we chose to excavate the auger tests that were in the shade early on before it was completely gone.

Working in the cool morning shade.

 

John Broster, Archaeologist with the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, stopped by the site this afternoon to check on our progress. I think he was impressed!

John Broster, TDOA, (left) checks in with Ryan and the field school students.

 

Today’s student blog post:

Hi, my name is Mimi Glass, and I just finished my freshman year at MTSU. So in essence, I’m the baby of the group! I am majoring in Spanish and Anthropology and have yet to declare a minor.

Field School student, Mimi Glass, checks the depth of the auger test.

I joined this field school to really “dig in” and figure out if Archaeology is for me. Luckily, digging in the dirt is really fun! We’ve found so much more than I thought we would in just a few days!  The bucket augers are so small, yet we find so much. Just today we hit deer bones, and that’s the second time this week! Chert, rocks, and shell don’t seem like they would be interesting, but they are all amazingly fascinating when you take them out of the ground. You realize that real people were really here! They lived and breathed and here and we are finding out about their daily lives by the artifacts that were left behind.

Artifacts recovered in an auger test (Top: deer long bone splinter; bottom, L to R: freshwater mussel, freshwater snails, portion of a deer leg bone).

Today we are digging more holes than ever, and we are discovering more and more about both the history of this land and the extent of the site in general. We have a lot of work to do, but so far its been great.
We hope everyone has a restful and relaxing weekend — and remember to hydrate! Check back with us on Monday for more exciting news from MCAP Field School!

 

Today we continued on with our auger survey — and I hope you aren’t getting bored of updates about it yet!

 

We weren’t able to meet our goal of 20 auger tests today because several of them went very deep — which takes a lot of extra time and crew members. One of the Murphy’s Law of Archaeology is that anything interesting will turn up at the end of the day or on the last day! Near the end of today we were finding very interesting sediments — interesting from a paleoenvironmental standpoint. We want to learn more about ancient flood and deposition events along the Cumberland River, and deeply buried soils are the key to understanding those. In this particular auger test we wanted to see how deep the sandy deposits were, so we kept adding extensions on to the auger. In the end field school student, Zack Whitehead, drilled it over 6 meters (just over 20 feet!) deep!

Zack holding up the auger (over 7 meters with extensions).

 

For the past two days we have tested what we consider to be the main part of the site. The artifact concentrations and soils above and below them are very interesting and given us a lot to think about.

Here is all of the soil from one 2 meter (approx. 6 1/2 feet) deep auger test, laid out in sequence on a tarp.

Auger test soils.

To me that soil picture looks like a mirror image of the 10YR page out of the Munsell book:

 

As expected, we have recovered a lot of shell and fire-cracked rock (or FCR as we like to call it).  Fire-cracked rocks are lithics/stone that were used to line earth ovens or hearths (or in some cases heated up and put in containers to cook food or heat water). The stone’s repeated exposure to high and prolonged temperatures caused it to change color, texture, and in some cases crack. We interpret these as evidence of human occupation, typically of a daily/domestic nature. If you really want to know more about FCR you can find some good sources in this bibliography.

Fire-cracked rock.

 

It is too soon to tell what any of this really means, but we definitely have some interest in exploring these areas further later this season.

Today’s student blog post is written by Pam Hoffman, a current Senior at MTSU.

Pam Hoffman emptying a bucket auger into the screen.

I get the privilege of graduating in December with my degree in Anthropology and minors in Archaeology and Criminology.  I have envisioned this since seeing an active excavation site in Williamsburg, VA. I have thoroughly enjoyed my studies at Middle Tennessee State University.  Field school has been every thing that I hoped it would be and so much more.   We have learned about soil types, different artifacts and how they play an important part in our archaeological record.  Every piece no matter how small is significant.  I have definitely gotten more efficient at setting up a site, augering holes and screening through the various soils.  Clay soil can really slow the process down but you just push through, literally.

 

Today we were visited at lunch by Dr. Valerie McCormack, one of two  archaeologists with the Army Corps of Engineers in the Nashville District.

Dr. Valerie McCormack gives a brown bag lecture to the MTSU Field School.

She elaborated on her daily duties and responsibilities of her position.  We learned the differences between working with the Corps and working with the Forestry Service and the federal laws that come into play with each.

 

Finally, we had an Apache helicopter fly over the site (twice)! They are impressive!

Apache helicopter fly-over.

My name is Callie Lopeman (that’s me in the red hat holding the auger) and I will be a Senior at Middle Tennessee State University in the fall. I am majoring in history with a minor in archaeology, which is why I was so eager to join the field school this summer to get experience. Yesterday, Ryan Robinson, the project Geoarchaeologist, taught us how to auger and identify soil types, colors, and structures from the samples taken. We also were able to lay in several grid lines yesterday, so today we were able to really begin taking soil samples since we now knew how and where to auger.

This morning, we broke into six groups of two to continue the auger survey. Dr. Peres gave us a goal of 20 total augers by the end of the day. Each auger would need to be as deep as 2 meters (6.56 feet) and possibly deeper if we found artifacts at that depth. Each team set off to test the soils in different areas for changes in soil types and evidence of human occupation.

Callie and Cat auger.

These samples produced several small lithics (the waste produced from making stone tools), and we were able to identify many types of soil structures and colors. By lunch, each group had sampled two or three locations and we had around fifteen locations total sampled. Although my group did not find any evidence of human occupation before lunch, it was really interesting and informative to actually be doing the sampling without immediate supervision, although Dr. Peres was of course available for questions.

The start of a bucket auger test.

My group, and probably every other group too, became very efficient and better at identifying the soil. After lunch, because most of the points plotted yesterday for sampling had already been tested, we plotted new points for the groups to sample today and likely tomorrow. On the last auger of the day my group began recovering a number of lithic artifacts (not spear points, arrowheads, or knives, but the waste from making and sharpening them).  It is exciting to begin to see evidence of where people were once on the landscape. Today was a beautiful day, and I really enjoyed being able to apply what we learned yesterday for the first time!

We leave you today with a picture of this little fella’ that was found during the survey.

Can you name this turtle? Bonus points for the correct taxonomic name! Leave your answer in the comments!

Today was the official start of the MTSU Middle Cumberland Archaeology Project 2012 Field School. We had 12 students, 2 field assistants, the project geoarchaeologist, and the project director in attendance. We had visits by one of the property groundskeepers and two archaeologists with the Tennessee Division of Archaeology.

John Broster (TDOA) (standing) looks on as Ryan Robinson shows a field school student how to clean out the bucket auger.

One of the goals of the project is to determine the exact boundaries of the archaeological deposits (i.e., the site). There are a number of ways to do this, and for this season we have chosen to use bucket augers placed at 20 meter intervals across portions of the property. This survey is being led by Field Assistant Joey Keasler, with guidance from Dr. Peres and Ryan Robinson. We chose this method for a number of reasons, but especially because the holes are small (which means less destructive to potential site deposits) and with the proper equipment can go really deep (over 5 meters).

Deep augering with Ryan Robinson.

Everyday one of the field school students will write a blog post, so the rest of this post is written by Kate (in the yellow jacket, below).

Ryan Robinson, MCAP Geoarchaeologist, tells the students about sediments and soils

Hi! My name is Kate and I am a junior at Middle Tennessee State University. I am majoring in Anthropology, with  minors in Archaeology and Outdoor Recreation.  I am the lucky one to write the first blog post, so bear with me as I figure this out! We started out the day with Ryan Robinson, a Geoarchaeologist, teaching us about different land forms relating to our site, how they are formed, and the types of deposits we might find. He then showed us how to use a bucket auger and how to tell what type of soil we were bringing up. We learned how to determine color, structure, and composition using the USDA guidebook. I found it very interesting how different soil can be even when it is only centimeters apart. My group continued working on the same bucket auger hole while another group went with Dr. Peres to set up the positions for other samples.

Kyle records the color, texture, and structure of the soil in an auger test.

By lunch time my group had augered 360 cm down and found only one small piece of shale. Even though we have yet to find much, I am having a great time just getting my hands dirty and learning about archaeology.  After lunch we will begin digging other holes, hoping to get a little more sampling in before the end of the day. I am looking forward to learning about archaeology this summer and experiencing it first hand. I have been told that field school is make or break for most people and so far I haven’t been scared off! Hopefully this experience will just increase my interest in archaeology because I really don’t want to change majors!

MCAP welcomes Ryan Robinson as the project Geoarchaeologist. Ryan has worked as an archaeologist in theCultural Resource Management (CRM) industry for more than 14 years.

He also has an academic background in geomorphology.  Ryan is particularly interested in fluvial geomorphology and alluvial geoarchaeology.  He has extensive experience testing and excavating archaeological sites in alluvial settings   and conducting geomorphological and geoarchaeological assessments for CRM projects.

Ryan earned his M.A. in geography from West Virginia University in 2009.  While a graduate student, his research focused on geomorphology, sedimentology, pedology, and natural (i.e., noncultural) site formation processes.  Ryan used sedimentological, pedological, and archaeological data recovered from a deeply stratified site in the Ohio River Valley as the basis for his thesis, Holocene Landform Evolution and Natural Site Formation Processes at the West Blennerhassett Archaeological Site (46WD83-A), Wood County, West Virginia.  The information presented in the thesis contributes to an understanding of Holocene fluvial environments and archaeological site formation processes along landforms in the Ohio River Valley.

Ryan will assist the project team with describing and sampling sediments and soils along the Middle Cumberland River.  He will also use data from the project to infer changes in the depositional environment over time as well as to determine the natural formation processes that have affected archaeological deposits at the site.