Day 5

Hello Everyone,

All of the blog posts thus far have been concerned with what we’ve discovered at Woodrow Ruin on a day-to-day basis. I’ll follow that same basic format today, but since it is the end of the workweek, I thought I’d do something a little different too. I’m also going to provide some insight on what its like to be a project director, and give a behind-scenes-look at running the project.

Unit 1. The crew of Unit 1 started the day by drawing the profiles for the N, S, and East walls. Once these were drawn, the unit was closed. After thumbing through some site reports, I do think that the unit was in a pithouse. Without question, a pit was dug into sterile sediment, and was subsequently filled with cultural debris. However, there were no formal features, roofing material, floors, etc. As stated yesterday, it is hoped that excavations in Unit 3 will help elucidate what we found in Unit 1.

Completed Unit 1

Crew profiling Unit 1

Unit 2. The day began in Unit 2 with the extension of the unit to the east wall of the room it is in. We were successful in this endeavor, and did find an intact wall face, with some plaster/mortar material still on it. This is another piece of evidence that indicates to me that this room was previously unexcavated. If it had been dug, and the wall exposed, the plaster/mortar material would not be present today. Once the wall was exposed, the crew began excavating down in 5-centimeter levels in search of possible floors or surfaces. These floors will probably be very hard to identify, and likely in poor condition, so the crew is excavating very carefully. By the end of the day we had not positively identified any surface.

 

Eastern extension of Unit 2

Unit 3. Unit 3, 2 meters immediately east of Unit 1, was opened by EG and ND today. It was opened late in the day, so only the surface and first level were cleared. Still, a massive bag of sherds were acquired. It really does show how preservation can positively benefit a site!

Overall, the first week of work at Woodrow Ruin was very successful! The crew has been great, which has allowed me to take good notes, photographs, and update this blog. Still, I’ve learned that the responsibilities of a project director are never ending. Yesterday while driving back from the site,, the Chevy Suburban we had rented from CU decided to act up (something about traction calibration needed). After speaking to the Transportation and Vehicle Rental service people at CU, it seems I will have to spend one of my off days driving to Deming, in order to get the Chevy Suburban repaired. I will also have to drive to Woodrow on Thursday in order to move the porta-potty we had delivered to the site. One of the site’s neighbors informed us that it is actually on private property, not the road’s right-of-way. The weekend of a projector director also involves taking trash/recycling to the dump, and going grocery shopping. I am by no means complaining about any of this! I just wanted to demonstrate that there is much more involved in an archaeological project than simply digging holes in the ground!

Exposing east wall of Unit 2.

Snake visitor to the site

Thanks for reading everyone, more posts to come at the start of next week (which for us will be Friday, June 8^th)!

Jakob