This field season was a much different experience than the last - no Covid, more people, new types of artifacts. Still, it was jam-packed and full of great days on Quartz Lake. We had a cold start, with rain and 40-degree weather for almost every single one of the first 10 days. At least we didn't have to contend with a frozen lake! This year, we opened up more of the area around our 1x1 m unit where the 1.75m deep cooking feature was identified last summer. Our crew of 9 undergraduate field school students from the Universities of Wyoming and Montana crushed it, learning quickly how to make flat floors and straight walls. We identified another late Holocene cooking feature in the block on our way down, with fish bird, and mammal bone as well as some nice stone tools. When we got to the level of our 13,000+ year old hearth feature, we were surprised to start finding bone needles! We found at least seven needles and needle fragments around the cooking feature, plus more possible swan bone radii straws, and lots of large mammal bone. But that's not all! |
AuthorBree is an Alaskan Archaeologist originally from Fairbanks. Today, she's an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming. Archives
February 2024
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