June 12th: Shovels Vs. Pencils

Today we had another visitor to the site, 2005 Field School Alumnus James Morfopoulos. Bob gave James the grand tour of the McKenzie Creek area. The rest of the crew in the field were backfilling all of the completed excavation units, except Jasmin who is still working on the Rock Feature. We are still not entirely sure what the rock area was used for, so instead of closing the unit we have decided to continue excavating it tomorrow to see if we can find any artifacts. Mark was able to take a video clip of Jasmin explaining what she has found in this unit as it is a particularly puzzling feature:

This photo of Jasmin in the rock feature earlier this week shows that the sediment in the top layer is mostly dirt and very little rock. 

This photo taken today shows the changes in sediment color and texture as the dig progresses:

We also started breaking camp today and brought one truckload of equipment out of the field. The remainder of the week will consist mainly of cleaning up the field site and bringing all of our gear back to the Capilano University campus.

Nathan backfilled his unit in the "industrial area" this week. He went the extra mile by planting some shrubs and lining the edges with rocks and moss. 

This is the "garden" unit that Willow has been working on.

Backfilling in the rain with Andrew and Ryan.

We had some expired bear spray on site so we decided to give it a try (for demonstration purposes only):

Meghan, Evan, Kitty and myself worked in the lab today. Kitty on her "Japanese and Personal Artifacts" report, Evan on the artifact catalog, while Meghan and I completed a few more line drawings.