Using the Total Station Transit To Prepare the Excavation Site

Last Friday Team Paleo found themselves working in the field at a local dig site, known as the Morton Village Site, to prepare for students from Michigan State University to excavate in a few weeks. When we arrived at the archaeological site, Dr. Conner, the person in charge of the dig, handed us a satellite map with a grid, and a long pole with a mirror on top. He showed us a rectangular box sitting atop of a tripod. The box was a device called a Total Station Theodolite. When we aimed the reflector pole at it, the Total Station would bounce a laser off of the mirror. The machine measured the time it took for the laser to return, and used trigonometry to figure how far away the reflector was.

We would be using the reflector to measure out 30 meter (98 feet) squares for magnetic surveying. After trekking approximately 30 meters through knee-deep grass, the team received information from Dr. Conner over a small radio, telling us how far we needed to move to get to the right spot. Finding the exact location to place a stake usually went something like this: * Static * “...Move it 1.6 meters towards me...”  * Static * “...6 inches to your left...” * More static * “...That looks good... Move it right 4 inches...” * Static * “...Go south 15 meters...” We would move back 15 meters and repeat the process all over again.

Several hours passed, and finally our work was complete. We returned with the reflector, where Dr. Conner informed us that in the next few weeks, the folks in charge of the survey would arrive with a magnetometer and scan the squares we laid out. A magnetometer scans the ground to detect minor differences in the magnetic properties of the soil. Dr. Conner invited us back to help with the survey. We all agreed, and are eager to try our luck with another expensive machine.

Total Station Transit

Reflector

More Information on the Total Station Transit 

A Total Station, which we used to determine the location of our dig site, is designed to measure the distance and angle between itself and another point. It starts by sending an electric laser to a reflector. When the beam returns from the reflector, the transit measures the return time and uses trigonometry to calculate the distance from the reflector. A grid, established in the 1980s at the Morton excavation site, allows us to pinpoint the coordinates of the point we want to find. Using the original grid as a starting point, a handheld computer calculates the coordinates so that we don't have to figure it in our heads.

We used a GIS, or Geographic Information System, to map information about the site. The GIS also stores coordinates for past excavations, allowing us to refer to them. Team Paleo identified new excavation areas we wanted to survey and then we placed the coordinates of the 30 x 30 meter blocks into the GIS. Then the information was transferred to the handheld computer. The computer signals the Total Station transit to find the first set of coordinates, and the transit calculates the angle and distance of the location. When the person manning the transit aims it in the given direction, the person in the field with the reflector lines up with the transit. They move back and forth until they find the coordinates indicated. In the last satisfying moment, an indicator stake is placed at the final coordinate.

Articles written by Gwen McDaniel

Preparing For Dickson Mound Summer Dig

Today, Team Paleo tried their hand at something new. Using surveying equipment, the Team and the experienced archaeologists at Dickson Mounds marked off a potential dig site. First the area is measured out and marked with orange stakes every 30 meters. Later on, remote sensing equipment will be used to determine if there is anything good down there to dig up. More on that in a few days...

Finding the right spot

Driving in the stake and marking the measurements

Dr. Conner explaining the plan to Team Paleo

What To Know About the Stars

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was show the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
~ Walt Whitman

Apprenticeship plays an important role for the young students of Team Paleo. How can that be when these teens are already great scholars, tackling academic courses beyond their years. Each has a promising future in college and beyond. These kids can put together a term paper and likely outdo their public school peers in several choice subjects. What is this talk of apprenticeship?

Apprenticeship brings up images of medieval tradesmen training young children a skill in exchange for a free sleeping run by the fireplace. Quaint, if not antiquated, the idea of apprenticeship seems outmoded in our enlightened culture. In today's world, children are not given over to a predetermined trade, but rather given an equal start with education. Kids these days are told that they can be anything they want- blacksmith, engineer, magician, or mathematician. Even the kids at the family farm or mom-and-pop business are not expected to take their parents' place, instead pursuing college for bigger and brighter things.

But academics are not everything. As Whitman says in his poem, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer, there are things that can be - should be - learned about the world that are not found in books or charts. One can memorize every fact known about the stars, yet know nothing about them. What is the point of a marvelous academic education if you have no practical or applied understanding of the subject you just spent half a decade studying?

 One can memorize every fact known about the stars, 

yet know nothing about them.

To be able to look at the stars in the mystical moist night-air is the purpose of apprenticeship. To hold in your hands the potsherd or arrow point that you have read about in a book. To dig in the earth, by the backhoe or by the infinitesimally plodding hand trowel, you will understand with your whole body and brain that the idealized models of the geographic strata aren't realistic. 

In an apprenticeship setting - the relationship that Team Paleo has with their mentors at Dickson Mounds Museum - people can learn in ways that will never be had by scholarly lecture and pedantic bookishness. And while book learning and instruction are important, apprenticing polishes and fills the cracks untended by a solely academic education. I might even go so far as to say apprenticing is the basis of a true education.

Apprenticeship need not be formal. Any person who has real life experience and (just as important) passion in a particular area can be a wonderful guide to a child interested in learning through apprenticeship. I recall a time when on a nature walk in the prairie, several young children clustered around and questioning an older man who seemed to know everything there was to know about his prefered eco-system. Children are drawn to those with passion and interest- those who wish to share it. Those kids learned more on that day than they had in a semester of biology. 

 Children are drawn to those with passion and interest- 

those who wish to share it. 

And so it is with Team Paleo. These kids have read about lithic points and soil horizons. But through a relaxed apprenticeship approach, they have also come to know the soil and rocks. They have run their fingers over the grooves of an ancient pot, smelled the must of bones, heard the sound of trowel hitting artifact on a hot summer dig day. These kids know archaeology in a manner far different from when they read about it in a book.

There is so much more to learn. The life is so short and the craft so long to learn. I suppose none of us will ever learn it all. But in apprenticing, we can at least learn deeply, if not widely. 

A New Book ~ Jane Goodall Biography

Katie is working her way through an immense biography of the wonderful naturalist, Jane Goodall. What a heroine for our girls!

Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man, by Dale Peterson

What Is an Abrader?

A well used sandstone abrader at Univesity of Iowa Museum of Natural History

Imagine you are walking through a field. A piece of sandstone catches your eye so you lean over and pick it up. The stone, roughly the size of your hand, is covered in deep grooves. What is the strange stone? What caused the elongated depressions? Has it been modified by human hands?

This unusual rock is an abrader, and its history is extensive.

4,000 years ago, in this widespread and misty valley, a tribe of Native American Indians dwell. A woman sews shell beads onto a pair of moccasins. As she works, her needle, which is made from a long bird bone, begins to dull. Eventually, she draws the needle off the sinew she uses as thread. The woman instinctively reaches for a piece of sandstone about the size of her hand. Down the center, a shallow channel runs.

She maneuvers the needle in smooth strokes along the stone until the needle is honed to a fine taper. At this point, the shallow groove in the sandstone has become deeper. Now she can continue sewing efficiently.
Later, a man returns to the settlement from his work. He has spent the whole day hollowing out a canoe with a stone celt. The tool needs to be polished and sharpened, or it will not function properly. He retrieves the grooved stone from it's place in the corner of the wikiup, and sharpens the edge of the celt, further deepening the grooves on the sandstone surface.

Many years pass; tools are sharpened and polished on the abrader hundreds of times. Eventually, the grooves become so deep it cannot be used any longer. The people discard the old tool, where it sits in the field for thousands of years for you to find. 

For more information on ABRADERS

Article by Gwen McDaniel

Trip to University of Iowa Museum of Natural History

Gwen and family took a great trip to the University of Iowa Natural History Museum this weekend.

Natural History Museum in Iowa City- Great place!

Observing fossils from each geological period, as they occur in Iowa's history

The mother of all abraders! 

Geological index complete with fossils found in each stratum.

There are fossils EVERYWHERE! Even the buildings are full of them! 

Cataloging the Maurice Smith Collection

Today, Team Paleo continued to catalog a collection donated by the family of Maurice Smith. The collection contained beautiful arrow points and fossils. The team numbered and photographed the artifacts, which totaled over 100. Mr. Smith collected the artifacts from his farm some years ago. 

With such a marvelous collection, the gals with Team Paleo feel awestruck at the beauty of the lithic points. They are eager and excited to see what the collection holds, and as one member of the team says, "When you first see the box, you know anything could be in there... and then when you finally get to see the artifacts it is incredible. Always different from what you expect to find."

Team Paleo reviews photographs they have taken of artifacts. Dr. Wiant approves each photo, or critiques it for improvement.

The team is in the process of photographing an arrow point. They want to be sure the image is centered, straight, and sharp. Detail must show well, and lighting is often critical in bringing out the flake scars.

The team identifies and describes each artifact for Dr. Wiant. He then enters the description and catalog number into a database for later expoundings. Examples of  descriptions of a broken spear point might be proximal end, corner notched, slightly concave stem. 

Work in the quiet collections room is pleasant and calm. Surrounding the team are thousands of years worth of history, waiting to be re-discovered. 

Book Review - Beyond the Body Farm, by Dr. Bill Bass

Beyond the Body Farm by Dr. Bill Bass is an excellent account of a selection of the author's cases meant to educate readers of the wonders of forensic science.

Beyond the Body Farm is written using simple writing. There is a useful glossary and a nifty diagram of the human skeleton, including a detailed drawing of the skull. I found myself referring to the anatomic illustrations frequently. Even if you don't know a thing about anthropology, you will be able to understand the terms the author uses through his simple definitions.

Bones of prey found under a tree

At times, Beyond the Body Farm can be, understandably, graphic, but the intrigue keeps you going. For example, in one chapter, Dr. Bass studies the victims of a mass killing caused when an illegal firework shop explodes. The only thing that kept me reading this chapter was my curiosity as to how this event occurred, and the suspenseful writing style Bill Bass uses. Another time, I advised my mother to buy a rubber car mat instead of a cloth one because of another chapter. In this one, a burned body is found in a car. Many of the remains were salvageable because the plastic floor mat melted, rather than burned, keeping them from falling out of the charred car. Beyond the Body Farm just didn't last long enough!

Not only does Beyond the Body Farm teach readers about forensic anthropology, it also talks about other forensic careers including entomology (the study of insects), art (using the skull of a victim to recreate their face), and odontology (the study of teeth).

Whether you are just learning about forensic anthropology, or have known about it for a long time, Dr. Bill Bass' book is a required read. His story has inspired me to learn more about forensic anthropology.

Book review by Gwen McDaniel