Monday, May 13, 2013
Brigadoon Efffect
I talked about the Brigadoon Effect in a past post.
My crew, this spring, really saw it in effect!
We surveyed 2 sites that were ‘nothing’ sites until we ran into this!
One site had 25 rooms and the other about 20!
We were stunned and exhausted!
One site took us into a 11 hour day- so much mapping required.
One of our crewmembers wrote this article.
Pictures of our ‘wonder’ are included.
Our find was so exciting that an archaeologist did a helicopter flyover and took pictures.
The results are astounding!
I am so computer illerate! I hope you can view this link. You may have to copy and paste.If so I am sorry!
http://bit.ly/YDd5Q9
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
AGE?
Today we were evaluating a site in the Sulfur Springs Valley, located east of Tucson.
Typical – anytime we have a site to visit there is a scramble to deal with barbed wire fences!
I had walked the site and was headed out and had to go under the barbed wire fence again!
I was alone as my crewmates were in the wash and well away from me.
The fence was tight but I thought I could get under without the extra ‘lift’ of the lower wires.
I got stuck!
I was on my belly - squirming under the wires - military style.
The barbs grabbed my windbreaker!
I managed to tilt and release the barbs.
I continued to do the military belly slide – hook and unhook the barbs.
Finally free and I was out!
As I stood up a crewmate laughingly hollered to me, “Didn’t any one tell you to act your age?”
Huh?
“Don’t all old ladies belly under barbed wire fences?” I hollered back.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Unexpected Caution
We have been monitoring sites within the Cienega Preserve since 2001 and the only ‘caution’ we have had to consider is coming upon illegal aliens or falling off a cliff!
Things have changed!
In early summer one of our sites had a very big prickly pear cactus torn-ripped to shreds!
Next to it was bear scat.
We identified the scat by a book with pictures and drawings of animal paw prints and scat.
Yep! It was bear(ursus americanus).
We were very excited, as bear has never been reported in the Preserve, at least to our knowledge.
This past Friday we were on a high ridge site on the south side of the Creek and there were 3 huge areas of bear scat.
No plants had been damaged but we think there had been several bears on site.
Also they had been there for quite sometime probably just hanging out.
Of course, I mentioned this in the report to the Land Manager.
The county biologist/ranger sent me a picture of a bear he had spotted recently in the Preserve!
In the picture the bear is walking casually down the dry Creek bed!
Often,this is our very means of traversing to sites!
It is a very handsome, big black bear usually seen up in the mountains to the north of the Preserve.
The biologist says, “It seems as though resources are lower in the mountains this year. Game and fish have been getting more calls this year about bears all over southeast Arizona. Plus they love prickly pear and there was quite a bit this year.”
So there we have it!
We add another ‘caution’ to our weekly treks!
Things have changed!
In early summer one of our sites had a very big prickly pear cactus torn-ripped to shreds!
Next to it was bear scat.
We identified the scat by a book with pictures and drawings of animal paw prints and scat.
Yep! It was bear(ursus americanus).
We were very excited, as bear has never been reported in the Preserve, at least to our knowledge.
This past Friday we were on a high ridge site on the south side of the Creek and there were 3 huge areas of bear scat.
No plants had been damaged but we think there had been several bears on site.
Also they had been there for quite sometime probably just hanging out.
Of course, I mentioned this in the report to the Land Manager.
The county biologist/ranger sent me a picture of a bear he had spotted recently in the Preserve!
In the picture the bear is walking casually down the dry Creek bed!
Often,this is our very means of traversing to sites!
It is a very handsome, big black bear usually seen up in the mountains to the north of the Preserve.
The biologist says, “It seems as though resources are lower in the mountains this year. Game and fish have been getting more calls this year about bears all over southeast Arizona. Plus they love prickly pear and there was quite a bit this year.”
So there we have it!
We add another ‘caution’ to our weekly treks!
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Travels
Archaeological Site Steward monitoring has some interesting turns!
Last week Fran spotted a desert tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) under a rocky over-hang on the trail.
I managed to get flat down on my belly and took a picture of the tortoise with a size scale next to it.
I attached the picture to my site report to the land manager (LM).
Yesterday, the LM said a biologist, who is primarily interested in Leopard frogs, was all excited, as he had just seen a desert tortoise upon leaving the Davidson canyon area of the Cienega Preserve.
The LM emailed him the picture I sent of ‘our’ tortoise.
Now the biologist really got excited.
He emailed LM saying he is sure it is the same one he saw - 1/2 mile away!
Our two tortoises match up in size and ‘ding’ in left rear carapace!
He plans to do time travel study etc.
As the LM said “all those scientific things that we dirt archaeologist don’t do!”
To follow up I sent a reminder photo to the LM of a tortoise we saw in 2011- about ½ mile west of the present sighting.
Good heavens!
What if it is the same fellow?
I would say, “That tortoise sure travels around!”
Last week Fran spotted a desert tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) under a rocky over-hang on the trail.
I managed to get flat down on my belly and took a picture of the tortoise with a size scale next to it.
I attached the picture to my site report to the land manager (LM).
Yesterday, the LM said a biologist, who is primarily interested in Leopard frogs, was all excited, as he had just seen a desert tortoise upon leaving the Davidson canyon area of the Cienega Preserve.
The LM emailed him the picture I sent of ‘our’ tortoise.
Now the biologist really got excited.
He emailed LM saying he is sure it is the same one he saw - 1/2 mile away!
Our two tortoises match up in size and ‘ding’ in left rear carapace!
He plans to do time travel study etc.
As the LM said “all those scientific things that we dirt archaeologist don’t do!”
To follow up I sent a reminder photo to the LM of a tortoise we saw in 2011- about ½ mile west of the present sighting.
Good heavens!
What if it is the same fellow?
I would say, “That tortoise sure travels around!”
Friday, August 10, 2012
Tucson
Hi to all who venture here.
I mostly write about my experiences around Tucson and the desert.
www.youtube.com/azstatemuseum
My computer experience-ability-is limited! You may have to copy and paste the link to see where I live.
If you do visit the web site-- enjoy! Tucson is a very unique place!
I mostly write about my experiences around Tucson and the desert.
www.youtube.com/azstatemuseum
My computer experience-ability-is limited! You may have to copy and paste the link to see where I live.
If you do visit the web site-- enjoy! Tucson is a very unique place!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Mystery
Several years ago, my Site Steward partner and I decided to do some roaming following checking on a couple of sites within the Cienega Preserve.
We stumbled upon a Historic site!
Surprisingly, the site is quite large so how did the original survey crew miss it? They probably didn’t cross the road as we did. Or maybe it wasn’t in their area to check out!
The site may not have much interest to Tucson Archaeologists as most delve into the prehistoric Hohokam culture.
This site is close to but not abutting two Railroad bridges that cross Cienega Creek.
The Railroad was built in the 1870’s along this wide meandering Creek.
The first Railroad engine crossed the westbound bridge and arrived in Tucson March 20 1880 giving rise to the growth of this Southwestern city.
We are sure this historic site was the major campground for the crews who built the railroad bridges that crisscross the Cienega Creek. The archaeologist, who came at our request, recorded the site and agreed it was a significant campsite for building crews.
On this site we have rusty hole-in-top cans (1820-1917); purple glass (manganese used in glass ended in 1917); white ceramic sherds; sardine cans and lots of flat-sided hinged tobacco cans post 1910! And tobacco cans lidded but not hinged 1849-1910. And more!
There is a nice rock alignment with a stovepipe nestled in the alignment. We are sure the stovepipe indicated that this was the cook’s work area. Also there are piles of rusty lard and food cans nearby that are good indicators of a cook’s domain.
Dating of the site will be tricky but we won’t be doing it. Tricky because there are also two bridges built for car traffic crossing the Creek. They have dates of 1923 stamped into the concrete. So is the campsite from the RR crews of the 1870s or from the road bridge builders in the 1920s? As I mentioned the hole-in-top cans and purple glass is datable BUT those could have been used well after their manufacture. Somehow I doubt it! But then we have many tobacco cans from 1910! It is a “time use” mystery that a historic archaeologist may have fun interpreting. Of course the camp may have had long term use-by both railroad bridge and road bridge crews.
It has been a year since we visited the site.
Today, the stovepipe is missing! It was easy to get out as it was not truly buried and was under a cactus growing over the alignment. Slight marks for digging and pulling it out are evident. Did they take anything else? We don’t have a total artifact inventory.
If and when caught, vandals can receive $250,000 fine and may be subject to 5 years in jail. This is a felony according to the Federal and Arizona Antiquities laws.
The chance of nailing these creeps is zip, zero, nil, nada.
Meanwhile, information is lost to researchers.
What in heavens name will these felonious perps do with a rusty stovepipe?
Sell it?
Guess I’ll keep an eye on eBay for a while!
We stumbled upon a Historic site!
Surprisingly, the site is quite large so how did the original survey crew miss it? They probably didn’t cross the road as we did. Or maybe it wasn’t in their area to check out!
The site may not have much interest to Tucson Archaeologists as most delve into the prehistoric Hohokam culture.
This site is close to but not abutting two Railroad bridges that cross Cienega Creek.
The Railroad was built in the 1870’s along this wide meandering Creek.
The first Railroad engine crossed the westbound bridge and arrived in Tucson March 20 1880 giving rise to the growth of this Southwestern city.
We are sure this historic site was the major campground for the crews who built the railroad bridges that crisscross the Cienega Creek. The archaeologist, who came at our request, recorded the site and agreed it was a significant campsite for building crews.
On this site we have rusty hole-in-top cans (1820-1917); purple glass (manganese used in glass ended in 1917); white ceramic sherds; sardine cans and lots of flat-sided hinged tobacco cans post 1910! And tobacco cans lidded but not hinged 1849-1910. And more!
There is a nice rock alignment with a stovepipe nestled in the alignment. We are sure the stovepipe indicated that this was the cook’s work area. Also there are piles of rusty lard and food cans nearby that are good indicators of a cook’s domain.
Dating of the site will be tricky but we won’t be doing it. Tricky because there are also two bridges built for car traffic crossing the Creek. They have dates of 1923 stamped into the concrete. So is the campsite from the RR crews of the 1870s or from the road bridge builders in the 1920s? As I mentioned the hole-in-top cans and purple glass is datable BUT those could have been used well after their manufacture. Somehow I doubt it! But then we have many tobacco cans from 1910! It is a “time use” mystery that a historic archaeologist may have fun interpreting. Of course the camp may have had long term use-by both railroad bridge and road bridge crews.
It has been a year since we visited the site.
Today, the stovepipe is missing! It was easy to get out as it was not truly buried and was under a cactus growing over the alignment. Slight marks for digging and pulling it out are evident. Did they take anything else? We don’t have a total artifact inventory.
If and when caught, vandals can receive $250,000 fine and may be subject to 5 years in jail. This is a felony according to the Federal and Arizona Antiquities laws.
The chance of nailing these creeps is zip, zero, nil, nada.
Meanwhile, information is lost to researchers.
What in heavens name will these felonious perps do with a rusty stovepipe?
Sell it?
Guess I’ll keep an eye on eBay for a while!
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Artifact Recovery
We had found a Cortaro point (arrowhead) (3500-2100 B C) on a site in the Cienega Preserve.
I took a picture of it and sent the site report with the picture to the Land Manager.
I was so surprised when the Land Manager e-mailed me back asking if we could go back to the site and recover the point.
Yikes!
We have seen many of these points the Preserve, so I had not taken a GPS reading of the point only the picture.
We have never been asked to recover an artifact from the Preserve.
I emailed the Land Manager back saying we would give it a try but it would be a ‘needle in the haystack’ situation I feared, as the site is huge.
I asked the crew to have their lunches with them as we could be a long time on this search.
We planned to do a really tight ‘shoulder to shoulder’ sweep of the area for the point.
On site we stopped to put up flagging tape at the start of the ‘thought it is about here” area.
There it was at boot tip!
We had been on site less than 10 minutes!
Of course, we had a good laugh and high fives went all around!
Incredible!
I took a picture of it and sent the site report with the picture to the Land Manager.
I was so surprised when the Land Manager e-mailed me back asking if we could go back to the site and recover the point.
Yikes!
We have seen many of these points the Preserve, so I had not taken a GPS reading of the point only the picture.
We have never been asked to recover an artifact from the Preserve.
I emailed the Land Manager back saying we would give it a try but it would be a ‘needle in the haystack’ situation I feared, as the site is huge.
I asked the crew to have their lunches with them as we could be a long time on this search.
We planned to do a really tight ‘shoulder to shoulder’ sweep of the area for the point.
On site we stopped to put up flagging tape at the start of the ‘thought it is about here” area.
There it was at boot tip!
We had been on site less than 10 minutes!
Of course, we had a good laugh and high fives went all around!
Incredible!
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