Big Skies and Vindication

Montana has really big skies and boy do the stars shine at night especially, when one is away from every bit of artificial nightlight.

I was at Mammoth Meadows way outside of Dillon, Montana under those big skies, for a Paleo-Indian excavation under the watchful eye of Rob.

I shared a pit with another gal, far more experienced than I at excavation.

She had recovered a small animal rib and a bolo in her area of our pit. I had recovered nothing.

Suddenly I had a hair! I showed it to her.

“Throw it away. It is from your brush,” she said. “No it isn’t. My brush is black and this is red.” My big defensive response!

I took it to the crew chief: “Throw it away. It is from your brush.”

I took it to Rob: “Throw it away. It is from your brush.”

To heck with all of them I decided.

I provenienced it (means I measured height within the pit, distance from both sides,in otherwords its EXACT location in the Universe) labeled it, placed it in a film canister and sent it to the lab.

The next day the lab director came to me saying, “You submitted a hair!”

“Yes.” I said. “It is from your brush,” she said.

“Throw it away then,” said I, knowing full well nothing is thrown away once it goes into the lab!

That winter a note from Rob on the report: “the hair is extinct horse.” (extinct horse is pre 10,000 BC) Not only that but it was the first hair recovered in that type of acidic soil that was thought to destroy all hair.

YEA! Vindication for stubbornness doesn’t get much better than this.