Category: Arctic

Labwork–A necessary evil?

You never see Indiana Jones doing labwork.  Of course, you never see him taking notes, either, so perhaps one should not take the good Dr. Jones as a guide to good archaeological practice.

In fact, for projects which involve actual excavation of a site (presumably thereby giving rise to a collection of artifacts and other sorts of physical data such as C14 samples and faunal remains), far more time will be spent in the lab than was spent in the field.  Labwork is a necessary and important part of archaeology.  After all the time and energy spent in the field finding, recording and excavating things, it would be a real pity to just let them deteriorate for lack of cleaning and care, or get mixed up and lose their proveniences because they weren’t properly marked.  Then things need to be cataloged, with field IDs checked and expanded on, and the data needs to get into a database so that more detailed analysis can happen without having to root through the entire collection to find things.  No labwork = chaos.

The thing is that many of the activities which have to be done in the lab just aren’t that exciting :-(.  For example, cleaning things is not on most peoples’ Top 10 Things to Do list.  We actually had almost everything cleaned from previous seasons, so there hasn’t been any of that yet.  When it happens, it often involves very slow and fiddly removal of gravel, dirt and roots by the gentlest means possible.  Sometimes artifacts are so delicate that complete cleaning can’t be done at once, or sometimes at all without the help of a conservator (of whom there are only 2 in Alaska, both at museums).

Our first big task was marking & cataloging, which generally happens after the cleaning.  This is really important, and important to get right.

Ideally, all items collected at a site are put into containers (usually Ziploc bags of some sort) or tagged (if they are too big to go in a container) with information as to site of origin, location of find, level and excavation unit they were found in, date found, and who collected them clearly written on the bag or label.  The idea is to assign each item (or group of small items like flakes or fish scales) a unique catalog number.  The information about that item goes into the catalog, and the item is marked with the catalog number.  These days, the catalog is usually a database on a PC, which is a huge improvement on the index cards that were in use when I started, or even the mainframe-based databases which came in shortly after that.

That way, if later an archaeologist decides they need to look at all the harpoon heads, say, from a site (or even many sites), they can be retrieved, and spread out in the lab, grouped and regrouped endlessly, and still not get mixed up or lose associated information.  When the analysis is done, everything can get back where it belongs.  New information from the analysis can be added to the catalog.

People used to just mark on artifacts with ink, often with a layer of clear nail polish or White-Out as a base coat, and a clear nail polish cover coat, but that wasn’t stable or reversible, and the idea today is that nothing should be done to an artifact that can’t be reversed.   We have used Paraloid B-72 dissolved in acetone as base and cover, with the catalog number written in India ink or white ink with a quill pen for years.  However, there are not a lot of people who can write a hand that is both tiny and legible.  The schools stopped teaching penmanship at all and started kids keyboarding very early, so they don’t really get practice.  We went to a system where the catalog numbers are printed on very thin archival paper, which is dunked in the Paraloid and then stuck to the artifact in an unobtrusive (one hopes) spot.

Nora selects artifact to mark, while Flora makes cabinet labels, while Laura & Violet "supervise".

We had some major struggles at first, with the Paraloid bubbling and making everything illegible.  We finally realized that the only thing that had changed was a move from a lab in a 1968 building to the new lab in the BARC, which is supposed to be very energy-efficient.  It is also extraordinarily dry.  One day a woman checking the air flow on the fume hoods measured the relative humidity in the lab, and got 3.8% (not a typo!).  I think the Sahara desert is more humid than that!  We realized the acetone was evaporating so fast it was making the bubbles.  We are now running one house-size and two room-size humidifiers in the lab, and the bubbling problem has gone away.  This method is proving very fast, with the only challenge being to get the right label on the right artifact.

However, it isn’t really that exciting, and can get repetitive, which can lead to people getting tired and therefore careless.  Like most labs, we try to have people work as a group, although each person is working on their own.  It is possible to label and talk at the same time.  We’ve got an iPod speaker for tunes, and so far there seems to be enough overlap in musical taste on crew that no-one has had to resort to ear plugs.  Like pretty much everyone in archaeology, I’ve spent a lot of time marking and cataloging artifacts, and while time doesn’t usually fly, I can tell you it goes a lot faster when you’re having fun.

Once the artifacts are marked, the catalog info is checked and they are put into cabinets, with the storage location entered into the catalog.  In the field, we tend to use quart (“small”) and gallon (“large”) Ziplocs, because they are easy to get, less expensive and too many sizes makes life complex.  Most artifacts don’t really need that much room.  We are moving the artifacts into the smallest possible archival bags they will fit in, and this is saving a huge amount of space.  Particularly nice artifacts, which visitors want to look at, are getting special containers.  They get individual beds of ethafoam, inside clear plastic archival boxes with lids.  Ron Mancil, a crew member who is currently a MA student at UAF, has museum experience and is very handy as well.  He has been applying his skills to making mounts for a bunch of artifacts, so visitors can get a closer look without endangering the artifacts.

Ron hard at work making a mount for a special artifact

It’s true that a lot of what happens in the field isn’t all that exciting either, as you will see in the next post or two.  But there’s always the possibility that something really cool will show up in the next shovel test pit (STP) or the next one, or the next one…

Public Meetings & Archaeology

For the 2nd Tuesday evening in a row, I was at a public meeting being held by a NSB Assistant Borough Attorney, who is working on the monumental task of revising Titles 18 and 19 of the North Slope Borough Municipal Code.  These Titles deal with permitting and land use, including issues affecting cultural resources.  She’s certainly trying to do a good job, and the people who came had good input.  Unfortunately, it’s been pretty nice weather both nights, so turnout was light.

Since I’m one of maybe 3 archaeologists resident in Barrow, and the others were otherwise occupied (well, I did bring Glenn along this evening), it seemed like it was pretty much my duty as a concerned citizen to go and make sure the attorney is aware of issues that she might not have thought of.   Many more meetings in all the villages and more drafts and Planning Commission and then NSB Assembly need to pass it before anything really comes out of it, but at least there is some progress.  I certainly hope so, since otherwise I might have finished a piece of needlepoint I’ve been working on for 6 months.  Maybe tomorrow…

Choosing the crew

A big part of the past couple weeks has involved choosing the crew for work at Nuvuk.  There are two funding sources for this project.  One is a grant to the North Slope Borough from the Department of Education, through the Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations program (ECHO), and the other is a regular research grant from the Arctic Social Sciences program of the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation.

The ECHO funds are targeted at K-12 education, so they need to be used for pre-college students and those who teach/supervise them.  We’ve been focusing on high school students for those slots.  For one thing, we run the dig for these students as a job.  That way, even if they don’t find their life’s work in archaeology, they’ll have some spending money for the next school year, and will have learned about interviews, resumes, time-sheets, paychecks and good work habits before they are out on their own.  Students who are less than 15 are very restricted in the hours they can work, even in the summer.  The first year, we hired a couple of students that young, only to find that every time we needed to stay late in the field (usually because something exciting was happening) we’d have to send them home or violate child labor laws.  Essentially, they got punished for being young, which was really no fun for anyone :-(.  After that, we only hired students who were older, and could work some OT, so they wouldn’t need to go home just when things got really exciting.

We’ve been doing interviews with students who haven’t worked before, both to assess motivation and to make sure they understand what they are getting into.  It’s really cold at Nuvuk, even compared to Barrow, and the wind comes right off the ice.  With the field season so short, and the erosion ongoing, we don’t take many weather days.

We’ve also been seeing who is returning, and for how much of the season they are available.  Many of the high school students who want to work at Nuvuk are active in many things, including sports (with summer camps), band, Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, Model UN, and Rural Alaska Honors Institute.  Most of these involve some travel, so scheduling is complex.  We need to have a good-size crew, but not more than we have 4-wheelers for (allowing for a couple of folks in the lab or sick).  I actually do that in MS Project, just so I can get a clear picture and spot pinch-points more easily.

Anyway, we’ve got all the high school students selected, and have notified most of them, except for the ones who are out of town on family vacations.  We’ve also got one person on tap for the NSF-funded crew, but it looks like we might have room for 1-2 more, since the planned GPR component fell through.  Rhett Herman, a geophysicist from Radford U. in Virginia who has worked with us at Nuvuk in the past, was going to do some geophysical prospecting for burials, which would save us much time & effort.  He had hoped to run a field school, but funding was not available for this summer, so a couple of interested students were going to come up as participants in the dig and help with the GPR on the side.  Rhett’s wife has come down with some unexplained health problems, and he obviously doesn’t want to travel so far while they are unresolved. Looks like -2 for the crew.  So I need to see if I can find suitable replacements.

Bedtime Reading

I stayed up way too late last night reading.  It wasn’t a mystery, though, although I do that often enough.  I was finishing a book of articles on how people move into unknown territory, and how such movements that happened in the past (say, the peopling of the Americas or the islands of the Pacific) can be detected by archaeologists.

The topic is pretty important in Arctic archaeology, since during the Pleistocene (the most recent Ice Age) most of the North American Arctic was covered with ice sheets.  Even today, people don’t live on ice sheets, with the exception of science camps at places like Summit, Greenland and the South Pole.  Once the ice started melting, plants, animals, and people gradually moved into those areas.  One of the obvious questions for archaeologists is when and how.

Actually, it looks like it has happened at least twice.  At least two groups of people seem to have spread across the North American Arctic from Alaska (and there may have been a small group earlier).  The second major time it happened is often called the Thule Migration, and it’s when the ancestors of today’s Inuit peoples, who now live everywhere between Western Alaska and Greenland, mostly along the coast, first spread across the entire North American Arctic.  Why they did it when they did is one of the big questions in Arctic archaeology.  The sites that I have been working at lately seem to be possible pieces of the puzzle.

Hello world!

I am an Arctic archaeologist.  Most people I meet are fascinated when they find out what I do, and where I do it.    When they find out I live in Barrow, Alaska, they are even more fascinated (or horrified).  From the questions I tend to get asked, it’s pretty clear that most people haven’t had a chance to learn much about archaeology or the Arctic.

Hence, this blog.  Not everyone can live in or even visit the Arctic, or take part in an archaeological project, but maybe I can take you along in a virtual way.  I’m going to try to let you know what it’s like to do this.  Some posts will be about the really nitty-gritty boring details that have to be taken care of so the fun stuff can happen, some will be about days in the field, and some will be about bigger-picture things.   Archaeology is really fun, and I’d like to share it.  I’ll try to put in pictures so you can see where things are happening.

Questions are great.  The summer is a busy time for archaeologists, especially of the Arctic sort, and some places I work have no real internet access, so there may be some gaps in posting or lags in replying now and again, but I’ll pick up again when I can.