MAY 24, 2008

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 2:45 PM
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Sias East - May 24, 2008

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

Becky, her mother, Nik, Kevin, Marianne and I made it out to the site yesterday. It was a beautiful day. We got quit a bet done yesterday (I’ll describe below), but we didn’t find any formal tools. It turned out to be “Deer Day” at Sias East. We were seeing deer in the field all day. In the morning the deer were grazing north of the site (see Photo 1 and Photo 2). In the afternoon, there was a lone deer to the north of the site (see Photo 3) which I noticed looking at me about 20 yards away while I was taking notes (see Photo 4). About a half hour later I was taking notes again and noticed the deer watching me, so I put the camera in movie mode. While I was filming, a fawn ran from my right, about 7 meters away, to the doe. Unfortunately, the email version of the movie is too grainy and poor quality and the regular version is too large to send. I’ll try to get together with Dennis to see if we can’t get it on the website – otherwise stop out Wednesday and you can see it on my computer.

As for archaeology – we opened two new units, 0S-102W and 1N-102W (see Map). In the morning we excavated the 0-20 cm level and in the afternoon I excavated the 20-25 cm level. The plow zone extends to about 30 cm here. We found numerous flakes, bone fragments, fire-cracked rock and a few sherds, but no formal tools. In the afternoon I also excavated the 45-50 cm level of units 0N-103W, 1N-103W, 0S-104W, and 1N-104W. We’ll take these units deep (ca. 1.5-2.0 m) to see the stratigraphy in this area.

This week we will meet at the Resource Building on Wednesday evening. It looks like it will still be cool, so we will probably work inside. Next Saturday we will plan on excavating at the site, weather permitting.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

************************************************
Scott G. Beld, Ph.D.
Research Laboratory Specialist - Intermediate
The University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
1109 Geddes Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1079
Phone: 734-764-0489 (UMMP Main Office)
734-763-9253 (My Office)
Fax: 734-936-1380
Email: sbeld@umich.edu
************************************************