Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Work Intrudes

I must apologize for radio silence, as this is the longest I've gone without posting since Steve invited me on board here. I am currently in Imperial County, California running a large archaeological survey. Between the Christmas Holidays and all the work involved in getting into the field I really haven't had any time to devote to it.


I've put in a couple of pictures of the project area so you can see what the desert looks like here, a relatively flat expanse with ocotillo, creosote bush, salt bush and other short, sparse vegetation.




This project is a first in a way for me, as about a third of the area is below sea level. I've never recorded sites that had "minus" elevations before. This sign is on I-8 where it runs past the project area.

I will be doing some "from the field" posts to tell you about archaeological surveys and about the things we are finding. And we are finding a lot of prehistoric sites here. You wouldn't think that there would have been so much activity in an area this barren, but there was for reasons I will go into later.

2 comments:

Mike Spies said...

Looking forward to hearing about your work there.

Have you estimated the age range of the sites at all?

Reid Farmer said...

We've only really just started, but of the 56 sites we have recorded so far, the ones we have been able to date using projectile point and ceramic types all date AD 750 or later.