Dead Zone by Augustus deCorbeau
July 14th, 2008 10:45 PM[Please note: This documentation is for entertainment purposes only, and is no doubt riddled with inaccuracies. For more information, please refer to [redacted] University's [redacted] Creek Mammoth Project. The excavations are open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from July 8 to July 31, 2008. ]
Fig. 1: The [redacted] Creek Dig SiteThe main focus of the excavation is within the colluvial deposits that built up over the site of a pre-glacial riverbed, and which were in turn buried by loess produced by glaciation during the last ice age. Radiocarbon dating of bone samples, as well as infrared-stimulated luminescence of the surrounding stratum confirm an age of roughly 16,000 years before present for the colluvial layer.
Fig:2 Stratigraphic Diagram(This wall was roughly two to three meters deep; the Current Era would comprise roughly the last few centimeters nearest the surface.)
Further excavation over the course of the intervening years has uncovered a number of mammoth bones in the colluvial layer, comprising the in situ skeleton of a single individual; most likely Mammuthus columbi. Bovid bones, most likely Bison antiquus have been recovered from the same stratum, as well as various rodent bones. Two chert flakes have been recovered from strata roughly 15 centimeters above the mammoth bones.
Fig:3 Mammoth bone in situ, with modern cow bone for size comparison. I believe this was the right front humerus. Note the pneumatic air hose, which is carefully used to excavate close to the fragile bone.
Fig. 4: Grid layoutExcavation is conducted in 1.5m x 1.5m grids. Since the site is on a hillside, .5m is left between each square for stability reasons.
Fig. 5: Yeah, yeah... so you took some tour of a dig site. That's boring. You didn't actually do anything!Ah, but that is not the case. Observe yours truly toiling away in the alluvial layer one of the squares. That bit of dirt to the left of the bucket? No human being had laid eyes on it for at least sixteen thousand years!
Fig. 6: Removing a bucketful of 16,000 year old soil
We helped them remove ten centimeters of alluvial deposits from the square that afternoon. Notice how I am being careful not to *touch* the ancient soil itself, as per my own snarky comment on the task page.
Fig 7: See how deep the hole was?
Even a wombat would have trouble digging down this deep!
[redacted], [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted] 2007 The Late-Glacial [redacted] Creek Mammoth Site (45YA1083) in [redacted]. Current Research in the Pleistocene, Volume 24, pp. 178-180. (2007)
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Chert is like flint, and can be knapped similarly. The stone is broken into pieces known as "flakes", which can then be used as crude implements or refined into special-purpose tools.
The soil is sifted through fine screens, looking for any small bones or other artifacts that are easy to miss when you're shoveling. 95% of it goes through a 1/8" mesh, and the remaining 5% goes through a 1mm mesh. After it's sifted, the soil either blows away, or accumulates in a pile -- but either way it's still private property. Since human artifacts were found at this site, it's under much stricter regulatory controls than if it was just mammoth bones. I didn't steal any of the soil -- but since it's so light and powdery, a fair amount of it did wind up in my hair, up my nose, and in my camera bag!
Chert is a kind of stone, similar to flint, that was used to make all sorts of tools. The ones at this site were little bits of extra stone that were discarded when someone was making... a spear point perhaps, or some other cutting tool. Rather than carrying around a brittle knife blade all the time, people would often just carry around a lump of chert, and knapp off small blades as needed.
Way to go! You should save the snot and get it carbon dated!
And whatdayamean private property? Not humankind´s or at the very least the University´s?
So exciting word, knapp. And alluvial.
Favorited.
So... apparently the spiders have been busy, and this page is showing up alarmingly high in the search results for this dig site. Since the information here is only as good as my memory for the day, I'm removing any identifying names from the text to prevent inadvertent misinformation from spreading. Though, if you are a human (or self-aware back-end software) you should be able to work out where this was fairly easily.
Also, there's some website out there called overlap.org that's mirroring all our task submissions. Anyone know what's up with that?
I've heard SF0 is on a creative commons license. Is that true?
If not, we can send overlap.org (a music site apparently) just a simple takedown notice. The feed they are just uploading to their server isn't doing anything for them, so they shouldn't really object.
If we are on CC, Augustus, you might want to do something about your Urbane Exploration.
Wowowowowow, and I think I want some chert flakes, whatever they might be!
What do they do with that soil? Didn´t you steal some? I mean, no ancient Greeks or Celts, and the mammoths were there grazing by the old old cows!
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