JUNE 17, 2006

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2006 8:28 PM
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Sias East - June 17, 2006

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

Marianne, Nik and I made it out to the site yesterday and began excavating several units.

We did a little transit work first thing in the morning. On Wednesday, we had an engineering firm set benchmarks on our sites so we can get elevations above sea level for the units. This will help correlate our stratigraphy with other sites in the Saginaw Valley. Marianne and I shot the elevation of the benchmark from a flag on our grid first thing in the morning. The engineering firm is currently running corrections on the readings they took and we should have them this week.

In the morning, Marianne, Nik and I excavated the row of units on the north side of the excavation to 25 cm (see map-6-17-06 and units in foreground of Photo 1). In the afternoon, I finished taking them to 30 cm. I ended up shovel skimming the 25-30 cm level because there was so little material – 3-4 flakes per unit. The low density may be partly due to some of these units having been disturbed at this level by the soil removal in the 1960’s. Though unit 1N-112W didn’t seem to be particularly disturbed and the soil was similar to the units to the south, so it is possible that the dense concentration of flakes we’ve been excavating might not have extended much farther to the north.

At the end of the day I started another unit (6S-110W) in the drain on the south side of the excavation and taking unit 5S-110W down another level to 25-30 cm. There were several flakes and bone fragments in 5S-110W.

Next week we’ll start taking out another row of units on the east side of the 110 West Block. That will give a core 6x6 meter block that we’ll try to excavate this summer. We’ll probably also open a 2 or 3 meter extension of the south side to help drain the excavation and to see the stratigraphy down the slope.

This week we’ll be at the Resource Building Wednesday evening doing lab work. Next Saturday we’ll plan on excavating at the site.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

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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
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