AUGUST 7, 2004

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, August 8, 2004
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - August 7, 2004

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

We made it out to the Ponton site yesterday and had a good day excavating. John O., Francis, Greg, Lia and I made it out. We worked on Feature 5 and spent the day finishing the sections we were working on last week as well as opening two new sections (see Map of Excavations and Photo 1, Photo 2, and Photo 3 in the photo gallery below).

516R493. John worked on this section that contained the two probable postmolds. Terry looked at the pictures of the bone that John found last week and noted that it is in fact a radius. He thought it might be the left radius of a beaver but needed to actually see the bone to be certain (see Photo 4). Yesterday, John found three more bones that probably go with this bone – a humerus (?), an ulna, and a fragment of another radius (see Photo 5 and Photo 6) – all from the forelimb! At the end of the day Greg, Lia and I took out the last two levels of this section. [Terry Martin of the Illinois State Museum positively identified the humerus and ulna as beaver].

516R497. Francis worked on taking this section down – Levels 6-9 (50-70 cm) and I excavated the last two levels 10 and 11 (70-80 cm below the surface). Only a couple pieces of F.C.R. were recovered. The feature was limited to the south edge of the unit. The profile was drawn and the unit completed. The bottom of the feature was filled with the yellow sand that occurs at the base of the plow zone as the subsoil (see Photo 7). From the profile I was able to determine that the reddish brown gravel matrix that we encounter below the yellow sand and orange silty sand is actually a bedded reddish brown gravel that alternates with layers of reddish brown and very pale brown sand.

517R494. Kevin began this section and excavated levels 1-4 (25-45 cm). This section has been pretty much sterile so far.

515R498. Greg and Lia began this section and excavated levels 1 and 2 (25-35 cm). A couple F.C.R., an iron fragment, and glass fragment were recovered.

This week we’ll follow our normal schedule. We’ll do lab work Wednesday evening. Next Saturday we’ll plan on excavating at Ponton.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

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Scott G. Beld, Ph.D.
Research Associate II
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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