Spiders. Ugh.

It was decided that as a group bonding sort of experience that our crew would head out to the Sunwatch Village and spend the night in one of the houses. Sunwatch, for you uninitiated, is a reconstructed site from roughly the same period as my site. Of course while my site consisted of perhaps a half dozen structures and 30 people...this site was home to upwards of 300 people.

Anyhow.

Things went pretty well. The fire was nice; we ate venison, corn, and beans. It was simple, but very good all said. At least until I woke up the next morning. My back is now covered with something near to 50 spider bites. Of course, I can't actually count them, since I can't see all of my back. No one else was attacked during the night, so I guess I must have chosen a sleeping bench that was the home of some irate spiders. They've been swelling something fierce, causing muscle aches, and a bit of nausea. I've only worked a half day in the last two days (oh, I've also been feverish and at times super disoriented).

Ain't nature grand?

Holy heat-wave batman!

It's been hot as balls this week. This means two things. First of all it means that I'm ridiculously tired and drained by the end of the day. Second it means that we've been starting an hour early trying to beat the heat. This is, despite my burning hatred of morning (and especially of the dawn hours), a good idea. We're far more productive in the mornings, especially as regardless of when we start after about 1 pm we just shut down. It gets too hot, the soil dries into concrete, etc. etc. But still...I hate mornings. So much.

I hate bugs

So you know the deal, right? Just click on the slightly blurry image to the right and it'll clear right up and you can see it in it's full size and glory. I tried out a new style, something different from my old Cue Laughter days. Still using bright colors of course (I'm like a child, I like bold colors) and you can see my "style" still under there (it isn't so much style as where my talent level peaks). But yeah, sorry about the delay.

So about bugs. Digging out here in [redacted] at the Wildcat site is pretty harsh when it comes to those bastards. The weeds are generally running around armpit height (although in some places over my admittedly short head) and in others just up to the shins. Either way it's a veritable haven for insects. I haven't had the misfortune of any ticks making there way into my flesh yet (although Ben has pulled a couple off his clothes). But what I've lost in ticks I've more than made up with chiggers. They're everywhere and in swarms...although it doesn't appear that anyone else is as bothered by them. Dr. Cook has a couple bites on his shins but that's about all. As for me I have quite literally hundreds on my abdomen, shins, knees, and even curving around my waist onto my back. They aren't so terrible (they itch like hell; they itch more when you scratch them) but I just have so many of them. Sometimes I just want to sit down and cry and whine "why me?"

So what are chiggers? Well for one they do not burrow into your skin. Nor do they lay eggs inside you. Basically they latch onto your skin, inject you with some of their digestive acid which dissolves a couple skin cells, then they slurp up the you soup. Lovely eh?

Some people seem disinclined to believe me...so here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Chigger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[...]

In North America, chigger refers to the harvest mite, the bite of which results in an intensely itchy red bump in humans (who are accidental hosts)...

* 1 Chigger Facts
* 2 Chigger myths
* 3 Prevention
* 4 Medical treatment
* 5 References

Chigger Facts

* Chiggers attach to the host, inject digestive enzymes into the bite wound, and then suck up the digested tissue.[4]
* Itching from a chigger bite may not develop until 24-48 hours after the bite, so the victim may not associate the specific exposure with the bite itself.[4]
* Warm, rainy days make these parasitic and predatory mites reproduce into large populations. Once the ground temperature is regularly above 60°F (~16°C), the harvest mite lays eggs, and “chigger season” is underway. This season typically begins in April and ends in the early autumn with the first frost.[5]
* It is the larval stage that feeds on humans (as accidental host) or more commonly on other animals (small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians).[4]
* Chiggers do not like sunlight or humidity. During the wet season, chiggers are usually found in tall grass and other vegetation.[5]
* During dry seasons, chiggers are most found underneath brush and shady areas.[6][7]
* When carrying a tiny parasite called Orientia tsutsugamushi, causes scrub typhus

Chigger myths

* Chiggers burrow into the skin. No, see Facts above.
* Chiggers suck blood. No, see Facts above.
* Applying finger nail polish to red bumps/bites on our skin helps by killing the chigger under the surface. No, by the time the severe itching occurs, the chigger is long gone.
* Chiggers are insects. No, they are mites.
* The red welt/bump on your skin is where a chigger laid eggs. No, it's where the chigger took a meal.[8]

[edit] Prevention

Keep grass short, and remove brush and wood debris where potential mite hosts may live. Keep major hosts away from the area, such as rodents and other small mammals. Secure trash cans to discourage wildlife from coming near your home. Sunlight that penetrates the grass will make the lawn drier and make it less favorable for chigger survival. [9]

For personal protection, apply insect repellent to feet, legs, and mid-section.

Medical treatment

To reduce the itching, apply an anti-itch cream that contains hydrocortisone, calamine, or benzyl benzoate. If you are sensitive to these medications or have questions, be sure to ask your health-care professional or pharmacist.

References

1. ^ ACES Publications : CHIGGERS : ANR-1109. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
2. ^ CDC - Scrub Typhus Reemergence in the Maldives. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
3. ^ Gosling, Peter J. (2005). Dictionary of parasitology. Boca Raton: CRC Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-30855-0.
4. ^ a b c Chiggers. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
5. ^ a b ArmaXX Pest Control. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
6. ^ University of Florida: IFAS Extension
7. ^ About.com: Chiggers Pediatric Dermatology Basics
8. ^ About.com: Chiggers Pediatric Dermatology Basics
9. ^ Armaxx Pest Control: Chiggers Prevention

Wildcat Winter Work

Every hour in the field translates to 3 hours in the lab, or thereabouts. Last summer's season at Wildcat went 5 weeks I believe, and with 12 students working 40 hours a week we put in 2400 hours of work. That translates to approximately 7200 hours of labwork to process last summer. It should go without saying that it would have been physically impossible for Dr. Cook to go over everything himself. That's were lab monkeys...err undergrads...come in handy. They don't just dig holes in the ground like manual laborers (although that is one of the chief duties of the undergrad), they apparently come in handy in the off season as well.

Kyle was responsible for sorting and labeling all of the debitage that we collected last summer (as well, I'm sure, as throwing out all the "flakes" we collected that were in fact absolutely nothing. It's common practice to look at a tough one and decide to let the lab monkeys sort it out later and collect it anyhow. It's better to over-collect). The poor bastard, but he got really good at sorting and identifying flakes and shatter.

For the uninitiated debitage is essentially all the crap that's left over when you take a fist size cobble and flake or chip away the stone until you arrive at the finished product. It sometimes appears as thin flakes of stone, razor sharp with distinct edges, percussion marks from the blow that struck it from the core etc. Flakes are quite aesthetically pleasing and are all stricken off as part of a plan of working the stone down into the tool. Other times it appears as blocky (but sharp) chunks of stone. These are often from the early phases where a large cobble was placed on a rock and then smashed with a second rock. Not precise or pretty, but the resulting explosion of stone would break the rock into several smaller workable pieces. The tiny pieces that just shatter off...we call those shatter. Archaeology can be crazy - technical and obscure like that sometimes.

Anyhow Kyle, either caught up in a fit of genius, desperation, insanity, or a mixture of all three invented the Kyle 2000. A debitage sorting device, soon to revolutionize lab work the world over and make him a rich man (as soon as he installs the print out and voice chip that is). Essentially it's a box with a series of holes in the top arranged by size. When the debitage fits through a specific hole, that's its size. Simple, effective, and quite brilliant. The Kyle 3000 (with the print out and a voice chip that says "computing") is in the works.

Jake, a student who was actually not part of our crew at Wildcat, analyzed the faunal remains, which were for the vast majority from only a single pit that we uncovered. Feature 3, a bell shaped storage pit repurposed as a trash pit, had been chock full of bone, as well as part of a ceramic vessel, and other miscellaneous trash. The bone turned out to be 95% deer or some insane number like that, with at least some of the other bone consisting of shrew/mouse or other critters that most likely worked there way into the smörgåsbord of trash and food before passing from this green earth. He attempted to determine seasonality of the occupation of the site (if the pit contains deer of mainly X age that can be correlate to the season of occupation). Additionally he analyzed the use of the deer (in terms of consumption) to determine the environmental capacity of the land. If they're only using the choice parts of mature deer it stands to reason that resources are plentiful, if they're consuming the toes and nose and taking juveniles it stands to reason that times are rough and they're thinking about eating now and not about how to preserve the deer for the future.

In regards to Wildcat his study appears to have been inconclusive from my discussions from Dr. Cook. I'm making my way through Jakes honors thesis trying to draw my own interpretation of his conclusions, but due to the short length of excavations at Wildcat his paper seems to focus more heavily on the two more extensively excavated sites in the area (Sunwatch and Wegerzyn, which if I'll have time I'll introduce to you all later).

Ben was tasked to examine projectile point distribution, although he ended up working with the Sunwatch collection from the 70's. His database is nearly completed, although he did present a poster over the winter of his preliminary findings regarding proposed zones of specialization as seen by differential distribution.

As for myself, I too was assigned a small task from the Sunwatch excavations. There was a bag of artifacts collected called "Non-Fort Ancient points." Not a particularly descriptive bag...as "non-Fort Ancient" refers to roughly 12,000 years of Ohio prehistory. In it were points spanning the entire span, stretching back from the onset of Fort Ancient, all the way back to a single Clovis point. Yes. A Clovis point was sitting in this bag...it was amazing. I can still recall setting all the points in a row, thumbing through the identification guide: Archaic, Middle, Middle, Early, Late, Middle, Archaic...uhm...uhm...I turned to the paleo page and I could see the Clovis point, but it couldn't be Clovis. I desperately turned later in time to the Archaic period trying to make it anything but Clovis. Because, Clovis? Really? That's kind of like saying "Oh yeah, I was looking in my attic and I found a signed copy of the Gettysburg address. No biggie." Okay, not quite that rare, but still pretty special.

Dr. Cook looked over at me and asked what I thought. So I kind of shyly turned back to the paleo page and looked at it. "Is it...?" He nodded, "Yeah?" "It's a...it's a...it's a..." "Yup. Clovis."

It doesn't come across in text as well as it does when I tell the story in person, but it was on one hand amusing, and on the other hand amazing. Clovis points are considered the first definitive points in North America, roughly 13,000 years old (setting aside the debate as to when humans really first arrived here). In my hand was one of the oldest man made objects from the Americas. It was the closest thing to a religious experience I've ever had, holding in my hand something that old, just sitting in a box labelled "Non-Fort Ancient Points." Damn right it isn't a Fort Ancient point.

Anyhow, long story aside, that project only took me a day or so, and I was working too far away from the lab doing my CRM gigs to make it back again. But the point of that story was that these excavations were done in the 70s and only now were some of the points being identified, uncatalogued, and properly recorded. So we still have years of work in the lab until just the 07 season at Wildcat is completely recorded and documented. Of course the 08 season looks to add considerably to the workload.

So the winter lab work was partially enlightening as it yielded zones of extensive debitage creation (thanks to Kyle) helping narrow and refine our focus on the site. Jake's work, while inconclusive, has shaped what we're looking for this year (namely more skeletal remains, or floral remains to attempt to explore environment and seasonality through alternative avenues, something which Dr. Cook has already set a Grad student upon).

I can only imagine that this winter Kyle will be tasked with more work, maybe he will get to make the Kyle 3000 after all, one of our field students Jen seems to have had the hooks sunk into her, and Dr. Cook will likely ask for her assistance with something. As for Ben, well he's looking to follow the Marcus track and take a year to do CRM work before heading to Grad school, so he might not be available. As for me? Well being in Milwaukee I won't be around the corner, but who knows...I definitely want to continue on the site next summer, I might be able to make my way to Ohio to do some rogue lab work.

Background on Wildcat

It's hard to cram the last 3 weeks of work into anything resembling a short post, after all this is the sort of thing I'm supposed to write hundred plus page theses about.

So what sort of site is Wildcat? I suppose that the best place to begin would be there...at the beginning.

Wildcat is a site located just outside of Dayton, OH, on the eastern-most crest of the Miami Valley (about one mile away from the Greater Miami). It's a ways below that eastern rise, the top is home to a series of shopping malls, to the south is I-75, and surrounding the site are a series of gravel quarries. I'd give more details, but with looting, academic ownership, and all that stuff you'll have to deal with this more landscape oriented description. There's a tiny nameless creek that meanders around an old field, bounded by forest.

In the 13th century A.D. the area would have been a mixture of prairie and forest in a mixed setting. The river valley (carved by glacial action and then filled with water, as opposed to being carved by the river action) is rather extensive and the most significant feature in this part of the state, breaking up the relatively flat terrain. The Fort Ancient peoples lived in what I suppose would best be described as hamlets or towns, ranging in size from hamlets of just a handful of houses (and a few dozen people) to full fledged towns like the Sunwatch site (population 300). They were a largely sedentary people, practiced fairly intense agriculture (including corn) in addition to hunting and fishing.

In 1981 (or thereabouts) a surface collection was done, and site 33MY499 was entered into the annals. Nothing was noted during this collection, other than that the artifacts were concentrated on the eastern side of the field, and the numbers of the artifacts (stone celts, projectile points, that sort of thing).

So she sat for 20+ years, cultivated and plowed until sometime in the last 5 years. Cemex, the gravel company which owns all the land on this rise, never quarried here after discovering the plot was no good for aggregate. A single road, long abandoned, runs just to the east of the site, down a hill from the mall. The road was named "Wildcat Road," and as a result the site is now known as the Wildcat Site under Dr. Cook of the Ohio State University (it just has more of a ring than 33MY499).

Last summer was the first year digging had been done at the site, and the eastern half to two thirds were systematically shovel tested on a wide grid (20 meters). What did we find? That the site is located in the eastern half of the field (atop a rise), which was pretty obvious from 1) the surface collection and 2) logic. After completing this first survey a series of 2mx2m units were opened over areas that were thought to be features based on magnetic data, our shovel tests, and probing. We found 2 pits, an odd concentration of dark soil and artifacts with no feature associated, and a possibly burned floor. The 2007 summer proved 1) the site was occupied and 2) where the occupation was most likely focused. Over the winter students (myself only briefly) worked in the lab to make sense of the season. Kyle especially worked over the debitage, while another student, Jake, studied the faunal remains (deer especially).

I've gone on enough for now...but next entry I'll explain what the winter labwork showed.