As the nation's response to COVID-19 began to unfold in earnest a month ago, I anticipated that we'd go through a "shut down" period of some kind in an effort to get the spread of the virus under control. I thought maybe I'd be able to use the extra time at home to get caught up blogging, do some writing, and produce some of the student videos from my Forbidden Archaeology class last fall. Surely, I thought, the experts in our government will be able to formulate and operationalize a response to this situation that will allow us as a country to navigate it fairly well and get through it quickly.

Boy was I wrong about that. 

As a scientist, it has been amazing (and not in a good way) to watch the various levels of government field the patchwork of responses that has gotten us to where we are today. Watching what was unfolding in Italy was like having a crystal ball, and yet those at the top levels of our government chose to . . . what? Fill in the blank yourself.

Things could have been much different. If we had used our headstart and data from other countries to get a legitimate testing program up and running . . . If we had used that time to ramp up production of the PPE and medical equipment that it was obvious we would need . . .  If we had figured out how to use technology to track the spread . . . If we had done those things and had the leadership and the guts to go on complete lockdown early, we could have shut this down and gotten the situation under control before there were hundreds of thousands of cases and tens of thousands of deaths. We would have been out of the woods much sooner, with much less economic pain. But instead, we are where we are. It's not that no-one saw this train coming. It's that we didn't have the leadership and collective intelligence to figure out how to step out of the way. 

You know when you yell at the idiot in the horror movie not to open the door to the basement? That's every scientist in this country a month ago.

I am thankful that I still have my job and that my family is in relatively good shape. No-one is sick, we're not going to go hungry, and we can pay our bills. My wife and I are doing the best we can to keep our two kids in some kind of routine that involves school work and exercise. I'm getting done what I need to as far as my job. We're all working to help keep my wife's business afloat in the face of all the government bungling of the "rescue" plan that's supposed to help her pay her bills while she's forced to close. No-one is sleeping well and the house is wreck. It could be much worse, but it's no picnic.

With the sudden stoppage of the field school, getting the work there to some kind of conclusion has fallen completely on me. Field archaeology is usually a team sport. So far, I've spent three days at the site on my own working on Unit 14. Next I'll tackle finishing the levels in the block. And then I'll be left to backfill. I'm not sure when I'll be able to pull all the equipment out (that's the least of my concerns right now). I've been making videos of my solo work at 38FA608 both as public outreach and to use as tools as I continue to try to teach my students something about field archaeology without actually being together with them in the field. You can find all of the 2020 videos here. Here is the latest, where I go through the steps of excavating a probable feature:

I feel bad that my students' field experience has been so abruptly abbreviated. I know that this situation has shaken some of them, as they have had to adjust to the online learning model just as rapidly as their professors have. I've tried to create assignments for them that will teach them something about how and why we do things the way we do them, but there really is no substitute for actually doing fieldwork in the field. It's a real bummer. I hope that those that wish to will be allowed to take the course over again next spring. That's presuming, of course, that our government can find its footing and get this situation under control by then.

During our spring break, I worked with Stacey Young and other SCIAA personnel to excavate several units in the "basement" portion of 38FA608. That work was funded by an internal grant program. The goal was to explore the deeply-buried deposits at the site, hoping to positively identify an Early Archaic component. We got the fieldwork wrapped up just as things started to hit the fan. I'll make a video of the work and write more about it when I get the chance.

As an "essential employee," I do have access to my lab on campus. That means I can come and go as required to get materials that I need to do my job at home. I've gotten my computer modeling stuff going on my laptop, and have been chipping away at some demographic modelling work that I was originally going to do for the physical anthropology meeting that was cancelled. I have several papers in progress that I can work on if/when I have the time. I have taken to washing artifacts in my backyard as my kids play in the inflatable pool. I take walks in the morning to try and get some exercise before most of the rest of the world is up.

At the beginning of all this, I thought I'd be able to settle into a moderately productive routine at some point and be able to start getting ahead rather than just treading water. I'm an optimist, and I think that maybe that's still possible. It certainly hasn't happened yet, however. If I can get to the end of the day with the family and the house somewhat functional and feeling like I haven't fallen so far behind that I'll never be able to catch up, that's a win. A little bit of bad TV and/or drawing a picture at the end of the day are what passes for recreation.

I'll keep you posted as I finish up work at 38FA608. I'm hoping to find a way to provide a live feed on backfill day, which should be epic. I could really use some company out there, even if it's to jeer while I sweat my ass off. Stay tuned!

For those of you that enjoyed the weekly videos from last spring's Broad River Archaeological Field School, I wanted to make you aware of this compilation of the entire season into a single 2:16 presentation. It will be a good refresher for me to watch the whole thing, as I'll be spending much of this semester working on analysis and write-up of the data from the first two seasons of work at 38FA608. Enjoy!

The second full season at 38FA608 is in the books. Last Friday, we backfilled the block (almost) and finished up with Unit 13 (excavated one last level and re-drew the profile to include the lower deposits). Chris Moore and Mark Brooks visited the site to enjoy JJ's fish fry and collect a column of sediment samples from the profile. We recovered a Morrow Mountain point in context in the last level of Unit 13, in the "correct" position below the Guilford component.

We didn't have time to get everything buttressed up, so DuVal and I will spend tomorrow putting the site to bed and schlepping equipment back to campus.

Cheerwine is now the official drink of the Broad River Archaeological Field School.

At some point I'll probably edit all the videos together to make a feature-length film to show to next year's students.

This was a good group of students and I'm proud of all of them. Enjoy the video of our last day in the field!

Tomorrow will be our last day in the field at 38FA608. Last Friday we finished excavating the features in the block and got Unit 13 almost down to where it needs to be. Tomorrow we'll backfill the block and collect final information from the profile exposed by Unit 13. We may not have time to get everything done during the day, so I'll probably have to finish up when I go out next week to break down the toolbox and grab the screens, etc.

If you like snakes, you'd love 38FA608 this time of year.

Enjoy the video! 

We've only got two more days left in the spring 2018 season at 38FA608. The weather looks good for this Friday, so I may end up threading the needle with yet another season with no time lost to rain.

While we're in good shape to finish up in the block on Friday, Unit 13 is going slower than I'd hoped. It just won't stop being interesting. As you will see in the video from Week 11, I took two students out for an extra day to work on the Late Archaic deposits and try to keep things moving along. There is still work to be done before we reach the Middle Archaic zone, and there's no telling what we'll run into down there. If the broad pattern of field archaeology holds, we'll find something extremely interesting this Friday that will bring the whole endeavor to a screeching halt.

The video for Week 11 is a long one, as it includes footage from an extra field day. I resisted the temptation to pose on a lawn chair in the back of the pickup truck. Enjoy!

We're officially in the "end times" of this season's fieldwork at 38FA608. After last Friday, we have just two more days to actively excavate at the site (the students will be doing lab work while I'm at the SAA meetings, and the last day will be reserved for buttoning things up and backfilling).

We made good progress last Friday, ending the day with Features 11 and 12 exposed in profile. Feature 11 is a relatively deep, midden-filled pit, while Feature 12 is a shallow basin associated with some large pieces of fire-cracked rock. As I'll discuss at some point in the future, both of these kinds of features are well-known from sites of similar age. Analysis of the contents of the features will help us understand activities at the site as well as refine the chronology of site occupation. 

As you can see in the video, Unit 13 refuses to stop becoming more interesting. Both of the Savannah River points from Friday came from an area of slightly darker sediment that is probably a feature. I'm planning on spending tomorrow working at the site with a couple of volunteers to keep things moving along in Unit 13.

I'm happy to report that my campaign to raise money to support next year's field school has passed a quarter of the goal of $4000. My sincere thanks go to Mike Morgan, Ken Kosidlo, and two anonymous donors for their generous contributions and support.

Enjoy the video!

I've started a GoFundMe campaign to support the planned 2019 season at 38FA608. If you've been following along with my blog posts, the students' blog posts, and the videos from this year, you have some sense of the value of sustaining the work at this site. We've shown that site 38FA608 preserves an extraordinarily fine-grained record of human behavior dating back at least 6,000 years.  The archaeological deposits protected within the levee provide a rare opportunity to understand the activities of individuals and small groups deep into South Carolina’s past and integrate those data into the larger narrative of Eastern Woodlands prehistory. They also provide a wonderful opportunity to educate students and the public in the use and importance of careful and systematic field methods to understand the human past. 

The site is the real deal.

I would like to keep the field school going as a yearly spring offering through the University of South Carolina.  To do that, two main things need to happen:

(1) student enrollment needs to be sufficient;

(2) I need to have funds to support the work.

After two seasons of work at the site, I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to be successful out there in terms of supplies, equipment, time, energy, and strategy. An important component of what I've been doing is hiring some experienced help to manage working in the two areas of the site (the block and the wall) at the same time. This year I hired one of the students from the 2017 season to act as a kind of "field sergeant," helping with direction, basic instruction, and quality control in one of the excavation areas. It helps with continuity, and also helps that student get some supervisory experience. I plan to continue that in the future (with different students).

I set up the GoFundMe with a goal of $4000.  That money will be used to : 

(1) pay a student field assistant ($1190); 

(2) pay student lab workers ($1280); 

(3) purchase expendable equipment and supplies to continue stabilizing the site ($557); and 

(4) rent a vehicle to transport students to/from the site ($973). 

Specific research goals for the 2019 season will be developed as materials and information from the 2018 season are processed, analyzed, and integrated with those from the 2017 season. My suspicion that there is a Late Archaic (ca. 2000 BC) house at the site grows stronger as the 2018 work continues (more on that later).

Sustained, publicly-accessible research on sites like 38FA608 has the potential to address numerous interesting questions as well as engage the community and help educate the next generation of southeastern archaeologists. Please consider contributing to these goals if you value our work and would like to see it continue.

Thank you!

Last Friday's fieldwork was eventful. With just a few days left in the field, we are down into the nitty-gritty of the feature excavations intended to recover detailed data about the Late Archaic (ca. 4000-1000 BC) occupations at the site. Last year's work in the block revealed the presence of a significant Mack component (dating to around 1000 BC) and hinted at the existence of an earlier Savannah River component (dating to around 2000 BC) in close vertical proximity. Although we won't know which features go with which component until we excavate and analyze them, Friday's work gave us some important clues. Enjoy the video!

You can find all the videos from the 2018 season on the Broad River Archaeological Field School website.

Last week was spring break at USC, so I put off producing the video from Day 8 of the field school until today. We had a small crew but beautiful weather, as usual (at some point I'm sure my luck will run out). Work focused on the excavation of Feature 3 (exposed in the machine cut wall), Feature 11 (encountered in the block), and Unit 12 (still piece-plotting down through the intact deposits to reach Feature 13.  Enjoy the video!

I grew up on a small farm, so I can verify through personal observation that a chicken really does run around like crazy after you cut its head off.

Things have been hectic both at home and at work over the last month. The coming week is USC's spring break, which will offer a little bit of breather as I won't be in the field this Friday and won't have regular office hours or meetings with students.

Here's some bullet points about what's been going on and what's coming up.

"Finding the Family" Fieldwork Started

As I think I mentioned in the Week 2 video from field school, I've got a complementary project lined up to do some subsurface reconnaissance (i.e., targeted backhoe excavations) of nearby landforms that are similar to the one we are working on for the field school. At least some of those landforms -- also alluvial -- probably contain archaeological deposits, perhaps of different age ranges than 38FA608.  Anyway, the first step is to establish some known points that we can use for mapping our excavations. I've spent a couple of days in the field doing that, one with Eddie Reeps who used his GPS rig to help determine the coordinates of a handful of far-flung points that I set (by sinking rebar). 

This work is being funded by an internal USC grant. I realized this seek that I never actually announced it or described it via my blog, so I'll do that sometime in the near future.

My First Holi: That Was Fun!

Last weekend, my family and I joined some of our Indian friends (and their Indian friends) to celebrate Holi. This is a holiday that I knew nothing about before the rise of social media. The bright colors make it naturally photogenic. 

This was a really interesting experience. Speaking as an "alien" with very little foreknowledge about what to expect,  I was struck by both the overall positivity of the atmosphere and the sense that it was a time/place where "normal" cultural rules were put on temporary suspension. There was color (and water) everywhere, much of it applied to your face and body by strangers. It's a strange kind of intimacy, not unlike what I experienced at the fringes of the mosh pit at Against Me! 

I wish we could have stayed for the food, but the little kids were on overload/meltdown and a retreat was the best option.

Friday Field School Video Will Be . . . Delayed

Our ongoing work at the field school site (38FA608) went well. We had another beautiful day with plenty of sun and high temperatures in the low 60's. The crew was smaller than normal.

I had hoped to get two of the Late Archaic features out of the ground, but it was not to be . . . they are going to take the time they're going to take, and that's all there is to it. While Feature 3 (exposed in the machine-cut wall) was completely removed, Feature 11 remains in progress. Both of these features are defined by dark fill contained some carbonized plant remains (including nutshell) and a low density of lithics. Feature 11 is deeper than I anticipated, and the fact that it intrudes into earlier deposits makes i's excavation complicated. I lined our ongoing excavation with landscape fabric and filled it with back dirt to protect it until we return.

I probably won't get the video from Friday done on Monday.  I'm not sure, but it may be next Monday before I upload the Week 8 video. We won't be in the field this week because of spring break. Watch for the premiere of "trowel cam."

"Harley" Ready to Move!

I finished my first officially-commissioned sculpture: a scrap metal javelina named "Harley." It's be a steady weekend project, occupying the large majority of time I've spent in my workshop since late January. I think it turned out great - perhaps one of the best pieces I've made. The "formal" pictures are here on my ZeroPointMechanic website. There will be a video when I get the time to put it together. 

"Beauty and Grace:" Final Prep Before ArtFields

Next week (I think on Tuesday the 20th), I'll finally have to face the challenge of moving "Beauty and Grace" to Lake City, SC, for ArtFields 2018. The piece will be displayed on lawn in front of The Citizens Bank (209 East Main Street). My friend and archaeology colleague Chris Gillam has agreed to help me get the ceratopsians moved and reassembled. I'm not sure what I promised in return, but I'm sure it was something. As it stands now, my plan is to get some segments of heavy-duty PVC to use as rollers when moving the components of the piece over the lawn. Some 2x4's and a crowbar will also come in handy. If it was good enough for ancient Egypt, it will be good enough for me.

I've started prepping both pieces to finally live outside. I cleared space in my workshop yesterday so that I could wheel "Beauty" inside and apply a coat of Penetrol, which will arrest the rusting, bring out colors, and provide a barrier to moisture. It also makes the entire piece shiny, which I'm not a huge fan of. But it's better than all the colors degrading to an even rusty orange. The coating is sticky as it dries for 48 hours, so I had to apply it in a space that I could enclose to prevent the omnipresent March aerosol of pine pollen from becoming a permanent part of the piece.  "Grace" will go next.

An Unknown Road Trip

I will be spending a few days this week on a road trip with my older daughter. We don't know where we're going. We may not know where we're going until after we've already been there. It's tradition.

A 250-mile radius from Columbia includes most of North Carolina and Georgia as well as eastern Tennessee. I had some thoughts about going to Florida to see Cape Canaveral and/or a restaurant with a mermaid show, but that might be too heavy on the driving, too pre-planned, and too expensive. Plus I'm not really impressed with Florida's government right now and not enthusiastic about spending my money there.

If you know of a "good," out-of-the-way destination in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, or Tennessee that I should be aware of, post away. I've driven by the UFO Welcome Center in Bowman, SC, but not yet stopped (it looks like it has been trashed). I went out of my way on my last swing through North Carolina to visit the Andre the Giant museum, only to find it closed. I'll probably try to avoid the Myrtle Beach area.