Today was the first of our Saturday "Volunteer Days" -- designed for interested folks who want to work with the student crews and try their hand at digging and/or screening -- and for family members to just visit. Our thanks to the volunteers, who we hope enjoyed their visit -- including Marina and Austin (far right), who helped Brandon, John, and Matt for part of the morning.
Macie's husband Christian and daughter Alaina came out to help mom, Holly, Nick, and Shonda with their excavations. Alaina was very intrigued by worms...
Ellen was our second youngest volunteer of the day and seemed to have a great time helping Brandon, John, and Maddie.
Dr. P's esposa Elizabeth dropped by to help supervise our regular volunteer Ron Borders (site director for the property).
For the students -- a slightly shorter and different kind of day, but still a work day and an opportunity to hone their skills and make new discoveries. Amy continues working on that line level thing....
Dr. P continues practicing the critical "balancing on a bucket while looking through a viewfinder" skills -- photographing increasing professional looking unit/levels. The possibility exists that Maddie is contemplating whether a gentle nudge at this point will affect her grade.....
The trowel cleaning skills for unit/level photographs are improving!
Increasing numbers of large salt pan sherds emerging from the easternmost units...
Lots of well preserved deer and other food bones -- like this deer astragalus (ankle bone).
And an initially disappointing discovery of a Winchester shotgun shell fairly deep in our westernmost units. However, after some thought, this proves to be one of the most informative artifacts of the day. I'll leave you with that tantalizing notion until next week!
Day off for everybody tomorrow. More next Monday.